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

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.

On the right is the Indonesian Mall where Mary bought lots of yarn for making an afgan. On the left is the famous BYU eating establish. The finest of it’s kind in Indonesia. Well at least Jakarta. It has nourished missions from the office for at least 8 years and probably before that. It has the cleanest flies in the area – at least the most friendly.

11 May 2007 – Friday

The weather is turning clearer and hotter. The dry season is certainly setting in. However it seems to be that way in Provo also – temperatures in the high 80’s. The plants must be doing well – if they are being watered that is.

We read our hour of the Kitab Mormon and made it through 3 pages. We came across a couple of things that surprised us – a word used much differently than we thought it should be used. We also came across a puzzle – the use of a word that does not seem to be needed but is. When Mary checked with the professionals at the mission office they told her that it was necessary for it to be good Indonesian but could not tell any way to know when to use it and when not to. You just know when to use it…or not. Easy to say – hard to do.

We went to district meeting. Since Jakarta Raya only has two missionaries it is no longer a district by itself so it has been put in with the mission home elders and the sisters. Elder Decker and Elder Thomas are now in the office. We have known Thomas since we first got here and have worked with Decker for the last three months. District meeting went well – other than Rigby and Basuki, they do not seem to have any progressive investigators. The sisters are excited because they are teaching a family. It would certainly be good if they could help to bring them unto Christ.

After the district meeting we tried to go eat at a Chinese place but we were too late. It is a small restaurant and fills up quickly. So instead we went shopping – or maybe it would be better to say Mary went shopping and Sam and I went along. She bought some material for a blouse and then we walked through a real traditional Indonesian market to find some yard for her to crotchet. Think of large space crammed with small stalls and each stall having home made shelves mixed with display cases. Now think of aisles that were so small two people could sometimes not pass. Add Indonesian heat and humidity and lots of people – now you have the mall.

But by asking every third booth we found a place that actually sold yarn at a reasonable rate. Mary went ape and ended up getting $40 worth. At least this should give her something to do when we are at home and driving for hours. I am sure it was the big sale of the day for the shop because most things they sold were around 10 to 25cents.

On the way back to the car we stopped at what I thought would be an inexpensive Chinese food place. By the time we were done ordering it came to $15 which is really ridiculous for Indonesia. And I really did not think the food was all that good. I would have been much happier with my 50 cent traditional Indonesian lunch.

By the time we were done eating there was just enough time to get to the University for Mary’s English class. Even her class is down to two – but they are good students and she enjoys teaching them and Sam. I spent the time editing pictures on the laptop and adding captions. This will be a major job of playing catch up – but at least once we are done we will remember what the pictures are about.

When we got home I continued to work on pictures and re-sized some that can be uploaded to the blog. I would like to put a picture a day on the blog but doubt if that will happen.

We had date night – just like at home – well almost. Instead of going out to dinner we ordered pizza and instead of going out to the movies we watched a DVD of Spiderman 3. The pizza was good but the movie was much too long and too complicated. They used material for at least two movies and perhaps three in one. But hey what do I know – the crazy movie made almost $400 million throughout the world in it’s first weekend.

After the movie we read the Kitab Mormon – now that is something we never did on any date night at home – for a little over an hour. We covered about 3 ½ easy pages. Which makes about 6 pages for the day. Not bad at all. At that rate we could read the Kitab Mormon in about 100 days or 3 plus times a year.

While I am finishing this day’s journal, Mary is busy with her first square of crocheting.

I just thought about what I said to the missionaries today at district meeting. The lesson was on what it means to be an effective missionary. PMG points out that success is ‘measured primarily by your commitment to find, teach, etc.’ It goes on to say that a missionary should avoid comparing themselves with others.

I mentioned that when were teaching at the MTC I would say that if when you write in your journal at night or if in your prayers you could honestly say to the Lord that you had done your best, than there was no missionary in the world that had done more that day. As I write this journal I am not sure that on most days I can honestly say that. Although my calling is not to teach, etc., there are things that I am called to do. I am sure that I can do more. But I am not going to become discouraged – I just need to try to be a little better tomorrow than I was today. To be a little more committed, to study a little harder, to look for missionary opportunity more often, and to of course be patient. That I may always have His Spirit to be with me.

This is the bell choir from the School of the Blind joyfully playing Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Man.’

 10 May 2007 – Thursday.
There was some kind of trouble with the electrical service this morning. I did not notice it until Mary mentioned that the fountain outside our window had gone off and had not come back on for a while. Also the printer cycled and printed a test sheet – something it does when it comes on. I slept through most of this but while I was showering the lights went off and then came back on a few seconds later. These apartments soak up a lot of electricity – as our bills tell us – and I imagine that it takes a lot of juice to get all the motors started at once.

As we read from Kitab Mormon this morning about Ammon and king Lamoni, I once again wondered about Abish and her story that is never told. I wondered who her father was and what was his vision that so changed his life, Abish’s life and in the Lord’s own way the lives of so many of the Lamanites. How she stayed close to the Lord while living among people who hated the things she believed in. It brings to mind the comment from conference where a young woman when asked what was the hardest thing about being the only LDS student in a school and she answered “Believing that something is right when everyone else thinks it is wrong, and believing something is wrong when everyone else thinks it is right.” Abish must have often felt that way.

And what happens to Abish? After fulfilling her role in the great drama of the conversion of a nation, she disappears from the pages of the Book of Mormon. There is no ‘And she lived happily ever after.’ I have often thought of writing a book that fills in the blanks – that tells about her and her father – maybe her mother dies early in her life and her father raises her. How did she become a servant in King Lamoni’s household. Was she a captive from a raid in the land of Zarahemla? After the Lamanites join the Nephites is she re-united with her father and get married?

After reading we get ready to go to the birthday celebration of the school for blind children that LDS Charities have helped in the past. We had no idea what to expect and so everything was a surprise. It turned out to be a good celebration. All of the students got to participate. The wonderful band – they live for their music – played for all the songs and like most Indonesian celebration there was lots of singing. I think the highlight for me was to hear the band and a group of bell ringers play the main theme from Beethoven’s ‘Ode to man.’ They started out slow and it took me a couple of seconds to realize what they were playing but it was soon evident. They kept picking up the pace of the work until it was rocking along to a steady beat that I am not sure Beethoven would have expected. But I think he would have smiled if he could have heard it.

We were kind of honored guests and the man in charge sat next to me and kept me informed of what was going on. They run the school on about $8000 a month. This is a lot of money in Indonesia but when you consider they help over 35 students with a staff of about 15, with many of the students living there, the cost is really quite low. Much of their money comes from parents who can afford to pay and the rest must come from donations.

After the celebration we headed out to Tangerang to look for some place to eat. We were disappointed in finding that the seafood place that Sam knew about was closed and the mall nearby did not have the advertised food court. In fact the mall was almost empty. I can not see how anyone there will survive the lack of customers. I would guess that it has been open for a couple of years and other than the large market – which had almost no customers – and the KFC, there does not seem to be any substantial businesses. Some people must be losing their shirts each month. But there are many places like this in Jakarta – they think if they build it they will come. Where in America they would first try to sign up some anchor stores before breaking ground. Now maybe this mall thought Food Giant and KFC were enough but obviously they needed more market research before investing what must be millions of dollars.

The district meeting for Tangerang went well. Elder Wight is a very good district leader and I think he will continue to keep things moving in the right direction. As he was doing some role playing situations, I mentioned that it is important to have the spirit even when practicing teaching the gospel. That we are only gospel salesmen unless we bring in the spirit. The mission will have success when the missionaries are able to have the investigators feel and recognize the spirit. I could feel the spirit as I counseled with the missionaries – it is a theme that I keep coming back to again and again. It is something learned while teaching in the MTC.

The missionaries are still not getting any referrals from the members. I think this is another area that really needs to be worked on. Once the members start to become involved with missionary work, the success rate will greatly improve.

The English class went well – unfortunately one of the families did not show up and I missed them. I am happy that they are doing so well in learning the Articles of Faith. They know the first and second one very well. My game where I printed them, cut them into section and then had the children solve the puzzle of putting them back together again was a big hit. The two older boys put them together very quickly because they each took one and quickly exchanged pieces that did not work for them. They still have trouble remembering on, under, etc. – at least the younger ones do – but they are getting better. President Paul’s daughter if a delight to have in class. She is always smiling.

By the time we get home we are of course exhausted. We watch the end of ‘Without a Trace’ and head for bed. It was a good day.

This is a picture from the flood – it is not a river but a road that was near a river. Two or three days later people were out drying out their bedding, etc. They are so used to flooding that while I am sure they do not like to have their homes flooded, they take it as part of living. As I wrote earlier, there was an article about a family who had lived for three generations in a home that flooded two to three times a year. It would be hard to imagine this happening in the US.

09 May 2007 – Wednesday

I decided that I would not do any catch up until I had the current day at least started. Slept very well last night. For the first time since we got back from the conference I slept past 5 a.m. It feels good. I mentioned to Mary that it was strange that even though we do not do that much physical work each day, I am still tired in the afternoons. I decided to blame it on the heat…after all they take siestas after lunch in most hot countries – that seems very civilized to me.

I am back to reading from Book of Mormon Stories. It is interesting to see what words that I still do not recognize. Sometimes it is just because I am lazy and do not look for the root word – but most of the time it is just because I do not remember the word from the last time I read it.

I think that the mission is helping me to be in the world but not part of the world. Today I was following a story on the web that was more sensational than anything meaningful and I stopped and thought ‘how useless is this’ and closed up the site. It was not that there was anything wrong with what I was reading – it was just useless. The Kitab Mormon says that such things are ‘hal-hal manusia yang sia-sia’ or ‘tidak berguna’ – that is they are “things of the world that are ‘useless’ or without value. I am not bragging about this – I am sure it is the influence of the spirit because I am on a mission that is prompting me. I should have learned this 40 or 50 years ago – how much time have I wasted on such things – and of course how much will I waste in the future.

We read about 2 ½ pages in the Kitab Mormon this morning. I really thought we were humming our way through but it just seems to take about the same amount of time so an hour translates into 2 – 3 pages. We do spend more time now trying to really understand why something is translated the way it is. We still miss tenses – mainly because there is often none there – and who is doing the action. But mainly we come quite close to what it says in the Book of Mormon – unless of course the Indonesian translation is not close. I like reading from 7:30 to 8:30 because we can then relax some before we leave for the office.

Indonesia has lots of water – but it has very little naturally clean water. This means that you either buy bottled water – which is what we do. Or boil your drinking water – which is what most of the poorer people do. Hardly anyone drinks water directly from taps or other sources. The Indonesians may be able to handle bad water a little more than we can, but they also know that they can get really, really sick if they are not careful about their water. I do not know how many people die in Indonesia each year from waterborne disease but I imagine there are 1000s. What is interesting is that the papers hardly ever mention deaths here – not traffic deaths, etc. Only if there is a major disaster associated with the deaths is it likely to make the news. I guess there is just so many people dying, that it is not considered news here.

Back to normal at the office. We spend some time getting our monthly reports into Hong Kong and I did some things for my Thursday English class. But mostly it is busy work that needs to be done but is not very exciting. Since paperwork has never been my strength it is interesting that the Lord has given me a chance to improve in this area. As we were leaving for the day I realized that I did not do one thing that I could have done today – but it will still be there when we get back on Thursday or Friday.
We can not go home teaching at Salims because it turns out he is on Sumatra helping his brother with his business. I think we will go out and try to home teach his wife before the month is over. I do not want to miss him two months in a row. We also need to call and go see Rudy – just to say hello and to see how he is doing.

On the way home we go by the Ambassador Mall to try and find the things Mary needs to start crocheting. She has decided that is something she can do while we are in the car. We find a place that sells yarn and the other things she needs but the yarn is 4 times as much at it would be at home. Since this is a little shop in a mall that is obviously catering to natives, the prices should be right – but Mary does not think she wants to pay that much for yarn. We are thinking about asking Cindy to pack a small box full of yarn and send it to us. Yarn is light and she should be able to get a lot in a small package. But before we do that we will look for other places that sell yarn.

Once we are home, it is great to take off the tie and settle down for another night at home. I take a nice nap and then work at the computer until it is time for dinner. Mary fixed a big meal of spaghetti – the only thing that is mission if garlic bread. I eat a rye roll with dinner – Mary thinks rye with spaghetti does not sound good. I found that it was fine.

I continue to read in the Indonesian version of Book of Mormon Stories. I find that I can go through a number of panels without help but then will hit some that have a number of words I do not remember. We later read from the Kitab Mormon and in a hour make it through 3 ½ pages of fairly easy reading. Ammon is in King Lamoni’s court and has started to teach him about God. This lesson is used as an example of how missionaries can introduce the Christian concept of God to Buddists and Hindus – or anyone else for that matter.

I have been reading about a four hour program on TV that discussed the Mormons. From what I have read it seems the program was fair to the church but that there was also some things that were not doctrine and that polygamy – especially Jeff’s ideas about it – was given too much time. It would be interesting to see what was broadcast – I wonder if Tom happened to record it on TIVO.  One thing for sure it stirred up a lot of comments on different religious blogs.

I would guess that in the long run it will be of more help than harm – that some people will wonder what there is about the LDS church that makes them news and start investigating or asking questions. I doubt if they are planning a 4 hour program on the Catholics or the Methodists.

08 May 2007 – Tuesday

I slept OK but not long enough. I seem to be back to waking up between 4 and 4:30 and not really going back to sleep. It makes for a long day and also it makes a nap almost mandatory for me.

We had a busy day – at least up until 4 or so. It was the normal morning except we read earlier than usual. I wish Skype worked better – it becomes annoying when it cuts off or becomes static every few minutes or seconds. But it is great to see or hear the children and grandchildren even for a short time.

The office is becoming busy – well at least people are starting to come in. Today we had our second client in less than a week. Since before this we have not had one, that is an infinite increase. Besides that Agus’ son Egar came in to help us. His father wants him to improve his English. He is typical of those who speak and understand English well enough to function in the US but not well enough to really participate in college classes where there is a need for understanding and communicating with what is going on. I had him start to read an article on golf and found that he had no knowledge of golf and did not know who Tiger Woods was.

Later I had him start calling those who have participated in this year’s career workshops to find out how they are doing and if they had jobs. Hopefully in the future the district and branch specialists will do this – that is the way things are supposed to work and what we are going to try to get working so when we leave, there will be a support and reporting system that works.

I did something to my computer that locked it up so that I could not get in. I took full responsibility but I think that someone has been either using the computer or trying to use the computer when we are gone. I am going to change the passwords regularly so that if one gets out – I do let Sam use our computers from time to time – that it will be useless.

Mary worked on her English and says that she is about ready for Thursday and Friday. The reports did not go as well because we do not have the information we need for the people who got jobs or started a business during the month. I wrote to the Christensens to ask them what to do and they did not get back to us until after we had left the office.

At about noon our client came in and I worked with him. He already was registered on Jobsdb so we just went through and applied for more jobs. I do not think he will have a problem getting a job. He seems very sharp and has already turned down some because they did not pay as much as he is now making. At least he is looking for a job before the old one runs out.

After closing up the office, we had to run back to the apartment to get the equipment so Lukito could give the short Career Workshop to the missionaries who are heading home. We thought we could not be there because we were invited to a special program at the school for the blind that the Leishmans had helped – but it turned out that we were wrong and the event is not until Thursday. We will probably go over to the mission office after our office hours.

The main reason we went to the mission office is so that Hendra can fix my computer problem. This he does in about 5 minutes and thanks me for bringing the computer to him instead of asking him to come to our office. The funny thing is that I never would have thought to ask him to do that. We left the office laptop for Lukito to use tomorrow. Later I realized that I should have also left the rest of the equipment there because he needs to use it for Bekasi. Someday we will get organized.

I said hello to everyone and spent some time with the translators talking about how hard it is to translate from one language to another. I mentioned that as we were reading today in Alma 15:16 – or is it 16-15? Whatever – where the English Book of Mormon starts a thought but does not finish it, the translator of the Kitab Mormon completed the thought. I guess he could not stand to let it just dangle there. It is interesting that in all the many times I have read that verse I had never noticed that it was never completed. But when we are reading it so carefully often new things show up.

Back at the apartment I took a few minutes to enjoy the hot sun shining into the livingroom. I guess the dry season is coming and there will be more and more days when the sky is not covered with clouds or pollution so that I can soak up some rays. I did not do it for long because it was so hot and I read from the Book of Mormon Stories so I was not ‘wasting’ time. However after that I did manage to take a nice long nap.

The Christensen’s called from HK and we talked for a short time. Then, since I knew they were in their office, I sent a Skype call. The connection between HK and us is no better than that between here and the US. I am sure it is because of the slow connection here. It was down to 49 kbps and that is much too slow for a good connection with up and downloading. The chat feature is much better.

I did not do much personal studying today. However I did read from PMG about how the non-English speaking missionaries are encouraged to spend the mornings speaking English. I am sure the president knows this – I did not know it when I suggested this to the missionaries – but does not stress it. I am going to point out in the district meetings that if we are going to ‘obey exactly’ then perhaps they should start doing this. The brethern obviously know how important English can be to the non-English missionaries and that is why they encourage them to learn the language so they can be more useful in the Kingdom but also because it may help them throughout their lives.

07 May 2007 – Monday

Today is P-day but we have some things we need to do so after a normal morning – including reading Kitab Mormon – we head out at 10. First we go to the office because we need to send some e-mail and do some other things there. After that we wanted to go hometeaching but when we called – it is at least an hour each way – no one answered. We will do it tomorrow or Wednesday. I called Elder Kane and asked him to set up an appointment to see the mushroom project and hope that we can duplicate it for our members. Also we want to see the textile school so we can know exactly what it offers and how often we can enroll members.

From the office we went to the mission office. Stopping first to get food at BYU – I took a picture so I can put it in the blog so people will finally see what I mean when I mention eating there. We ate at the office and talked to the folks there. Hendra showed me how to change the password on the computers – I am afraid Sam is letting people get on our computers and that could be a problem. We also picked up some Kitab Mormons to give out – we will go see Sister Paulina today and give her one or two.

After the mission office we went to Carrefour to get Mary a new briefcase and some other supplies. We got her a really nice ‘Marmot’ knock-off. They duplicated all the logos and if the advertising blurb was not written is such poor English someone might be fooled. But it is well made and for $12 it could not be touched in the US. When we got to the counter of course there was no barcode anywhere so we had to wait 10 minutes while someone roller skated over and checked the price. It turned out to be $1 less than we thought it should be.

We were home in time for me to take a short nap before the cleaning lady came. I have finally reached the point where I look before I turn around, open a door, etc. so I do not accidently run over her. She is quieter than a mouse – almost like a ghost.

For dinner I finished off the pizza from Saturday night. We read Kitab Mormon early tonight – it seems to be getting easier but there are still many words I do not know. I also read from Elder Holland’s talk in Indonesian – it does not get any easier.

We watched the final episode of the current ‘Amazing Race.’ I was rooting for the blondes because I thought it would be good for a pair of women to win. But they came in 2nd. If I was the producer of the program I would give a million $ to the winner, $200K to 2nd and 100K to the 3rd. This seems fairer to me than the winner takes all.

We have been doing laundry since Friday – it seems we manage to come up with a load most days – today it was sheets. It is interesting how mundane things such as washing dishes – and remembering to rinse in clorox water, hanging laundry, and ironing shirts have just become of being on a mission. It goes along with reading the scriptures, PMG, and lesson manuals.

A mission has started to change my perspective about what is important. Other than family I do really miss anything that we have left behind. I would like to be able to work in the garden – more for the chance to be doing something artistic than seeing the results. I have little desire to listen to music. I do miss reading novels at times but it is no big thing. I now take about a month to read one instead of a day. What is important is learning the language, trying to help people find jobs, teaching English, etc. That is trying to do what the Lord sent us here to do.

06 May 2007 – Sunday

Much of today was very busy. We had to get up a little early because we need to leave just after 7 for our 8 a.m. sacrament meeting in T1.  Sunday morning is a wonderful time to travel in Jakarta. There is almost no traffic and the trip that takes from 1 to 2 hours on Thursday took about 30 minutes today.

We went to T1’s fast meeting. Mary was asked to play the piano for the meeting and so we sat on the front row. We still can not understand enough words to know what they are talking about. Especially during testimony meeting – at least not until they reach their testimonies. We did not have anyone even giving us a synopsis for the first meeting. At times this is frustrating but we will keep trying until we can hear and understand. Learning patience may be the most important thing I get out of this mission.

We did not go to a T1 Sunday school class. Mary wanted to work on her lesson and I want to sleep. She had more success than I did. But I had a chance to talk to some of the members and relax some.

The T2 sacrament meeting was better than the 1st because we had elder Rigby to give us some clues about what the people were saying. This does not mean we understood much by ourselves but it did help me pick out some of the words that I probably would have missed. We found out that the outing we are invited to attend on the 17th will leave at 5:30 a.m. This means that we will have to leave our apartment by 4:15 to reach the collection area. Luckily for us it turns out that Sam’s trip does not leave until 7:00 so he can drop us off and still make his. So we do not have to worry about a taxi running us around the countryside to run up the fare.

We went to T2 Gospel Principle class. Elder Smith did a good job but I do not think that teaching is his best attribute. Most of the elders take too much of the time speaking and not enough letting the investigators talk. They should ask more questions, make sure the investigators understand the teaching, bear testimony, tell stories, etc. But of course they tend to stick to the manual and do not bring much from the outside. This is good and bad – it is good if the investigators are involved but if they just sit there and listen it is not very interesting.

There was an investigator in the class that I thought did not know much English but about half way through he asked me for the English version and seemed to know how to read it. After the class we talked some and it turned out he had very good English. He said that he had been investigating many churches and had come to the LDS church before. He also told me that he had done some terrible things in his life. I told him that there was few things that the Lord would not forgive him for doing. I probably should have mentioned that one of those was murdering someone. Anyway it will be interesting to see if he continues to read, study, and come to church.

Mary then went to teach her class and I went to Priesthood. There was very little done in PH – a young man was ordained a Priest. They sustained him in the PH meeting which is not how it is supposed to be done – I will write the president about that – and then talked about Home Teaching. When they got to the lesson they as usual did not try to include the young men so it is completely boring for them. At some time I am going to suggest that they let the missionaries teach the AP while the MP hold their meeting.

After church – Mary ran over. She said she talked too much but the lesson went well – we took the missionaries – Elder Rigby and his companion – to give a lesson to the woman that we went to a couple of weeks ago. Now that Sam knew the way he got us there in half the time. The lesson did not seem very spiritual to me. It was one of those cases where the missionaries do all the talking and the investigator gets too much to absorb. I do not think the spirit was there at all until just as the lesson was over and they asked the investigator to pray. This was the first time she had prayed – at least while we were there – and as she prayed you could hear the emotion in her voice. She choked up and there were tears in her eyes. She excused herself and Mary asked the missionaries to make sure they helped her recognize the spirit that she felt as she prayed. I am not sure they did.

We dropped the missionaries off at the bus station and headed home. On the way there we found out that Sam was supposed to be playing for his ward’s choir practice. He had not known that we were going to with the missionaries. Luckily we got home quickly and I told him to take the car to the church which saved him 20 – 25 minutes of walking. We really do need to find an alternate driver for Sunday so Sam can go to his meetings in his branch.

I forgot to mention that he was up most of the night before. One of his friends was in a motorcycle accident and broke his ankle. Sam went with him to the hospital and watched the operation – he has pictures – and then stayed with him until 2 in the morning. Since to get to our place by 7:00 he had to get up at 5:00 he did not get much sleep. I told him to go out in the car and sleep for part of the meetings. I did not want him to fall asleep while driving us.

The rest of the day was spent catching up some of the journal, cleaning up some of the stacks of papers we have managed to accumulate, and reading from the Kitab Mormon. I continued to study my vocabulary words. I even studied some in the car while we were traveling. I think that is a good thing to do and it helps the time pass.

One thing I have found that by the time I crawl into bed, I am very tired. I usually try to read some Indonesian or study some vocabulary but after only a few minutes I turn off the light and drop off to sleep. It is strange to be so tired when there very little physical effort in our mission. Walking up and down the stairs at church is about all there was today. I guess I am just getting old or something.