Sesuai Dengan – Seh-sue-eye Dung-un – This is used a lot in the Kitab Mormon and means ‘according to’ – Sesuai means to fit or to compatible with. Dengan means – among many other things – with. So you get ‘fits with.’

I hope you are all learning these words – a test will be given when we get home.

18 April 2007 – Wednesday

I am once again waking before 5 a.m. – this morning I did four laps of the track. I am working up one lap a day. I could walk 20 laps but running half of each lap takes it out of me rather quickly. Today I was surprised that my legs felt tired. Usually I want to stop because my breathing becomes difficult. I guess my age is packing up with me.

For personal study, I spent some time reading from the first of the Kitab Mormon. I can read most of it directly but there are still some words that do not register. Some I can figure out by context but for the others there is the translator. After breakfast and reading the Jakarta Post, we read from the Kitab Mormon for an hour. We are still only doing 2 pages an hour, but we are spending more time discussing the Indonesian word choices.

Yesterday Mary mentioned to sister Penny that we were reading the Kitab Mormon and that there were some sections that did not translate back to the English very well. Sister Penny said that when her husband read the Kitab Mormon he sometimes crossed out whole verses because they do not make any sense to him. I would guess that 2 Nephi had a lot of cross outs. I do not know if I mentioned this but there has been a new – and more accurate – Indonesian translation of The Book of Mormon sitting in Salt Lake waiting for approval by the Correlation Committee since 1998.

Normal day at the office – no one came in. I did send a job opening I thought might work for one of the few people I know is looking for a job. He is certainly qualified for the job but unfortunately he is over 50 which makes it very difficult. I spent the rest of the time working on the PEF and English programs. Sam called our Lost Sheep list and got in contact with one or two more. There seems to be 3 or 4 that we will not be able to contact from here until we get their current address or telephone numbers. One is here in the Jakarta area and two are in the area we will visit on Saturday. We could do this job without Sam.

We came home and both took a nap before heading back to the church to meet with the district leadership. I did not realize that it would be with the whole district council so I had to hurry and make more copies to hand out. Mary decided she did not need to go with me so she stayed in the office and worked.

I had the opportunity to be there when two new council members were set apart. As the first setting apart started I could feel the power and authority fill the room. It was very strong and I felt privileged to be part of this – even if I could not understand a word. After that I presented the English program and for the next hour they discussed the program, asked questions and agreed to translate the instructions for recommend a student and send it out to the branch presidents with their blessings. I feel they want it to succeed because they know how important it is to their youth.

When we got home we read from Kitab Mormon – we managed to read and translate 3 ½ pages in the hour. That is about as much as we have ever been able to do in an hour. There were a number of verses that we did not need to look up any words and many more where there were only one or two words we did not know.