Mary with a white tiger cub – about 4 months old. The park is in the deep mountain jungle and this is one of the waterfalls. If we had opened the door, I think the zebra would have come right in.

20 August 2007 – Monday

I woke just before the alarm went off and after a brief struggle with a desire to go back to bed, I got up and did my hour of exercise. I do not think I am losing much weight but I know that I am getting in better shape. Sit-ups are killing me – even though I am doing them only every other day. I guess it is going to take a few weeks to get so I can do enough sets to make a difference.

While cooling down from exercising I read more from Elder Packer’s biography. It is interesting but it does not seem to me to get into the man as the one about Spencer W. Kimball written by his son. It reads more like a gospel tract than a biography of a human being. The best part about it is when he talks about the inter-action between him and other general authorities. I guess what I find is a nice surface but not much depth. I think he is a much deeper and human man than what I find in these pages.

We thought we had a quiet day with only a trip to Taman Safari with the Taylors on the plate. Since they are going to Jogja and may never have another chance to see it, he president approved us taking them. The first thing that went wrong was that they thought we were coming at 9:00 and Mary thought we said 8:30. So we got there too early.

Then as we were waiting for them, we got the news that we were also going to take Sister Marchant and their son Dallin. Our car is not really made for carrying 7 people comfortably but off we went – rather late but going. The day went fine – it was overcast most of the day so it was not too hot. We saw lots of things and our guests were impressed and seemed to enjoy it.

I suggested we stop and eat at before we headed home – we had not eaten all day except for some treats and a couple of bananas that we did not feed to the monkeys and other animals. I called the Kanes and asked if they could join us but they said it would be better if we dropped by afterwards. Just as we were finishing eating, sister Marchant got a call from the president asking when we would get home. It turned out that they had forgotten that they were invited to a FHE with Hendra’s family and they were suppose to leave at 6:00. So I had to call the Kanes and tell them we could not come by but had to hurry back to Jakarta. We made it by 7:00 which was pretty good considering.

Earlier in the day Mary had been asked to play at the funeral for sister Subandriyo for the choir and they were going to practice at 7:30. Sam and Mary dropped me off at the apartment so I could wash dishes and do some laundry while Sam sang and Mary played. She did not get home until almost 9:30 and said that she volunteered to play all the songs for the funeral.

So while it was not a very productive day, we did get closer to the Taylors, learned more about how they worked with the members in the Philippines, and I got to finish Elder Packer’s book while we drove to Bogor and back. One point that he has always stood behind is that we should not try to fit the gospel into the man’s knowledge but fit man’s knowledge into the gospel. That a teacher should not try to explain the gospel in terms of man’s growing knowledge and philosophy but to fit the new knowledge into the things we know are true. He also made the point that a testimony often can not be articulated in words but only through feeling. As the 50th section of the D&C points out, we are taught and teach by the spirit and when both sides meet each is edified.