Cabbage harvesting above Malang. Instead of putting them in boxes, they just neatly stack them in the truck. The picture of the native woman was taken by Elder Kane – notice the lovely pattern of the skirt. Even the humblest women in the small villages seem to usually wear clean, even if a little worn, lovely skirts.

31 July 2007 – Tuesday

I slept like a log and did not wake until after 6 – this will be the last day for a while that I get to sleep in because I have decided that tomorrow I will set the alarm for 5 so I can get out and exercise before it gets too hot. I spent much of the morning – it passes very quickly – getting the last of my journal on-line and writing some more to Nancy Campbell. Then we read from the Kitab Mormon – a little over 3 pages.

I just had a sad experience. I tried to call a man yesterday about a job but he was not home and they did not give him the message to call me back. I got to him this morning about a driving job but unfortunately it was filled yesterday. I think brother Park – the man who had need of a driver – is sorry he did not wait for me to find him one. Hopefully the next time he will call me immediately if he needs any help.

We had a frustrating day at the office. Since we do much of our work using the internet and e-mail, when we can not get on the net, what we can do is limited. At least what I can do is limited. Today the ‘new and improved’ internet connection would not function in our office. For some reason the wireless connection would not work.

Hendra came down and worked for an hour or so and finally got it to work but within an hour it was gone again. Hopefully they will solve the problem sometime soon but for now it leaves us in limbo. I can not even check to see if anyone has written back to me about meeting the HR directors of their company.

We did have one man come in. He is a member from Zimbabwe and his wife works for the embassy here. He is looking for something to do with his day. Right now he just sits around. We are not sure it is legal for him to work in Indonesia. He may not have the right kind of visa for that. But he said he would be happy to help out. As I was typing this I thought that perhaps we could use him to contact HR directors and set up appointments so Mary and I could go see them. His line of work is in HR training. I think we will talk to him tomorrow about this. Maybe he can help us develop our resources.

While we waited to see if the internet would come back, we read from the Kitab Mormon. We were in the early part of 2 Nephi so the language is pretty easy to read and translate. But Isaiah is coming up. When it was evident that we would not get the internet we packed it up and came home.

I wrote a letter to Bishop Pletsch – we have yet to hear from him. I guess he is very busy with his work and the ward. We also heard from Bob about the rental – hopefully he will be able to solve the problems. We have not heard anything about the house and yard for over a month. I trust if it had burnt to the ground we would have heard about it from someone.

We read in the Kitab Mormon for an hour – 3 plus pages. I checked back to see when we started reading the Kitab Mormon for the first time and was surprised to find that it was on January 1st. Since we finished on July 19th it took us 6 ½ months to get through it the first time. I am thinking that if we keep up our practice of an average of 6 pages per day, the second time should take about 3 ½ months. Which means by the time we leave we could have read the whole Book of Mormon 12 times – 4 times in Indonesian, 4 times in English, and 4 times translating it from Indonesian to English.  We should know it fairly well by then – an added bonus for us to be sure.
Mary suggested we continue this when we get home – we will have to see about that. She is still reading the 1st Harry Potter book in Indonesian.

My bedtime reading is going over some of what we read today. I try to get the words we had to look up set in my mind. It does not work too well but I keep thinking that the more often I read something the better chance there is of it sticking. I have not been reading the D&C out loud like I started to do. I really should get back to doing that and writing down my thoughts. But it seems that I can only do so much reading and pondering of the scriptures before my mind starts to turn to mush and nothing seems meaningful. I think it may be better to limit how much I read but read more carefully and pondering a few things at a time.