Bulan – Boo-lawn. It means both moon and month. Which when you think about it makes a lot of sense. A matching word is Minggu – which is pronounced just like it is written – Ming-goo. This means a week and if you add hati – Hot-tee – which means day – for ‘hati Minggu’ – you get Sunday.

22 April 2007 – Sunday

A very busy but great Sunday.

We did our normal morning – except we did not get a full hour in on the Kitab Mormon. We had to leave a little early for Jakarta Raya because Mary needed to practice with sister Penny. We arrived in plenty of time and while Mary practiced I did the rounds of handshaking. Hendra asked us to give the opening and closing prayers for sacrament meeting. He forgot to announce Mary as the opening prayer so she just went up at the right time and gave a very nice prayer – in English. She was not feeling well at all – no fever but coughing from deep in her chest. But like a true champ she stuck with it all day.

It is surprising how each week we can hear more words and today we were able to pick out enough to know what they speakers were talking about. Mary is still far ahead of me – she says she can actually understand the words without translating – I think that is great. After sacrament we went to the Gospel Principle class – they had three investigator and that is great. Progressive investigators are hard to come by in this mission.

We left after just two hours because we had to drive over to the Tangerang building. We are meeting the elders and taking them out to teach a single woman. It was way, way out and tucked away among a warren of houses. But once there it turned out to be a very nice house – that is for the area. They had a nice discussion – Mary and I sat in two of the three available chairs and the elders, the investigator and her children sat on a rug on the floor. The elders seemed quite at ease sitting there. They taught about the restoration and got a conditional baptism commitment – they were all smiles when we left. It is great to take part in some missionary work. We dropped the elders at the bus stop and headed home. Luckily Sam was able to find the way to the freeway so the trip home did not take much more time than if we had left from the chapel.

When we got home we thought the day was over but we got a call from Sister Jensen inviting us to come over to the mission home to hear their son Sterling talk about Iraq. He is a contract interpreter for the military and is just finishing up a tour. He is visiting Indonesia before his folks return home.

We got there really early so we had time to talk to him and the family before anyone else came. He asked some good questions about employment and education in Indonesia. Mary pointed out he was one of the few people who ever got as much information about me as I got about him during our conversations.

The Petersens, the office elders, the Aps,  and a number of members of the English branch were invited so it was a rather crowded. Since we came first we had great seats on one of the couches. Sterling gave us a little more history of the area than I thought was needed but his comments on how the Sunnis have come to see us as the only way they are going to ever have a chance to influence in the government was very interesting. He feels that there is really no strong government – that it is basically still a tribal society and until they develop a strong military and police force it is going to remain unstable.
He does not think that the country will break into three independent sections but he does think they will divide into strong autonomous sections with a central government. At least this will be until the younger population becomes better educated and gets tired of living in chaos.

After his presentation I talked to him more about the situation and this time I got to learn more than he did. I also talked to a member of the English branch who is into gemstones. He is a geologist and so stones are interesting to him. He calls diamonds – boring because they are just clear. He told me about sapphires from Viet Nam that were dark blue but each point sparkles in deep purple. I want to get to know him better and see if he will give me an education in gems. He is really high on Indonesian brown opals – he thinks they are beautiful.

As we talked I realized that I know a little about a lot of things and this helps me enter into most conversations and ask intelligent sounding questions. As long as I remember I really do not know much it works fine. It is only when I try to expound or expand on what I do know that I get into trouble.

Before we left I asked President Jensen and the elders to give Mary a blessing. They all thought it was strange that I did not want to seal the blessing but I explained that I felt that others were more likely to not let their personal feeling enter into their blessing. President Jensen blessed her that she would get well but that she needed to follow the medical instructions carefully.

We did not get home until about 9:30 and that combined with Mary not feeling well, we just went to bed without reading the Kitab Mormon. It was a great Sunday

Mempersiapkan – Mum-pur-see-op-con – prepared. It is something we need to be more of. We do not spend enough time in planning so often things get done at the last minute. I do not know the word for procrastination but I will look it up for tomorrow.

21 April 2007 – Saturday

We were up very early and at the airport by 6:00 for our 7:30 flight. It was good to have Lukito along because that way we had some idea about what was going on. One thing about Indonesian airlines – they always give you a simple meal. Nothing special but always worth eating. Basically you get a stuffed roll – this morning it was with a small sausage, a cake dessert, and a candy of some kind.

The flight went well – we got to see the sea and some ships as we were landing. The pilot seemed to me to come in hot. One of the problems they have at regional airports is that the runways are a little short – this means if they come in fast they either stand on the brakes or run off the end. We managed to stay on the runway.

The Bennetts were there to pick us up and take us to the chapel. We were happy to see them again. They are doing a great job in Semarang – both with the branch and with the missionaries. In just a few weeks they have made themselves part of the branch and they know everyone by name. I think that is great.

The Career Workshop was well attended – of course no one showed up on time but we were able to start only 30 minutes late. While the district specialist and Lukito took care of workshop. The Bennetts took us to their home. It is a large 3 bedroom home, in a good area, with a nice front and side yards, and for about ½ of what we pay. If we come back to Indonesia, I hope we are able to serve in a smaller town like Semarang.

We went back to arrange for lunch. We should have ordered it when we first got there for delivery at a certain time. As it was we had dinner about 45 minutes late. Later someone mentioned that they had a caterer in the branch – we could have asked them to provide the lunch. In the future that is what we will do – have them provide a traditional meal.

After lunch the Barretts and their second driver – they are so busy that they need 1 ½ drivers – took us to Chinatown and a great fabric store. This was down an alley and we were the only white faces in the whole place. I decided it must be a good place to shop because it was packed. Mary found lots of material for more dresses, skirts and blouses – all for $30.

We got back just as it ended and helped to clean up. During the day I talked to a number of the participants and asked them to send me their resumes. I will try to help them get some interviews. The big challenge is to develop resources that we can call about job openings and that we can send resumes to. Hopefully this will help people start good careers.

After the cleanup we sat with elder and sister Bennett and talked about this and that. I asked Elder Bennett to look for good schools and universities for our young people to go to with a PEF loan. After that their driver – a very interesting man who also happened to be named Sam – took us to the airport.

Semarang is a smaller regional airport with three whole gates for departure. But it was a fun place to spend our time. They had a gift shop where we bought two paintings for $20 and the largest supply of reasonably priced paperback books in English that we have seen. We each splurged and bought one book each.

While we were waiting we ran into the president of Tangerang 2 branch and I learned somethings about his business – software – and a school that they run to train programmers. It is a two month course that costs $500 but when it is done they hire the top 10 for $250 a month and that can grow to $2000 a month. This is a big salary for Indonesia. Hopefully we can get some of the young people to major in computer programming and get them into the program. It seems all I need to do is sit down and talk to people to learn about more career offerings.

The flight home went as well as going and the landing was better. While we were walking from the plane to the way out we ran into President Jensen and his son Sterling who just got back from a trip to one of the other islands. It is a small world it seems – flying with a branch president and meeting the mission president.

The trip back to the apartment was uneventful but it was so late that we did not read from the Kitab Mormon. This is the first day in months that we have not read at all from KM. Sometime during the coming week we need to make up for this lapse.

Penduduknya – Puhn-Dew-Duke-nyah – Inhabitants. It is one of those fun words we come across because Duduk means both to sit and to reside. I guess the idea is where your seat is so is your house.

20 April 2007 – Friday

We were both awake early. But while I was out doing my laps, Mary went back to sleep. Lucky lady. We later read three pages from the Kitab Mormon.

We went to the Jakarta Raya district meeting. They are nice enough to do most of the meeting in English so we know what is going on. I think it is also helpful for the Indonesian elders to use English. They are doing well as far as progressive investigators are concerned. They are not doing well in getting referrals and I suggested they increase their effort in that area. Elder Basuki gave a good lesson on finding people to teach. I noticed that I could actually understand many of the words he was saying – something that I was not able to do a month ago. Mary said that she was able to understand words without translating them. I am not that far.

After that meeting we came home, ate lunch and rested for a while before going to the university to teach English. Mary had three faithful students and I had my usual none. But I got more reading done in the Kitab Mormon so the time was not wasted.

After the English lesson, we went to our office to get some reports we need for our trip to Semarang in central Java.

When we got home we ordered pizza and then spent the night watching some TV, answering email and reading another hour in the Kitab Mormon.