22 February 2007 – Thursday
A rather typical day for us with the only real news being a mistake I made in English class. Normal morning with prayer, study and reading the Kitab Mormon. Off to the office where we mainly worked on our English class material. We have not had a person come in for help with a job in three weeks. But of course much of that time we have been busy doing other things that are not ERS associated. We need to establish more regular hours and stick to them.
About noon we went out to try and get a phone card for the church computer so we can use it to help people in the branches on Saturday. After two futile attempts we gave up. One of the problems is that the fast program works only in Jakarta and so would do no good anywhere else. After failing to get any real information about the card and services we went to the mission home to take care of some details and to change cars for the weekend. Our car is not big enough to take 5 people and their luggage to the airport.
The evening English classes went well except I made a shy young man – about 6 or 7 I would say – cry. I felt terrible about that and still do. The problem is that I am not sure how to make up for it. I just hope I did not make it so he does not want to come in the future. If he does I am going to be very careful not to even look his way for a couple of weeks.
The trip to Tangerang and back went quickly. It has been a long time since we have not been caught in traffic. When we got home I called the Christensens to set up our day tomorrow.
23 February 2007 – Friday
Normal morning – I am not going to the gym and must re-set my commitment soon or I will never go. It is strange how I can go for weeks without fail and then reach a point where I can hardly force myself to go. Read from the Kitab Mormon. We are in the last chapter of 1st Nephi.
We picked up the Christensens at the Marriott. Wow is that a palace – King Noah would have loved the place. This is the first hotel where I went through a security search to get access. It seems that there was an attempted bombing not too long ago so they have really stepped up security. The Christensens are a little late – it seems at the last minute they managed to dump the contents of their suitcase all over their room. First impression was that they are great people – the next few days proved that this was so.
We all went to the office where we had a meeting for an hour. It was very general and basically was just to find out what was going on in Indonesia. I found the meeting very useful because it helped me to focus on the things that might be most important. One thing they feel strongly about – and I now agree – is that we should be spending more time looking for resources for job opportunities and less sitting in the office. I will start on that next week – we will ask members of the English branch to give us a few minutes to talk about their jobs and employment opportunities.
Agus and Lukito came at 11 and we had our usual meeting to about ERS for the next couple of month. We went over the Career Workshop schedule, talked about new hours for the center, and the Christensens gave us an overview of what they would like to see done here. We set a reporting program – something that we have not had for a long time – and a goal to get 10 job openings from each branch each month. This will not be easy but if we can get it set up over the next three or four months it should be of great help – perhaps I can set up a blog for members to post to and get information from about job opportunities.
As soon as the meeting was over all but Agus headed for the airport. It was nice to see the airport in the daylight. It is beautiful and the grounds are amazing. There is nothing like it – or at least I have not seen it – in America. Unfortunately I did not take pictures but the next time we fly out during the day I certainly will.
The flight was late – nothing unusual there – but we did not have any trouble. When we got to Solo we found that Novotel had a van there to pick up some guests. We squeezed – and I do mean squeezed – on and save the price of two taxis. It was also more fun that taxis.
The hotel was very nice but not as nice as the one in Surabaya. After we had unpacked I called the Christensens and asked if they would like to go for a walk. They said sure – they are game people – and so we walked for about four long blocks which gave them a chance to see, hear, smell and feel Indonesia. We came home in bicaks – peddled taxis. They thought that was great.
We decided to all meet for dinner at about 7:00. When we saw the buffet we were not impressed so Lukito suggested we go out and look for somewhere to eat. We ended up at a clean Chinese restaurant where food for five cost under $10 – the price we would have paid for a single dinner at the hotel. We had a good talk, lots of food, and afterwards a nice walk back to the hotel.