01 February 2007 – Thursday

Normal morning – I am sleeping well and often wake up just before the alarm is ready to go off. I did sit-ups, bike and treadmill this morning. I seem to be finally losing some weight – I was very close to 180 this morning. Breakfast is a glass of OJ and a small slice of chocolate cake – and I do mean small. I am surprised how little we do eat each day. I guess we are so busy that food is not important and fixing it is too much of a task.

Back at the apartment I wrote a letter to Bishop Pletsch about out mission. I will try to write at least one a month.

Hello Bishop:

Sorry it has taken a couple of months for us to report in but between the problem with the cable in the Pacific being torn and the fact that we did not have internet in our temporary aparment we have been using our little time on the net to write to family.

I notice that it has been cold there. Here it never gets below 70 and most of the time it is closer to 90. That would not be so bad if it was not for the humidity. It is now rainy season and so it stays in the 80% range most of the time.

We are having a great mission. Our particular calling is to run the employment center, put on Career Workshops keep an eye on two districts of elders, and be shadow leaders to three wards. That requires a lot of running around the city. Due to the ridiculous traffic here, that means we spend a lot of time in our car sitting in traffic jams.

But none of that really matters. What matters is that we are doing the Lords work and helping Indonesia become stronger.

Last Sunday we went to one of the branches and was delighted to see a non-LDS man who we helped at the employment center at church with the elders. While he was at the center I helped him clean up his resume and cover letter and then gave him a quick language lesson. I told him about the free English classes that the senior couples give each week and it seems he went to one. I do not know how it went from that to going to Church but it does not matter.

Yesterday I got another nice surprise. A pilot program that I proposed for helping soon to be released Indonesian missionaries increase their English skills to a point where they can be accepted at BYU Hawaii. I made the proposal because soon after we got here, Elder Subandriyo, the Area 70, told me a story about how a senior sister took the time to help a young man with personal tutoring to pass the Michigan test. He did not do anything but tell me the story. A day or so later the program I suggested just fell into place. Hopefully this program will make it possible for all Indonesian missionaries to acheive this goal.

Without a good education, Indonesians have little chance of getting a job that pays enough to support a family and have any time to serve in the church. Even with a decent education if you do not work for a mulit-national or move up into management in an  Indonesian firm, you will probably be laid off when you reach 42-45.

We also teach English classes. On Thursday we go out to one of the branches and teach about 20 members – few non-members attend but I am working on that. I think we should have more non-LDS than LDS. The missionaries help out with the classes – we need their Indonesian – and so it would be a great help to them.

On Friday we teach the staff at a local University. We just started last week and we are still trying to figure out what they need but hopefully by the end of class tomorrow we will be set.

Did you notice in last weeks Church News about our mission president and his wife being adopted into a very important Indonesian family? We were there and received a beautiful shawl as part of his company. This is a very traditional ceremony and is very seldom done. The last one was in 1979 so it was a truly great honor for them and the Church. A documentary on it was shown on Indonesian TV so Mary and I got to be on TV. Hopefully it will open some important doors for the Church here.

Well it is 7 A.M. and we need to get busy with companion study – we are reading the Kitab Mormon to help with our Indonesian.

Let everyone in the ward know that we are having a wonderful, spiritual time. The senior couples do work that only they can do. One couple in the mission has doubled the attnedance of a branch by working with the less actives. The Bennetts, who only arrived in their area yesterday have already been out with the missionaries and helped them get a fairly new convert who had not been coming to church to commit to be there this Sunday.

I love a statement made at the MTC to our group of senior couples: It is good that you are going out into the world to do the Lords work instead of sitting at home waiting for your birth certificate to expire.

The Chruch is alive and growing in Indonesia.

Peace to you and your fine family

Went to the office at the regular time and worked on my lesson for tonight. I got a note from Cliff Rees that he did not get the deposit on our apartment. I checked with the office and they assured me it was made yesterday.

I know that by being in the office we are fulfilling our calling but it still seems to me like a waste of time. We usually get no more than one person a week – I keep thinking that we should be open on Saturdays. At least those when we are not traveling. But if it is not regular people will not come because they can not afford to pay the transportation cost. Before we leave here I am going to figure out a better way to do this. At least we have plenty of time to prepare for English classes and to study our scriptures – we have not been doing the latter enough.

At 12:30 we left to go to Global Doctors to get my tooth re-glued. While we waited I took a short nap. Mary did not think that was fair. The dentist was a woman and we had a nice conversation about her family. Her son wants to be a chef and she thinks if that is what he really wants to do that is fine. It only took a few minutes for her to take care of my problem and the cost – including a first time administration fee – was $30.

By the time I was done it was time to head for Tangeran and district meeting. The traffic was light so we got there early enough to go to a store to get the right size copy paper – the paper we bought last time is too large or at least to us it is too large. We also bought a couple of briefcases and some other things.

District meeting went too long but we had a chance to talk to the missionaries about trying new and different approaches to the missionary work. Right now they keep telling us how hard it is and it is almost like they do not think they can be successful. I told them my LeGrand Richards story about his mission in the Northern States. I pointed out that they can not change the nature of the people – the only thing they can change is the way they feel and they way they present the gospel. I think at least elder Thiemann got the idea and I believe it will also help elder Roper.

Elder gave a lesson on obedience and while he was teaching I happened to open to D&C 58 which fits perfectly into the lesson. Not only is obedience talked about but the idea that they are laying a foundation for the future. Hopefully it helped them in some way.

English class went well. We started on time and got most of the children involved. The problem is that the young children who do not have parents there are shy and it is almost impossible to get them to really take part. But where there are interested parents who are willing to practice in the home, I believe some good is being done.

There was a young woman who did not have a way home so Sam suggested we drive her. It should have not been out of our way, but because of the flooding it added a half hour to our trip. Some of the roads were interesting to get through – more holes than road. Twice we were directed away from flooded areas by what were just concerned citizens standing out in the rain keeping people from going where it was not passable.

We got home by 8:30 and pretty much collapsed. We watched the end of a movie and then went to bed. Dinner was an ice cream bar.

I almost forgot that while we were driving to Jakarta Raya, we got a call from Elder and Sister Christensen, the area directors for Asia. They are coming to Indonesia on the last weekend of the month and will be here for almost a week. I guess we will be kind of their hosts while they are here – I think we will be having a CW in the East during that time and they will want to come along.

We went to bed about 10:30 and I started to read Kitab Mormon but I was too tired to really get anything out of it. So I just turned out my light and went to sleep. It was a good day for us.