30 March 2007 – Friday

Regular morning – reading the Kitab Mormon is still an adventure. Sometimes we sail through a verse and then we hit one that we just can not make sense of. It is certainly one way to get to know what the Book of Mormon says. Verses we easily read in English take on a new light when you try to figure out what they mean when you read them carefully. It is at those times when you realize how difficult it must be to translate a sacred text into another language. The same thing happens with LDS hymns – the translators must try to keep the basic thoughts while also keeping the beat. It is far from an easy task as anyone who has learned the hymns in a foreign language well knows.

We went to the Jakarta Raya district meeting and tried to join in where possible. We give our weekly report about our mission and we are happy when we can say that we were able to do some missionary work. Rudolf is in this district so we talked about our visit. One of the things I learned from this district meeting was that the missionaries have a very good idea on how to get things done – few things that we suggest are new to them. However they are always gracious about our comments.

In the afternoon we had English class at the University – at least Mary did. As usual I did not have anyone come to the advance class. We almost did not have anyone at Mary’s because we forgot to call and make sure they announced that we were having one today – a Muslim holiday – so Sam had to go down and gather up the staff. After the class we were invited to visit another Christian church and we may do that. At least when we show up with our white faces and badges, we will get some attention and should be able to answer some questions about the Church. We also invited the young lady to attend one of our meetings.

We got home about 4:30 and spent the rest of the day studying and watching TV. I am going back to learning vocabulary – there are words I can read in Indonesian but I can not come up with them from the English.