Moving the transmitter to our office so hopefully we will have good internet connection. Mary really likes this arrangement.

02 August 2007 – Thursday

The alarm got me going this morning and so I did a few laps around the track. I forgot to take out any words to learn so all I accomplished was to work off a few calories and sweat a lot. Tomorrow I will do vocabulary. Normal morning – studied some Indonesian and read from the Kitab Mormon. I happen to notice that a bridge had collapsed in Minneapolis and so we turned on the TV to see what was going on. Also plugged into WCCO radio and kept up with the news. It is amazing that more people were not killed.

Since we did not get any new names from any of the branch presidencies, we went into the office and worked on different things until it was time to head for Tangerang and English class. When we first got in the internet was not working and neither was the phone. I was thinking that it was the Lord way of telling us to go home. But the internet came back so we worked on e-mail and other things. Mainly we are starting to develop an Area Book.

Not too long after we were there a crew came in and started to move the wireless contact point to our office so we can get as good a signal as we possibly can. Hopefully it will get done by tomorrow and the phone will be turned back on. At least we can get incoming calls. No one came in or called about employment but the Bennetts say that Sam, their driver, would be interested in the job in Semarang. So I wrote to Mr Woo and told him I thought I had a good candidate for his job. I also found the Rotary Clubs in Semarang for the Bennetts.

Before going to our district meeting, we stopped by the new office supply store and got a few things. It seems that 3×5 cards do not exist in Indonesia. I am not sure why not, but I guess they never had a need for them. What’s more, it is not easy to find cardstock of that weight to make our own cards. But we did get everything else we needed.

Then we went to the BreadTalk and picked up a few things. The most popular item seems to be a roll about the 2/3 the size of the rolls that we use for hot roast beef sandwiches that has cheese melted on the top. They go like crazy here.

The district meeting went well. There is a new bulai elder here – Elder Tuxworth from Australia. He and elder Wiryanto served together in Solo back in May. Elder Hadi Suyatmo and elder Smith have a progressive investigator and another man who is golden but has not yet been to church because of his business. Elder Wiryanto gave a very spiritual lesson on sharing the scriptures while teaching. He mentioned that he had not read the Book of Mormon until he received his call and then he read it through once before he started his mission. Everyone shared something about using the scriptures.

Our English class basically was Agus and Catherin’s family and one other person. I mean to ask president Paul why his daughter does not come. My class went really well – I think we covered a lot of things and Catherin said that the things I have taught helped her son pass his test. All the family is really sharp and it is a joy to have them in class. Elder Tuxworth is funny. I found out that he served for 3 years in the army before putting in his papers for a mission.

We did not read from the Kitab Mormon in the evening. I did read a little from the D&C in Indonesian but I was in bed and asleep before 9. It was a good day – going to district meeting and sharing the spirit of the elders is one of the best parts of the mission. They have very little success in bringing people to the waters of baptism, but they do not seem to be discouraged. We talked a little about how as missionaries we only need to judge ourselves against our own abilities and not what others do.