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.