Borobudur is a huge Buddhist sanctuary that is thought to have been started to be built around 750 AD and finished somewhere between 50 and 150 years later. The carvings are amazing and tell the story of the way from the life of the flesh to perfection.  It is about 400 feet on a side and stood about 150 feet high.  http://www.borobudur.tv/

10 August 2007 – Friday

I think the alarm wants to make sure I wake up. Once again I had trouble finding the switch to turn it off. I tried hard to silence it before it wakes up Mary but I do not seem to able to do that. My morning exercise went well and it seems I am finally starting to remember the vocabulary words. Hopefully it will help. We read from the Kitab Mormon – a humbling experience to say the least. I continue to read from the A&P which is much easier.

As we pulled out of the driveway, I found that I had not brought the keys to the apartment. So we had to turn around – which is not easy in Jakarta because there are not many places to cross from one side to the other. In this case it takes about 10 minutes. Not much happens at the office. I tidy up the e-mail and resumes. I also did some work with prepositions – an area that is so important in learning English.  Sam gets me lunch from the street. Today’s food is not as good as usual – rather limited in variety. Good and filling but not great. Not long after lunch President Marchant calls and invites us to have dinner tonight with them and the 13 new missionaries.

After the office we have time to go back to the apartment for naps and to get ready for dinner. I spend some of my time cataloging and writing captions for all the pictures we took while in Jogja. That is a major task when there are over 300 pictures to go through. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Because of the possibility of bad traffic, we leave early for the mission home. At first it looks like it may be really slow going, but after a while it opens up and we get there in plenty of time. We finally got to say hello to Elder Roper only to find out that he had lost his voice and could hardly be heard. This of course did not stop him from talking – but it did slow him down a little.

It was great to meet all the new missionaries – 12 young men and a sister from Jogja. She is especially impressive with almost perfect English. Sister Tippetts sent us some phrases to use when we met the elders – they were surprised when we used them and wondered how we knew them.

Dinner was Italian and we sat at the table with some of the new missionaries. I enjoyed it more than sitting at the table with the Marchants and Petersons who we get to see all the time. We got to share some thoughts about missionary work, our calls, etc. It was very pleasant. After dinner we had a short testimony meeting – all the new elders and the sister bore their testimony as did sister Marchant. It was a good spiritual experience and we were able to understand most of what was said. Some of the US elders have a pretty good vocabulary and others you can tell are struggling with the language. But they are all strong missionaries and should do well.

It was a very nice way to end another day in the mission.

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.

We were asleep when the earthquake hit and never knew anything about it until we saw the e-mail checking up on us. As far as we can tell from the TV, there was no damage done in the city. It occurred about 60 miles away and deep in the sea bed. We do not know if some of the country closer to the center of the quake was damaged. This is the second earthquake in the last week withing 60 miles of the city. There was a 5.5 quake up in the mountains on Saturday.

Thanks for checking up on us and letting us know there was an earthquake.

 

Only in Indonesia – The man is pushing his cart loaded with a door frame that must have been 7′ x 11′ down a main road in Jakarta. Behind was two more carts with what looked like parts to go with it. There is no telling how far he ended up pushing this load but it did not seem to matter. I liked the load of boxes because they were all shape and sizes. Big loads tend to be rather uniform. The delivery motorcycle is not really unique in size, but the colors are unusual.

04 August 2007 – Saturday

Well it turned out to be a very unusual Saturday for us. But it started normally with me going out and walking the track for about 45 minutes. I could not run because I managed to get a blister on my heel and every time I tried to run it hurt too much. I still managed to work up a nice sweat. Mary had been awake during the night so she got to sleep in a little. We read from the Kitab Mormon and then hurried to get ready to go to the chapel for a service project.

A couple in the US bought 6 pallets of school books and shipped them to Indonesia so they could be distributed to needy schools. They were supposed to be delivered at 8:30 so all the elders and sisters in the district came down to help out. Also a good number of members of the English branch showed up. Of course in usual Indonesian fashion, the books were not even released from customs by 8:30 so Elder Subandriyo had to go down and get things moving.

The books arrived at about 10:00 and we formed a line to get them from the truck, into the church, up the stairs and into the cultural hall. I stood on the stairs between two elders and hustled boxes of books weighing on an average of 40 pounds. I figure there was probably about 240-250 boxes of books. I – and all the elders – were really sweating by the time we were done. I felt pretty good to keep up my part. After all I am about 20 years older than the two elders combined.

The easy part was dividing the books into grades. Once that was done, we had to figure out what to do with them. Elder Subandriyo decided to make them into sets of 10. After a false start, I figured out how to do this best and for the rest of the day, I was the lead person. I headed up the crew that divided up the books into stacks. I had Mary make an inventory sheet – Elder Subandriyo asked for this – so we could put one in each set so people would know what was there. I had some of the elders counting the books in each section and putting post-it notes on the stack. Then when we got to that grade, Mary would make a list of the books in the section and I would decide how many of each book went in each stack – this was not hard since there were 10 stacks but it took a while before the elders caught on. Once the stacks were made, a crew led by president Marchant and elders Kane and Peterson, came along and boxed them up. We got pretty good at doing this and we were basically done by 3:30. I was very, very tired by then but happy to see that things got done in an orderly manner.

After that we went down to the office and Mary entered our figures for the monthly reports. There were only two problems – first I managed to close one of the completed report without saving it so Mary had to re-enter the information. I apologized many times for that. And then I could not get the completed reports sent to Hong Kong because the file is so big. They really should let us send raw data and they can enter it all there. They obviously have a better internet speed than we do.

Then it was time to come home. Mary had selected a good number of books so Sam had to make a couple of trips to get them all in the apartment. Add to that I forgot my book bag so he had to go back to the church for it and I figured that he deserved a bonus. So I gave him 150,000 R – about $15 and made his day.
I was sore and tired – it is a good tired – but did not try to take a nap. Instead I went down and picked up the dry cleaning and got my hair cut. Now I am about to go take a long, hot shower and try to stay awake long enough to read from the Kitab Mormon.

We did our reading from the Kitab Mormon and I continue to try to read the A&P. I found that studying words in the morning while exercising makes the time go more quickly but does not mean that I learn the words. The Indonesian words pretty much stick, but the English meaning seems to scurry away. But I will continue to exercise and learn – some part of my body should benefit.

 

The first picture is my favorite 50 cent lunch – rice, tempe, veggies, potatoes, and crispy soybean crackers. This is pretty much a typical main meal for the average Indonesian worker. The political rallies that tied up the streets today were mainly motorcycle rallies. This family of four are all decked out in their party colors. I took the other picture because he looked like an Indonesian version of the German SS.

03 August 2007 – Friday

Somehow I set my alarm for 4:30 instead of 5 but I was going out the door to exercise before I noticed this. I put about 45 minutes into walking and jogging around the track. I used the time to learn words – or at least to try to increase my vocabulary. I am not sure the words will stick but it does make the time go by faster. I see no one except an occasional security man during this time. I guess everyone comes out later. But it is the coolest time of the day to exercise outside so I will stick to it. Hopefully Bob will show up sometime.

I spent part of the morning catching up this journal and part of it reading from the D&C. Cindy’s blog was a gold mind. After over 2 weeks of nothing, today it was filled with pictures of our yard and all the weeds that they worked on. What a chore to try and weed when they get that high. It is bad enough when I do it regularly and so they are small and not well rooted. My big thanks to Cindy and those who helped.

We read from the Kitab Mormon – confusing are the words of Isaiah. It is not that we do not understand most of the words, it is the combination of them that is so hard to work out. This morning I realized that when we read the Indonesian, we are reading words that were written in old Hebrew, translated to Greek, translated to old English, translated to newer English, and then translated to Indonesian. It is rather amazing that it even exists for us to read. So we move on and enjoy what we can from it.

We went into the office and did some work on different things. I can not say it was very productive for me. Mary got some things done on the Area book. I contacted a couple of clients to see how they were doing with getting jobs. We got part of the July report from Agus and Lukito but not very much information. It seems that the specialists have a difficult time understanding the need for so much information.

We went to the mission office for district meeting. There had been a zone leaders conference so there were lots of missionaries at our meeting. Elder Decker kept it all under control and did not try to get information from every pair of missionaries. Elder Thomas – who is heading to Yojakarta to finish out his mission – gave a good lesson on the Book of Mormon which I contributed to by telling the story of the first time I read King Benjamin’s discourse.

The trip back to the apartment was a mess because the candidates for governor held big rallies throughout the city that tied up traffic. We were lucky to catch just the edges and Sam found ways around some of it. But I imagine some people were stuck in it for hours. Hopefully we will avoid the worse part of it for the next two weeks.

A normal Friday evening – the president says we can have date night – was pizza and watching ‘A beautiful year.’ It was a fun little movie but very predictable and at times very slow. There was one nice twist – at least how it came about if not the twist itself. I went back and looked more carefully at Cindy’s pictures and became worried about one part of the yard that looks like it is not getting enough water.

We read from the Kitab Mormon and later I read some from the A&P. But once again I was tired and so was asleep before Mary ever came to bed. I am glad that there was a district meeting because I needed Elder’s Thomas’ lesson to give me a spiritual boost in a day that did not have a lot of spirit.

 

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.

1 August 2007 – Wednesday

Wow another month – in three days we will have been on our mission for 8 months. It sometimes seems much longer and yet in someways it seems like we walked into the MTC just a week ago. July was a good month – we are still learning a lot about our calling and ideas keep flowing. I am sure that the day we leave we will still be trying to solve some of the problems. The only reason we might extend is if there was something that we felt we had to see completed before we could leave. I doubt if anything like that will be pending.

I woke before 5 and decided that was the Lord’s way of telling me that I needed to get back into the habit of exercising each day. So I put on my gym clothes and walked and ran for a half hour. I did not run as far as I was running but I still managed to work up a good sweat. As I went around I tried to work on some vocabulary. In the future I am going to take with me five root words and work on them each for one or two laps – this way I can keep track of how many times I been around and also get the words into my mind.

I also think I need to write 10 to 20 sentences each day and have Sam check them. If I write sentences that I can use everyday, perhaps this will allow me to have enough confidence to use the language. Elder Kane is doing this and he seems to be progressing better than I am.

It is really convenient to live here in Puri Casablanca. This morning I went down and picked up our cleaning and dropped off a new batch which will be ready tomorrow night. I also could stop at our little store and pick up things we might need. Now if there was a big mall next door it would be better than being home. I can see why the concept of a mall with apartments has been catching on in the States – especially as we get older. The next thing they will include are a assisted living complex and a hospital. With the growing older population this many not too far in the future.

We read from the Kitab Mormon – towards the end we found us struggling a little with Nephi’s psalm. The other day I was looking for it, but thought it was Nephi the Younger and not the 1st Nephi. It really is beautiful – well at least in English it is.

Since we do not have names to visit, we made appointments at the office. But before going in we went to Carrefore and bought towels for the Kanes to use when they are here Sunday night. Shopping before 11 is easy so we were in and out fairly quickly.

At the office we again had problems with the internet connection but after first running a hard wire connection, they changed the wireless access points and it worked fine. Neither of the appointments showed up so we worked on different things. One of my e-mails came back with a job opportunity in Semarang. Hopefully we can find someone to fill it. I also wrote an email to president Marchant about a couple of things. Earlier he called and asked me to contact the couples in Solo to see if they would like to go sight-seeing with us on Monday or Tuesday. I think I will first ask the Kanes and the Pettersons about what they want to do.

Mary got all the workshop attendee names into the computer – quite a task to say the least. Especially since she was so far behind. Our next task is to make an Area Book so when we leave the next couple will be able to know right where we are and can hit the ground running.

When it was apparent that no one was going to show up, we went to the mission office. I wanted to say goodbye to elder Wight, but he was off to Taman Mini. So about all we could do is pick up a couple of Michigan tests for Anna and Vita – hopefully they will be willing to take them – and talk to the office elders. We did say hello to president Marchant who came in while we were there. We went down to see the Petersons but they too were gone. Since the Church News was not there yet, it was really not a very productive trip.

Our evening reading of the Kitab Mormon went well – but we are about to head into Isaiah so things will probably slow down. I have started reading the D&C in Indonesian – it is really fairly easy to read because it is in more modern language and tends to use simple words. Of course there are words I have to look up but for the most part I can get the gist of it. Vocabulary, vocabulary, vocabulary – always vocabulary. At least when it comes to reading. Speaking is a whole other thing – and hearing is another. But I am sure the Lord will bless us and we will continue to improve in all these areas. I hope that after we are released we will continue to keep learning. It would be a shame to waste all this time and effort.

As we talk about another mission, we really want to have it a proselyting mission. I also hope it will be an English speaking mission so we can work closely with the less-active, the members and others. Even another ERS mission would be good, if it was in English. But as with this one we will just put in our papers and go where the Lord wants us to go.