For some reason it would not let me add text to the pictures, but they pretty much speak for themselves. The men all carried swords – you never know when bandits may come in and try to steal the food.

12 May 2007 – Saturday This should be an interesting day for us. We will see the first LDS wedding and go to the reception. It is convenient that it will be at the chapel where we have our office. This means we can go to the wedding at 10 and then go back to the office to do some work before going to the reception at noon. We are going to take a taxi both ways because Sam is playing for the choir and will want to enjoy the whole reception. The weather is beautiful – there has been clear skies most of the last week. Some clouds move in during the day and there is an occasional period of rain on some days, but nothing like it is during the rainy season. We read about 2 ½ pages from the Kitab Mormon this morning. I am getting to know a few more words but it is still Mary’s knowledge that allows us to get through that many pages. It is great to see how well she is retaining vocabulary – now if she could just translate that into being able to speak, it would be even ‘lebih baik’ – that is better. Yesterday I managed to put two pictures into the blog – one of the famous BYU restaurant and one of the ‘mall’ where Mary found all of her yarn. I had not noticed that the BYU picture included the two assistants to the president. We catch a taxi to the office and spend the first 45 minutes doing some work. Then we go up to the chapel. The wedding is about the same as one at home. The branch president talks longer than they usually do in the states but it is a really good talk – one of the elders translated for us. After he had finished the marriage ceremony he forgot about the rings and had to call the couple back to exchange rings. It seems that they put them on their left hand instead of their right – but we need to check this. After this a representative from each family gave a short talk of appreciation and some words to the couple. It is one of their traditions. While the newly weds and their families had a luncheon we went back and did some more work. I cleaned up the templates for some reports I hope to get each month from the couples. I will send them to each couple via e-mail. Mary worked on her English class – she is really diligent about preparing her lessons. About noon we went back up to the cultural hall where they had set up for the reception. There is no real way to explain everything so it is a good thing there are pictures. The couple and the rest of the party were in traditional dress. The men even had swords at the back of their outfits. It was really stunning. The couple and their parents were seated on the stage under what I took to be a traditional arch. They sat there through the whole luncheon – which included some short talks but family. One of the speakers was Agus – the country ER specialist that we work with – who was an uncle to the bride. There was tons of very good food. We just had to be careful of some of the hotter dishes. They had some beans that were delicious and I do not think we had them before. The only problem is learning to eat standing up – it is impossible to do this with a plate and a drink. So you eat your food and then drink. Jemmy Mongan was there and said he could not get the NYTimes article about golf in Indonesia so I went down to the office and printed him a copy. I will try to help him contact the man who wrote the article so he can let them know that his company does arrange golf tours for Indonesia. After we had eaten, I went out to go to the ATM – it was closed – and to get some bananas. It was raining very lightly and this meant that the humidity was very high so I ended up very damp both on the outside of my clothes and the inside. It is hard to understand how the young elders and sisters manage to survive in this kind of weather – unless of course they come from Florida or somewhere else in the South. I only walked about three blocks and I was dripping sweat. By the time I got back, the party was breaking up – and of course some people were still coming. They probably had to come a long way and the traffic held them up. I took a few more pictures and then we packed up and left for home. We were really lucky and almost immediately caught a taxi and he happened to be a good driver and got us home in record time. It helped that the traffic was very light. The rest of the day was quite peaceful. I edited the pictures of the wedding, we watched some TV, read from the Kitab Mormon, and answered some e-mail. I gave Mary her Mothers Day present – a can of cookies. Since we hardly ever go shopping without the other along, it is not easy to get any present that is a surprise. I got the cookies while getting her bananas. It was a good day – the reading of the Kitab Mormon reminded me of how a single servant of God can change a country. We need to believe that we do make a difference when we do what the Lord has sent us here to do. I think back to the MTC and how we were called to serve in the TRC. This eventually led to our being an important part of changing the way languages are taught at the MTC. Of course we were just tools in the Lord’s hand, but tools that were able to enjoy the spirit and to be inspired to know what to do. When it comes to this Intensive English class, I feel like Nephi when the Lord told him to build a boat. Nephi realized that he could not build the ship without the Lord’s help and so the scriptures say that he went often to the Lord for help. We are certainly going to need to do that each day. We are also going to need to have help – again I think of Nephi and the difficulty he had getting Laman, Lemuel and others to help. Hopefully we will not have that much trouble but I imagine we are going to have to go out and find those to help us. But like Nephi, I know that this is the Lord’s work and He has prepared a way for us to achieve the things He has inspired us to do. Therefore it is time to ‘thrust in’ our sickle and get on with the harvest.