Daily Archives: June 16, 2007

15 June 2007

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15 June 2007 – Friday

Well two weeks of our Intensive English Class are done and for some of our students the class is over half finished. The next week is crucial in their learning. Hopefully we can inspire them to greater effort and learning. It mainly depends on their desire and the ability to draw on the spirit.

I woke a little early this morning but that was a good thing. As I lay pondering about things, I felt the need to return to studying from the D&C. I have ignored it for over two weeks – this means for two weeks I have been without the blessings that I would have obtained if I had been reading. I hope that all our children and grandchildren are doing better than I have been about reading each day from the scriptures. Not that we do not read the Kitab Mormon but I had been prompted to read the D&C and have failed to do that.

Today I read carefully D&C 18 and 19. What great thoughts are in these two revelations given 10 months apart. In 18 I read about the worth of souls in the sight of God which is of course important to everyone – everyone should surely be ‘a missionary’ at all times – but especially to those of us who are serving missions. But today I also read in verse 8 ‘Marvel not that I have called him unto mine own purpose, which purpose is known in me.’ I thought how when I called people ‘by the spirit’ they could function in callings they did not seem to have any talent for. I also thought of my own callings and especially this one as a missionary. How when I really do my best and seek the Lord in council that he has inspired me to know His purpose and how to achieve it through the spirit and hard work. If we do this, as it says in verse 45 – ‘wherefore the blessings which I give unto you are above all things.’ Great is the worth of souls…including our own.

19 is written to Martin Harris and mainly to sacrifice part of his farm and his life to the work. Sometimes we forget that Martin gave so much to the service of the Lord because he stays in Missouri in 1838 and does not come back to the Church until they are established in Utah. The two things that struck me were in verse 23 – ‘Learn of me…and ye shall have peace in me.’ What a great blessing is promised and verses 36 to 40 hit home this morning. Martin is told to leave his home – returning only when he needed to see his family, speak freely, and pray always so the Lord could ‘pour out my spirit upon you. Like all missionaries he was called to preach the Gospel with all his ‘might, mind and strength.’ And then in 39 he reads ‘Behold! Can’st thou read this without rejoicing?’

I got a letter and a Father’s day card from Brian today. He says that he will not be around on Father’s day so he was sending it early. In the letter he wrote that he had read about the problem with dengue fever and warned us to wear our bugs pray…we haven’t been but they fog for mosquitoes around here. There have been some missionaries who have come down with it – one almost waited too long before going to the hospital.

We read over 2 ½ pages from Kitab Mormon – nothing that inspired me but we are doing pretty well in translating – far from perfect and we still are not remembering words we should but overall I think we are improving.

It has been an interesting morning – it is now 12:40 – at the chapel. After we had opened the office and some of the students came, I had Sam drive me to the mission office to give Lukito – who was picking up the things he needed for the SEW in Solo tomorrow. He will give an English book to Elder and Sister Roberts. As usual the traffic was terrible – especially since we could not use the streets where you must have three in your car.

Hendra asked me where was the old case for the computer and I had to tell him I had no idea. I told him that I had looked everywhere and could not find it. He listened carefully and then said ‘we need it.’ So I will look everywhere one more time but I do not expect to find it.

From there we went to market that has real hotdog buns – they had a total of 4! I think the next time I go I will ask them to get 8 for me. But if we can not find Oscar Myer franks it does not matter. The next time they show up at SoGo we will buy 5 or 6 packages. After we got back I sat at the computer and wrote down some ideas about how to teach the rest of this class and the next one. I want to be much more structured, include more vocabulary, and do more reviewing so the lessons are deeply engraved in the students mind.

The big excitement of the morning was that the girl’s apartment got flooded. A pipe broke – I think Anna helped it break but I can not be sure. However it happened it meant they were not able to come to class until the plumber came and fixed the pipe and they cleaned up the flood. We stopped by their apartment on the way home from the mission home and store so we could give them a ride to the chapel. They ended up being about 90 minutes late.

Sister Mary – not my Mary but the lovely Indonesia sister from Tangerang 2 that was our third judge in the English reading contest – taught this morning. She has some good ideas on teaching and gets everyone involved. I do not think it is the best way to teach all the classes but once a week is perfect. She has a book for learning vocabulary that seems very good and is part of a series that if fully used would allow the students to master some 2000 words. I wrote the publisher an e-mail with the hope that there is someway that I could get a set at a reasonable shipping price. But just now I thought about asking one of the sisters who are in the US to pick up a set and bring them back with them.

I had a nice talk with Vita about how well she is doing. The young lady almost bubbles over with a desire to learn and she had the mind to do it. It told her she needed to continue to learn and then use that knowledge to get an education. She would be a great person to get into the hotel business. The least she should do with it to teach others English…especially her brothers. I am going to make sure that the Roberts and Barnards use her in their classes.

The Peterson’s taught the afternoon class, but we did not leave because Mary thought she was teaching a class at the University. Sam had called Rita and confirmed that there would be one. However when they got there – I stayed at the office and prepared lessons for tomorrow – they found that there was no classes at all. When she told me that I suggested we tell the university that we would come only if they called and told us there would be a class and some students. In some ways I am glad to not to have to worry about that class – it was at an inconvenient time.

Sam then brought us home where I promptly took a two hour nap. After the nap we fixed hamburgers for dinner. They were good but not great because we did not have any Worcestershire  Sauce for seasoning. We also baked some frozen French fries that were OK but not great. At least it was something different for dinner. After dinner we read from Kitab Mormon and then watched ‘Miss Potter’ with Renee Zellweger. It was quite good and informative as it was based on the life of Beatrix Potter, the creator of the Peter Rabbit tales.

I read from the D&C before turning off the light and going instantly to sleep. At least that is how I remember it.