13 May 2007 – Sunday
A very quiet Sunday. The best part of the morning was that we got to have somewhat of a Mother Days visit with Jim and Cindy’s family. Bob called but by the time we got back to him he was off the air – he probably will call tomorrow morning. Mary got a great card from Cindy – it was an e-mail card which seems to be a great way to go. Especially when you are 12,000 miles away from home.
Sam dropped us off at Jakarta Raya and headed for his own branch. This is a new thing for us and we will have to see how it works. The Jakarta Raya folks arrive in waves – just before sacrament meeting opened it looked like no one was coming but 10 minutes later when the sacrament is passed the back of the chapel is filled.
We were very encouraged today. We are able to hear more and more words and can understand some of them. Not enough to really know what is going on but enough to at least let us know the basic subject. They need to have the youth speak more – in fact I do not think they have had a youth speaker since we have been here. I think I will ask the president about that. May it is not their custom to have youth speakers. Brother Leo’s – the priesthood quorm leader – son Rob gave a report of his mission to Malaysia.
Later I talked to him about his mission and he said that the church is growing – they have about as many members there as they do here – but that the missionaries can not wear their name tags. Indonesian missionaries must make a run to Singapore every 30 days – Americans every 90 – because they are there on visitor visas. However they can tract – which they can not do here in Indonesia. Rob speaks excellent English – he should since he went to the best schools in Singapore and received his AA from LDS Business College before his mission and plans to go to BYU Provo in August. Hopefully he will return to Indonesia and become a leader. He is certainly the kind of leaders they need to move the next generation forward.
We went to the Gospel Principles class and Elder Basuki gave a good lesson on Honesty. We were asked to give a definition of ‘honest’ and we found that it was hard to do that. I came up with ‘always be truthful.’ The lesson basically tells what you do not do if you are ‘honest.’ I need to look up the definition in Websters. Elder Basuiki had the class read the lesson but also added lots of his own comments and used the board well.
Priesthood was on Chapter 9 from the Teachings of president Kimball – forgiveness. I did not really get a lot of what was being said – but I could follow in the English version. Elder Rigby seemed to only be there some of the time – often when I asked him what was being said he did not know and had to start listening. I am know that this is something I often did in class so I can not criticize him. There was some lively discussions with the men sharing their own experiences of needing to forgive. I mentioned that President Faust made this the message of one of his recent conference talks – how the Amish community forgave the man who killed five of their young women. I asked if we would be able to do that if someone walked in and killed five of our YW.
Jemmy Morgan gave me his lovely Batik tie – I guess he was saying thank you for helping him with his business. He then went out with us to help us catch a cab and tell the driver how to get us home. We got a really good driver and he made the trip in record time without taking us out of the way at all. I gave him a good tip. It seems that this is going to work – at least to Jakarta Raya. How it will work for Tangerang is something else again.
The rest of the day included a tuna sandwich lunch, a nice nap, and lots of time on the computer writing e-mails and posting my journal. I still have not completely learned how to post pictures but I am getting closer I think.
We were reading from the Kitab Mormon when the phone rang and it was Jim calling us through Skype. They have a special Mother’s Day promotion that allows you to call anywhere in the world for free. Hopefully some of the other children will take advantage of this tomorrow morning. After that we finished reading – I am actually beginning to really enjoy this. Not only because it is a good way to learn Indonesian but because I am learning more and more about the Book of Mormon. I have certainly never read it this closely – that is where I must examine and think about each word. We also have to work at figuring out just who is speaking and how it ties into the different stories that are being told. This is especially true of Alma where several story lines are tied together.
Mary at Taman Mini with her friends – A typical Motorcycle load – the Jakarta Beach with Mary and Sam