Our young guest who I entertained while Mary help his mother. The Petersons and the Tobings – the twin older sons are in Australia getting Master Degrees. The oldest son at home wants to go to school in America – we suggested BYU.

14 August 2007 – Tuesday

Exercise – two others came out about the time I was going in. This is the first people I have seen since I started walking again. Unfortunately neither were my friend Bob who I need to find. For some reason I was quite tired and ended up falling back to sleep later in the morning. We only read for about 45 minutes – we could not seem to get started. I guess it was just a tired morning.

We went into the office and spent much of the first two hours reading from the Kitab Mormon and watching Hendra move a wireless broadcast unit into our office. When he was done we had a great connection but it is still way to slow. Especially if we are trying to get to the US. It is even worse for the Family History Center – they are dependent on the records in SL and they are taking forever to download.

Sam got me lunch off the street. It was good but Mary’s tuna sandwich also smelled good. After lunch a sister came in and asked us to help design a price list/order form for her small business. Mary did all the work and I played with her young son. She could get a job sewing but she can not take her 4 year old son. She has no family in Jakarta and so there is no one to take care of the child. I had a great time working on some e-mail and playing with him. All children are the same – they like to play peek-a-bo.

After we had helped the sister, we came back to the apartment to wait for the air-conditioning repair folks. It took them about an hour to find the problem – a damaged fan motor – and fix it. Cost $40 – which I actually thought was high compared to their usual service. But still way below what it would have cost in the U.S. It is nice to have the quiet back and it also gave me a chance to clean the deck and re-arrange my garden.

Sam took us to the mission office and the Petersons. We had a nice talk with them about getting ready to leave the mission. They are going to be so busy the last few days that they will have little time to be trunky. They are a truly delightful and lovely couple.

We got stuck in traffic – no surprise there – but still made it to the Tobing house right at 7:00. They are a family of seven – mom, dad, four sons and a daughter. The mother and father converted in Fresno, California while he was going to school but became in-active so none of their children are members. They live in a wonderful California inspired home, speak almost perfect English – in fact the children do not speak much Indonesian – and go to an British International school.

The father seems to have a desire to know more about the Church and is reading the Book of Mormon. After Elder Peterson gave a nice lesson on the 12 tribes of Israel and how the ‘other sheep’ were those who came to America, brother Tobing asked Elder Peterson to give him a blessing. I got to take part and there was a strong spirit there. Elder Peterson had said that he thought brother Tobing would be a great leader in the Church and I am sure that he would be. Hopefully he will feel the spirit and desire to become active and his children will become members. Since the Petersons will be gone, I made an appointment to bring the new couple and home teach them in September. I wish we could be their regular home teachers but I am sure the new couple will do a wonderful job. Perhaps that is one of the reasons the Lord is sending them here at this time.

By the time we dropped off the Petersons and got home, it was almost 10 and we both headed straight to bed.

 

Elders Rigby and Erickson – Our latest lobby floral arrangement.

13 August 2007 – Monday

I woke at 3:00 and could not go back to sleep but I managed to doze until 5:00. I decided that I really needed to get up and exercise if I ever hope to lose some weight. Once I get going it is not hard to continue – I am still not really stretching myself at running. I worked on my vocabulary. I am not sure it is doing any good but I am making the effort which is what counts. I may not ‘obey exactly’ but I am giving it a good shot.

Other activities for the morning included reading from the A&P for personal study and the Kitab Mormon with Mary for companion study. Since we are out of Isaiah we were able to read almost 4 pages. Between us we know almost all the words – Mary still knows more than I but I do contribute a needed word now and then. Our problem is still getting the right person doing the right thing at the right time. Most of the time it is right there in front of us but we skip over the word that would make it clear for us. As I wrote that I remembered that the part we read today included a comment by Nephi that he was writing ‘clearly’ so the reader would not ‘make a mistake.’ I guess he should have also warned us to read carefully – ‘menyelidiki.’

We went into the office and it was not long until a non-member young woman showed up with her member brother, looking for work. As I talked to her I found out that an agent for obtaining work abroad had her passport and would not give it back until she paid $100. I told her that she should never give up her passport and that I knew someone in the American Embassy that might be able to help her. We also tried to register her on Jobsdb but two attempts failed. We will try again later. If I can get her back her passport she can once again go to Taiwan and work for about $500 a month.

Her brother came in about a month ago and we registered him with Jobsdb. I told him to send in 10 resumes a day but I find that he says it is too hard. He has been trying to work as a job printer but is having little success. My guess is that he does not put much effort into it – it is probably too hard.

I had an interesting discussion with Sister Yoshie who volunteers in the Family History Library and also owns a successful business. We talked about hiring members and their attitude. They think that because they are members and their employer is a member that they should be able to take off when they feel like it, come in late, and not work too hard. I told her that seemed to be one of the problems with Indonesian workers in general. They tend to be less productive than other Asian countries.

After office hours we went to SoGo to get some things for tonight’s dinner and some goodies from BreadTalk. Then we had to hurry home because we thought our cleaning lady was coming. She never came so we ended up doing a semi-good cleaning so the place looks OK.

I saw that the Christensens were in their office so I sent them a Skype chat and we had a nice conversation. We are going to try it again tomorrow and have another couple join us. I think we need to get all of us together once in a while and share good ideas and solutions to common problems. I have been suggesting that we have some place to share idea since we got here and I guess that at least something like it may start happening. I am going to suggest we have a regular time each week to meet and whoever wants to join in can do so. If we keep it to about an hour it should not be a burden for anyone.

Mary spent much of the afternoon getting dinner ready while I cleaned up the apartment. We thought that the cleaning lady would come but she didn’t. I think we have confused her by changing the days so often. I think she expects to come on Thursday. I like tile floors but I am not a fan of white tile floors – they show everything. I think a pattern like the one in our kitchen at home would be great here.

The Guttormsen arrived about 45 minutes late, but the food held up OK. We had a delightful dinner, talked a lot about our English students – especially Vita. They told about a Vietnamese young woman who they sponsored to go to BYU Hawaii – it cost about $1000 a year. They are hoping she falls in love and marries. We introduced them to Category Five. By the time they left and we cleaned up all the dishes, it was time for bed. I did take the time to study from the A&P.