A traditional instrument – beautiful sounds. The horned owl and a shot of one of the aisles at the bird market in Jogja

09 August 2007 – Thursday

It was good to get back to doing our calling all day.

We must have slept very soundly last night because we did not feel a major earthquake that happened about midnight here. The first thing we knew about it was when we got e-mails from Brian and Tom, quickly followed by a Skype call from Jim asking if we were OK. When Jim asked about the earthquake we knew nothing about it. We checked the newspapers and TV but there was nothing there. Later news from our friends the Kanes up in Bogor said that they woke at 12:08 to house that shook and trembled for over a minute. I guess all of our years in So. Cal. made us insensitive toWe went into the mission office and Elder Subandriyo asked Mary to teach his staff twice a week – Tuesday and Thursday from 1-2. I talked to president Marchant and he said that they would be gone when the senior couple came in on the 22nd and asked us to take care of picking them up and taking care of them until he got back. Since that is the Davises who we have started an e-mail correspondence with, it should be good. We will get to meet the Taylors after they come here on the 15th. I talked to Ari about Bandung and a driver for the Davises. The president mentioned that we already had a house there – one where the sisters live when there are some in Bandung. I do not think the Davises will want to live there but we will look at it with the Davises.

The 13 new elders are all at the mission office and they are in the middle of their orientation. I looked in and saw Elder Roper – he is going to be one of the office elders – and he saw me and waved. He looks great so I guess there is no problems with his hernia. We also visited with the Petersons for a while. Mary wanted to get some information about the staff English classes. Later as Mary and I talked about we discussed breaking the class into two parts so the ones who already have excellent English will not be held back and those who do not have very good English will not be in over their heads.

We then went to the mall to get groceries and BreadTalk. We did not go to our usual mall because I suggested BurgerKing for lunch. I would have eaten at BYU, but Mary would not have been happy so I figured I could eat off the street tomorrow and treat her and Sam to hamburgers today.

In the afternoon we went to district meeting and shared in a lesson on the purpose of our mission. It included reading from D&C 4. As Elder Smith was reading verse 4, I happened to read the 2nd verse. Although we read it almost every week, I am not sure I have actually thought about what it says. It says that once you decide to become a missionary, you need to do it diligently “so you can stand blameless before God in the last days.” I pointed out that means if we do not do our best during our mission we will not be able to do that. It is rather like the couple in the New Testament who decided to hold back part of the money that they got for their home. Once we commit we need to be fully committed to the work.

We had a good turnout for English class. Mainly because they have Seminary in the evening and it ends at 6:00 so most of the students can come to our classes. The only ones I have in my class are Agus and Catherin’s family – but they are great so we get a lot done. I continue to work on prepositions and numbers.

The trip home seemed longer than it actually was. I think I was just tired and there were enough brief traffic jams to make it seem like a long time. All in all it was a good day.