30 June 2007 – Saturday

No more English class – what will we do with our days?

Woke at the regular time but it felt like it was much earlier. I really wanted to go back to sleep but it was no use. So instead I got up and posted my journal and some pictures.  As I was reading in the D&C I got to the section – 134 I think but I am too lazy to get up and look – about the relationship between government and the church. I was struck at how powerful the thoughts were and how strong a country would be that had the type of government that was outlined there. They could certainly use it here in Indonesia.

We read 3 pages from the Kitab Mormon, but the last 3/4 of a page caused us lots of problems. When we read the passage from the Book of Mormon we understood why. It did not make a lot of sense there either. It reasonable that that something that was written in whatever language the original plates were written in, and then abridged into whatever language Mormon used, and then translated into early 19th century English and then translated into Indonesian – might lose something in translation.

We had a busy morning and a very quiet afternoon and evening. Sam picked us up at 9 – it was good to have him back – and took us to the office. We worked on cleaning up the piles of paper that we accumulated over the last 30 days. Mainly things we used in our lessons. While Mary worked on that I spent most of my time making review sentences for the vocabulary lessons.

As we worked people started to arrive for the big missionary reunion-goodbye party for the Jensens. The Kanes arrived and they had the books we asked for. They are really nice and I think the couples will find them useful in teaching English. I gave him Steve’s book and asked him to have 10 copies made so that I can give them to different people. I am going to have it translated into Indonesian so the District specialists can share the information with those who have or are thinking of opening a small business.

They had a nice – if a little long – program featuring Indonesian saints that gave tribute and then a video production that alternated between leaders he worked with here and his family back home. Since much of it was in Indonesian – which I could not follow – and the rest in English – which most of the Indonesians could not follow, some parts of the audience were always in the dark.

After the program there was food and talking. We told the Jensen’s goodbye for what may have been the last time and had Sam drive us home. The rest of the day and night was spent napping, eating, and watching some TV. A visit to Cindy’s blog turned up an interesting post that led to another blog that told about an experience that Tyler had at ALA involving famous authors.

At 8 we read from the Kitab Mormon for an hour – we hit Jesus quoting Isaiah and as usual this slowed us way down. Great may be the words of Isaiah but they are darn hard to translate into Indonesian and then back into English. After that it was time to head for bed and some of the D&C before turning off the lights.