Baik – “Bike” – it means good. It is the automatic answer that you get when you ask ‘How are you.’  Which reminds me of the time Cliff Thompson when asked that question said – “I am feeling terrible” and was not surprised when people automatically answered ‘thats good.’

16 April 2007 – Monday

Today was probably one of the quietest days we have had since we came to Indonesia. I got up at a few minutes after 5 and went out and ran and walked the track for 40 minutes. I ran into my friend Bob who works for the embassy. He is an interesting person and it easy to get him to talk about himself. I think I have already mentioned that he works in a program that tries to stop moving humans into slavery or prostitution.

We cleaned up the apartment so the cleaning lady could clean. We read from the Kitab Mormon – we hit the section in Mosiah where Abinadi quotes from the 10 commandments so a few verses went pretty fast. Unfortunately soon after that he starts quoting Isaiah and that of course goes slow. But even there we are able to get more and more of all but the most poetic images.

I re-planted some of the ones we bought on Monday. The potting soil they sell here is certainly different from that which I buy in Utah. But it looked more like soil than what the plants came in so I hope that they will like it.

I also wrote up the last two days in my journal and posted them on the blog. I also wrote our report to the president. Mary leaves all of this to me. I do not mind doing it but I think it would be good if she put down some of her feelings and experiences from the mission.

Another Monday with no Skype from any of the children – we really miss that. Hopefully someday we will get it across to them that if they are not going to send e-mail each week than they really need to get on Skype. After all with 5 children and a dozen grandchildren we would think that we would get one or two letters each week. I certainly tried to write them each week while they were on their missions.

Yesterday when I talked to Sam about when he should come today, I told him that we would go out at noon and I would call him if there was any change. I guess he meant that I would call him if we wanted to go out. About 12:20 I called him and he was on a bus heading to do something. I told him not to worry, go do his errand and then come to the apartment. We settled down to eat lunch and watch some TV. About 30 minutes later he showed up. He did not do his errand – he felt that driving us was more important. He is one of the most reliable drivers and works hard to keep us out of trouble and happy.

We went to SoGo and filled up with food and bakery goods for the next few days. I also had to get more cash – we used up a lot of it this week.

Once we were home we did very little. I tried to get interested in studying Indonesian but soon gave that up. I tried taking a nap and that did not work because I kept thinking about all the things I need to do in the coming weeks. I watched a little TV but that became boring and besides I felt guilty. All in all I have spent the last four hours trying to find something I enjoyed doing. I did manage to get the pictures reduced and sent to the VanDongens. But I did not do it alone. Mary downloaded the pictures from the camera and then found the reduced pictures when I lost them in the computer.  We finally found a movie on TV that we liked – it was the one where a group of soldiers deliver an elephant to a village. It is completely ridiculous but at least it was semi-entertaining.

We got some good news from Sam. He will help us make a CD to use at the couple’s conference. We will use it while we are talking about ourselves. It include picture of our family, our home, and maybe even some of my strange music. I do not think I will use any visual aids for my presentation about the employment program. Mainly I will l just tell them what I have learned and ask them to help in a number of ways.