Mary relaxing after hiking in the mountains with the Kanes to see the water project. A fisherman an Anyer beach. They perch on rocks, wade out on reefs, and surf fish. As I watched the surf fisherman, I could not help but think of mom and Dona with their poles standing in the water fishing the surf. I imagine there is a picture somewhere of the two of them. I will have to look when we get home.

24 July 2007 – Tuesday

Happy Birthday to Mary.  I gave her the necklace I bought a couple of weeks ago. After I gave it to her she confessed that she saw me go back to get it…well my intention was to surprise her. We had a nice call from Jim and Kristy wishing her a happy birthday. Jim has accepted a new job with Sears which sounds good and is in a growing department of the company. He gave us a good idea about our mission experience – we will see what we can do with it. Cindy had sent a e-mail card the night before.

We read from Kitab Mormon and managed about 4 pages – it is rather fun to be able to read 90- 95% of it without too much guessing or looking up words. We still make translation errors but that is OK – we certainly come close enough to know what is going on.

We went to the office and while Mary put in names of workshop attendees, I sent lots of e-mails out to try and get some resources and ideas for good careers. My hope is that by the time we leave, we will have a list of careers and schools that will help the young people make good choices about what they want to do the rest of their lives and the schools to go to if they want to be able to find a job once they graduate.

Since it was Mary’s birthday I took her to KFC for lunch. Not what you might call an elegant lunch but it was better than her making sandwiches or eating off the street. The Petersons are going to take us to dinner tomorrow night for her birthday. We wrapped things up at about 1 and we took Mary back to the apartment to wait for the cleaning ladies to come while Sam and I made a home teaching visit. This requires a 90 minute drive each way but the Salim and his son are always happy to see us. Johan Salim is the young man who I tried to make sure had a couple of good job opportunities when he came back from BYUH. He told me that he had a good interview with president Gjarot’s company and he is hoping to get an offer. If not he will start training for another job that I do not think uses his talents.

The father has a small business making a couple of parts for what I believe is a motorcycle company. He has this business for over 10 years and it has allowed him to raise his family in a decent house, give his children good educations, and I think provide some security for his future. If he did not have this business, he would – because of his age – probably be unemployed. The drive back actually took less time then going. I thought we would catch the home bound traffic but we must have been just in front of it.

When I got to the apartment I found that our regular young lady was sick so the agency sent 2 others to do the cleaning. I convinced Mary to go get her hair done while I stayed and supervised the cleaning. Actually since neither of them spoke enough English to even come close to being about to communicate, all I basically did was to pay them when they were done. Mary’s hair looks really good – she is wearing it very short so it is easy to take care of.

We had hot-dogs for dinner and then read about 3 ½ pages from the Kitab Mormon.

Sister Marchant asked me for some motorcycle load pictures that I had shown her on our camera yesterday and so I did. Later I talked to her and she thanked me for the pictures and said she had already forwarded them to her children. I mentioned I had a number more of them and asked if she would like them. So tonight I sent her five more. I realized that I really have not taken all that many pictures of motorcycle loads – they have to be rather spectacular before they are worth taking. Sometimes we see a good one but by the time I get out the camera it is long gone.

Diversion Day -Barat Zone, I want to have a house on that point – right now it is a restaurant, the Sisters had fun.

A toss and turn night – they seem to come in spurts – but I always went back to sleep. No one was on Skype – no one has been on for a number of days – also no Sunday letters from the grandchildren. But that is OK – we got a letter from Lynn Wardle letting us know about some of the things going on in the ward. He also mentioned that Brian borrowed his lawnmower – I guess ours is not working. I will have to ask Bob or Mike to take a look and see if cleaning out the sparkplug will fix that. Usually that is all it takes.

Today was diversion day for the Barat Zone and we certainly diverted from our regular missionary regime. Although Monday is our regular P-Day, we usually spend at least part of it doing something related to our call. But today we just relaxed as a zone and went to the beach all day.

We met at the mission home. We got there early and so we had some time to sit in the Peterson’s home and watch part of the Pioneer Day Celebration program from Saturday. BYUTV is the only English speaking program they can get on their TV.

When we loaded the bus, the elders sat in the back, the couples in the middle and the sisters in the front. Segregated seating was required according to mission rules. I was not surprised when President and Sister Marchant joined the outing – they are very much hands on and it was a very good way for him to become closer to a large group of his missionaries. They had come in from Surabaya late last night and did not get home until after midnight but they did not appear to be tired.

During the trip to and from the beach we had a great chance to talk to them about the mission, everyone’s history, and other things. It is one of the blessings of our calling that we get to see and talk to the mission president so much.

As you can see from the pictures the beach is long, white and clean. And since it is weekday, there is hardly anyone on it except fishermen, salesmen and us. The couples – except Mary who does not walk well in the sand – took a nice long walk down to the point. There was enough breeze to make it very enjoyable. And the rest of the day went the same. Mary had a great time gathering seashell by the seashore. One last picture of the whole zone and we left for home.

I thought everyone would sleep on the way back, but most stayed awake and talked. Elder Kane and got another chance to talk to the President – he and his wife are going to be wonderful leaders for the next 3 years. It is hard to believe they have only been here 3 weeks. It seems like they have been here forever.

By the time we got home, neither of us were interested in much except to grab something to eat – mine was bread and peanut butter – relax a little and head for bed. I read some from the Kitab Mormon but could not really concentrate. The day of sun and walking I think caught up with me.