02 July 2007

Hello Everyone – Greetings from Indonesia

We have just finished our Pilot Intensive English Class which was held during the month of June. Our students were six returned missionaries and one 16 year old Korean girl from the English branch here in Jakarta. They entrusted their lives and well-being to us for one month and we hope that it has been a worthwhile endeavor for them.

Our students arrived on May 31 and moved into rooms which our driver, Sam, found for them within a 15-20 minutes walking distance from the Church. The rent for these rooms was paid for by a fund set up under Elder Subandriyo’s control which is for the benefit of returned missionaries. They were given 15,000 rupiahs per day – that is equal to about $1.75 – to pay for their food (also from this fund).

We started our classes promptly at 9:00 a.m. on June 1. The regular class schedule was 9-12, 2-5, and 6-8:30 every day. The students had Thursday afternoon and evening off to do laundry, etc. We started off by giving them a test which is a practice TOEFL test. (Teaching Of English as a Foreign Language) This test is a standard test which is given worldwide to test students readiness for admission to English speaking universities. This gave us some idea of where their abilities were and what we needed to teach them.

During the four weeks the students had homework most nights, focusing on reading from newspapers, church magazines, and short stories and then giving oral reports on them the next day in class. We also had grammar books which they could work in at their own pace, vocabulary lists which we worked on in class together, and reading comprehension activities and tests. The students were encouraged to keep a journal (in English) every day. They also reported each day on how much English or Indonesian they spoke each day both in class and out of class.

We were assisted in the teaching of these classes by Joel and Judy Guttormsen, Elder and Sister Peterson, Brother and Sister Moore, and Sister Mary from Tangerang. The Page and Willis families and Branch President Smith from the English Branch hosted the students several times for Family Home Evening and for dinner and activities in their homes. Brother Guttormsen was especially helpful having them over in the evenings three nights a week, teaching them through activities and games. Without this help we would have been basket-cases by the end of the month.

Two of our students were Anna and Vita, two young women from Yogyakarta. Anna’s family joined the church in 1984 after her father met Yusman Tandiman on the street in Yogyakarta. Anna’s most recent job has been working in a travel agency. Vita was our most outstanding student. She says that she wasted most of her high school years because her father told her that they had no money to send her to college so she did not bother to try to get good grades. She was like a sponge sopping up knowledge and we feel that she could do very well in college.

Eko is a young man who just last month was released as a missionary. Before he served his mission he finished his schooling as a veterinarian, but now finds that there are few jobs available in that field. We will need to work with him encouraging him to be creative in his looking. At times he seemed like his English was very poor, but them he would surprise me with great understanding. I feel that with just a little more work he could make great improvement.

Agus is from Semarang. He is a driver for Elder and Sister Bennett there and they gave him the whole month off to attend our class. He also is married and has an eight-month old daughter who learned to crawl while he was away taking our class. The Bennetts report that his confidence has gone way up and he is eager to share what he has learned.

Toni Mongan is from Bogor, which is just an hour away from Jakarta. At first Toni was not putting very much effort into the class, but after Elder Pier talked to him he was able to change his attitude and worked much harder.

Jin-young is our Korean girl. She wanted to take the class because after being in the English branch for two years, she still could not understand the lessons given each Sunday and wanted help preparing herself to take her graduation tests next year. She hopes to be able to attend BYU Hawaii. Jin-young was really out of her element at first. This was the first time she had been away from home and it really was a culture shock for her–living in a room with no hot water, sleeping on a sleeping pad on the floor, only being able to afford Indonesian Food, and being away from her family. At first she complained a lot (not to us) but she stuck it out and when her mother cried and wanted her to return home she refused and stayed the whole time. Her mother became very popular with the other students because after the first week she brought lunch to them twice a week–home cooked!

Jin-young was one of the students who showed the most progress. At first when she made a presentation it was almost impossible to hear her, she talked so softly. By the end of the four weeks she had gained great confidence and spoke quite well. Jin-young plays the piano and she accepted the assignment to choose our Opening Hymn for each morning and play the piano for us to sing. This was a great help.

The last student was Sam, our driver. Sam did not quite get the full benefit of the class because we frequently had to pull him out of class to interpret for us with someone who came into our office, to run errands for the class, or to drive us home when someone else was teaching the class. But he also made progress and we will continue to work with him in the coming weeks.

During the four weeks we spent lots of time on basic grammar–especially verb tenses, which are not used in Indonesian, vocabulary, reading skills, pronunciation, oral reports, and ONLY SPEAKING ENGLISH. The students read lots of newspaper articles, short stories and church magazine articles.

We tested the students each week on their reading skills and each week their scores went up, but the most improvement was seen in their confidence levels as they used their English skills. The reports we got back from others as they returned to their homes were very encouraging.

We will try to have another class like this again in October. We have learned a lot and will make some changes in how we approach the class, but the basic format will remain the same. This time I think we will be able to plan ahead a little farther and give better assignments to our assistants. There was a lot of trial and error in this class. (Mostly trial, very little error.) I feel however, that the most important element is just getting them to speak English all the time. They all have studied English in high school but had never had a need to use it regularly, so they had not progressed a lot.

Let me just say here that this is not what I thought I was coming to Indonesia for. I felt that it was important to learn to speak Indonesian because I did not want to be the ugly American who insists that everyone speak his language and do things his way. Well, I am still learning Indonesian, but every employer we talk to stresses the need for their employees to be able to speak English. To get good jobs they really need to be able to speak good English. It can make a real difference in their lives. We talked to the head of a school in Bogor who trains students for jobs in the textile industry. They learn both production and marketing. Their first three months at the school are spent learning English before they learn anything about the textile industry! And this is a school run by Germans!

So here we are, teaching English.

We miss all of you and love to hear from you. Any advice you have on teaching English would be greatly appreciated. We are definitely not trained teachers, but managed to muddle through this month without doing too much damage to our students. We really enjoyed it, but we sure came home tired every night. We are thankful we are here and we know it is where we should be right now. I’m sorry for the length of this letter, but I had a lot to say. You may have to read it one paragraph a day!

Enjoy the Fourth of July and light a sparkler for us! Love, Elder and Sister Pier

Another of the beautiful floral displays we get to see each morning in our lobby – taken this morning. This picture shows that I actually did some teaching for the English class.
2 July 2007 – Senin

Today is a big day for the Jakarta, Indonesia mission. President and sister Marchant will be arriving in about 5 hours to take over from the Jensens. Sister Jensen mentioned that they would be sleeping in the guest room tonight while the Marchants slept in ‘their’ – that is the Jensen’s – bed.

I woke myself up at about 2 a.m. to escape from some dream I was having. I really need to stop doing that. When I found that I was not going to go back to sleep I studied Indonesian by reading from President Hinckley’s talk. (As I was writing this I realized I had written President Kimball in my entry for yesterday and so I quickly edited the blog post.) It really was not much easier the second time through but I figure if I keep at it long enough the words may sink into my head.

I finally got back to sleep and managed to stay asleep until almost 7. I got up and really felt good. I felt so good that I washed all the dishes that have accumulated over the last few days – we are not good about washing dishes each day. After breakfast we read from the Kitab Mormon – three plus pages. I managed to even contribute a new word to the translation – kenyang means to be full of food. Penuh means to be full of anything else – such as penuhi Roh Kudus or filled with the Holy Ghost.

We did not get any calls from our children today. We are always disappointed when at least one of them is not available to talk to. I guess they are all busy on Sunday evening doing church work. We can not fault them for that but it still would be nice to hear from some of them more often. (I wrote the above in the morning before we left for the day and am happy to say that it was proved incorrect. We had nice letters from Tom and Shauna.  Yeah!)

We went to visit the Jakarta Raya elders’ house. I called them to tell them we were coming so they had time to get everything cleaned up. They had done a great job and so other than patting them on the back and asking if there was anything they needed it was an easy visit.

Our next stop was the mission office to drop off our request for reimbursement for expenses, to say goodbye for the last time to the Jensens, to tell the brother in charge of buildings about the need for a larger water pump at the elder’s house, to get new branch lists so we can start visiting less actives, and to have lunch from BYU. While we were there I talked to Elder Subandriyo about the next English class – he says we should open it to young people who are not returned missionaries. We are all for this – I think once we get going we can do it with only a month between classes. I am going to suggest that they call two couples from the English branch to be in charge but part of me does not want to give up the class for a while.

After lunch – yum – we headed off to buy some yarn for Mary so she can finish her Afgan. The area was packed – it is the traditional mall that I showed in a picture a couple of months ago – and hot. I was really glad to get out of there. On the way out I stopped and bought a large plastic pot so I can re-pot one of my plants. While I was doing that Mary moved a short ways away and I did not notice. So Sam and I left her behind and it took a while to realize this and then find her. I do not think she was very happy with me, but I really did think she was right behind me all the time.

Our last stop was a small mall where we bought a new phone to replace the one I broke in the office. We got a good Panasonic speaker phone – it turns out we have the only one in the district so everyone uses it any time they need to have a conference call. Luckily this is not very often. We tried to get a cordless phone for the apartment but they only had really cheap ones so we will get one at Carrefore the next time we are there.

The trip home was fairly quick and painless. I tried to study my Indonesian flashcards while in the car but it does not work well. Besides my mind does not seem to be working very well today and so nothing stuck. The same problem persisted once we got home. When we got home Sam changed out the water bottle and then the three of us changed a couple of light bulbs – really. We had no ladder so we had to use the dining room pedestal table. So while Sam stood on the table, Mary and I had to support opposite edges so it would tip or break. So you see it takes three missionaries to change a light bulb.

We have spent the time since then writing letters and reports to a variety of people. I also did some studying in Indonesian. As mentioned above it was not greatly successful. But I will keep praying for Kerunia Lidah – the gift of tongues – and doing what I can to improve.

One of the thing we could not judge was how much they improved. We were so close to them that it was hard to see any change from day to day. To get an outsiders opinion we asked the Bennetts to tell us if they saw or felt any change in their driver Agus. They sent back this letter, which I think answers a lot of our questions.

Good morning Piers,
Boy was it good to see Agus yesterday at church and how thankful we are to have him back. Sam didn’t wake up yesterday morning, so 15 min before church was suppose to start, he called and said he just woke up. I said, the Elder Bennett would have to drive, so off we went. Elder Bennett did very well and we even made it before Sac. started. (They were a little late, but usually start right on time.) Everyone just smiled when they saw us hug Agus! As we were sitting there trying to understand what they were saying, Agus came up and sat behind us and did a wonderful job of translating for us. He has never translated for us in church and usually gets very confused. He had such confidence. Then I bore my testimony and he did the translating for me and did very well. I always go into his Primary class and have encouraged him to use some English words, but yesterday, after each key word he wrote, he wrote the English word after it.  It was a wonderful lesson on the things they have to do to get ready for a mission. We made them little nametags just like ours and they all looked so cute leaving the class with their missionary name tags on. He came this AM all excited with all his books and things to show Sam so we can use some of the things in our weekly classes. Yesterday in RS the teacher (counselor) giving the lesson did the same as Agus with writing the main word in Indonesian and then English. They are all so excited to learn English and we are so thankful for your efforts with Agus. We will continue to help him daily.

We did not think about how the class might increase their confidence in their abilities. We think that the experience of talking in the English branch and having so many experiences with different teachers really helped them feel like they can participate and help. Since three of the students came from Central Java, hopefully they will help the leaders there learn English. Central Java is where the first stake in Indonesia will be formed and the leaders need to learn English so they can communicate with Hong Kong and Church Headquarters.

Our evening included fixing steamed veggies for dinner and reading from the Kitab Mormon. Mary spent time doing cross stitching – she is doing something with monkeys. I figure that is why she watched part of a documentary on ‘Gorillas in the Midst.’ Before heading for bed we watched ‘Without a Trace.’

Although we did little in the way of missionary work – it was our P-day (I did laundry and two load of dishes – and do not forget helping to change a lightbulb) – I still felt it was a very good and spiritual day. As I studied President Hinckley’s article on the war between good and evil,  worked on my Indonesian, and especially when I read about Agus’s progress in English, I felt that I was doing the Lord’s work.

Dad’s garden – for some reason the bougainvillia is not blooming. That is not quite true – it has one flower. The picture of us and the Van Dongans was taken on June 26 at the mission home. The occasion was the farewell dinner with the Jensen’s.
1 July 2007 – Sunday

I slept in until almost 6 – a rare thing indeed and Mary was already up. I finished reading the D&C and then we read 3 pages from the Kitab Mormon. ‘Great are the words of Isaiah’ – so great that it takes three times as long to read a chapter of his writings than any other chapter. But we did somewhat better this time.

The only thing that was different at Jakarta Raya is that I was asked to give a talk in two weeks on the apostasy and restoration. We continue to hear a little more each week but we are still far from understanding most of the words and almost none of context.

We caught a cab back to the apartment. We took the first nice looking one that came along. It was not a BlueBird but it was a nice cab and got us there quickly for $4 including tip.

The rest of the day just went by. About the only thing worth writing about was that we read from the Kitab Mormon and are now well under 100 pages from the end. We should be finished by the 15th at the latest.

I started to study Indonesian again – that is to read and to learn vocabulary that is not in the Kitab Mormon. I am reading the June message from President Hinckley. I had to kind of chuckle when I came across ‘perang’ so often. It is a very popular word in the Kitab Mormon because it means ‘War’ and that is something that seems to be on every other page. It is not a word that comes up very often in talks by the general authorities of the church and certainly not as often as it is in this talk.

I decided to make flash cards of some of the new words – something I told the students of our English class they should do. As I have mentioned, Mary had been making a list of words we do not know in the Kitab Mormon – it is now up to going on 4 pages and there are about 60 words per page. I am thankful that the Lord is giving me this opportunity to study a new language. Something I never thought I would do again in this life. I feel that it is as much a test of my willingness to ‘obey exactly’ as it is to be able to read, speak and hopefully understand Indonesian. However I am sure that if we can learn to communicate with the people our usefulness to the Lord’s work will greatly increase. So that as the scriptures say, we can ‘be tools in the hands of the Lord.’ Isn’t that a great goal to set for oneself – to in someway help the Lord in His work to bring to pass the Immortality and Eternal Life of His children. And of course while doing this we hopefully receive the same blessing.