Hari Rebu – Rah-boo – Wednesday

25 April 2007 – Wednesday

I did no mention that the village we saw yesterday was much cooler than here in the flats, the air was clear and you could see for miles. What a difference from the smog and heat we have here each day.

I am afraid I am catching a cold. I do not know if I can blame Mary because I am not sure bronchitis is catching. Anyway it was my excuse for not getting up and running this morning. Instead I practices Indonesian and wrote a long entry in this journal for all of yesterdays activities.

We read 2 ½ pages from Kitab Mormon – we continue to look up words we should know and make mistakes with others we should look up but over-all we continue to improve in our reading and translations. We are in the section of Mosiah that talks about ‘Interpreters’ and at time it would be nice to have them. I was thinking about the starting of the Judges in the Kitab Mormon and how Mosiah assumed that only good people would become judges or that they would stay good once they were chosen. He may have been wise but I am not sure he was smart.

Another task I started this morning was to clean up and organize all the paper and files we have managed to collect over the months. We need to get things in order so we can find things when we need them. Right now each time we need something we must scramble to find them. I think we will put everything on the computer and then carry around a memory stick so as long as we can use a computer – we now have access to four of them – we will be able to look through the files.

I told Mary last night that she was to stay home and rest today. I will go into the office alone and work on my presentation for the couples conference next week. I think all I am going to do is tell them what I see as the problems and what should be done about them. Also we will ask for their help in finding and keeping updated the resources. I need to create some report forms so they can send them to me. I think I will put them on a cd so they can load them into their computers and just fill them out and attach them to an e-mail. That will be easier than trying to get a piece of paper to us.

I had a rather interesting time at the office today. Not too long after I got there I received a call from Lukito saying he was in town and wondered if he could come to the office until it was time for our meeting. Since our meeting was not for 6 hours I thought that was strange but I said sure. So from about 11:30 until after the meeting we had a ‘volunteer’ worker in the office. Sam went and got our lunch – I really look forward to the days when I eat a traditional lunch. It is very tasty and filling.

I started working on my presentation for the couple’s conference. I really do not know what I will say about employment but I am at least gathering some thoughts and getting them on paper. I need to create a few report forms that the couples can use to let us know about schools and businesses in their areas. I am hoping that we get at least half of them to take this seriously so we can develop a good selection of resources.

While I was working on this I started thinking about something Elder Peterson talked about yesterday. It was only a brief conversation about one of the projects they had done to help an orphanage to start a mushroom growing business. From that I remembered Elder Kane also mentioning this project how successful it was in providing extra funds for them.

I think I have mentioned that sometime in the last week or so ago I got the feeling that the Lord wanted me to come up a plan for helping the older men and women and single sisters in the church to earn a decent living. I felt it so strongly that I wrote ‘jobs for older men and women’ on the whiteboard at work so I would see it each day. As I thought about the project I wrote ‘mushrooms’ under that comment.

I tried to call Elder Kane to find out more, but first he was at a wedding – they had a great time – and then they did not have good reception. Finally about the time I got home from the last meeting, he got through to me. We talked for about 15 minutes and the longer we talked the more we both got excited about the idea. Of course there is a lot more to learn and perhaps it is not feasible in areas that are too hot but it will be interesting to find out. What I am sure about is that the Lord’s hand is in it and so if we do our part, it will work out.

One of the problems will be that while I am great at coming up with solutions to problems, I am terrible about getting them done. I hope that the Lord helps me with this so that others do not suffer because I am un-organized and lazy.

Before Lukito came this morning I was looking through the files at old reports, etc. I found a report by the two sisters who were the first ERSC missionaries here in Jakarta. They had lots of figures including very definite ones about those who attended Career Workshops for 2004. I wondered how they got all that information so I asked Lukito. He said that they called all the people themselves. I said to him that we would not do that because it takes the responsibility out fo the hands of those who should be doing it. He agreed with that but I am not sure that he did not think it was also OK. Of course he is the one that responsible for getting us that information from 1/3 of the country.

The woman who sews clothes came by and Sam took her to the apartment to get the material and orders from Mary for more clothes. While he was gone he also paid the phone bill. I really need to find out how to pay that bill through the ATM. It is a real pain for Sam to go to the mall each month to pay the bill.

Between office hours and the meeting – we got it moved up to 4 P.M. – Sam and I went to SoGo to get a few things – especially orange juice and bakery goods. The traffic was terrible so Sam found another way to get there. He knows a number of ways to get anywhere. We ran into the same problem getting home after the meeting and he took a really narrow road through a traditional market and the cemetery to avoid a major jam. What made this last trip even more interesting is that it had been pouring rain for about 2 hours and the traditional market street was basically a swift flowing river that was about 10 inches deep.

The ERS meeting went well. We set the next three Career Workshops, talked about the ones we had this month, talked about the need to get reports, and other things involving Employment. I mentioned that we were not going to do their job for them by chasing down numbers for our reports. I am not sure that Lukito takes this too seriously but I know that Agus understands me and I think he will do his best to get people trained, follow-up, etc.

Mary had a good rest today and is taking her medicine as her blessing told her to do. Hopefully she will be fully recovered by the time we go to the Couples’ Conference. Unfortunately I am certainly coming down with a cold. I am taking massive doses of vitamin C in the hopes that I can keep it under control.