Monthly Archives: September 2007

18 September 2007

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Elder Christensen loved this because he raised sheep – a load of sheep tied in a pick-up. Driving through a city on the way to Bogor we saw this lady buying dates for breaking the fast and when she saw us she grinned and waved. The people are almost always friendly here. When we stopped to buy a chili shaped door knocker – picture to come – we saw these young ladies playing a board game and it turned out to be Monopoly. They were happy to pose for their picture. The young woman sleeping between her parents as they waited for the light to change is a classic. I guess if you grow up riding on a motorcycle, it becomes part of what you do and it gets boring.

18 September 2007 – Tuesday

I cut my exercise short today – at least the walking/jogging part. But I did put in all the time in the gym. I just did not feel like going around the track and the gym opened early. I am not eating much in the way of breakfast – yes I know some say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day – because I am not very hungry after exercising.

We read from the Kitab Mormon – they are preaching to the Zomamites about the gospel and how the poor were blessed because they were thrown out of their churches. They are now humbled to a point where they will listen. I wonder how often we must be humbled in some way – great or small – before we truly open our ears and mind to what the Lord has been trying to tell us. Until we are humble enough to realize that we need the Lord each day and not only occasionally when we are in trouble or have a problem. I am afraid that there have been and probably still are too many times in my life when I needed the Lord but relied instead on my own thoughts and my own power to solve the problem. Not that the Lord does not expect us to do things on our own – that is to be a profitable servant – but in all things we should seek the guidance of the spirit to help us. I think this is especially true as we serve in the kingdom.

We went to the office at our regular time and the patron that we could not help on Saturday came in and Sam got his resume on Jobsdb and he sent in a whole pile of applications for jobs. I do not think we are going to have a difficult time getting him to send 10 resumes a week. Of course this tied up one computer for almost the whole time we were in the office. So as Mary worked on English and putting together our reimbursement voucher, I sat in another room and read from the Kitab Mormon. I went back over what we read this morning and tried to learn the words that we had to look up, plus those that I was not sure about.

We then went to the mission office where Mary taught her class, while I passed out pineapples to the Walkers and the Davises while leaving one for the Marchants who were in Sumatra with elder Subandriyo checking up on the earthquake area to see what more we can do there. I had lunch from BYU – they still only have tempe and potatoes – it is good but not great. After that I read from the latest Church News. Elder Bateman is going to be the new temple president in Provo – it will interesting serving with him when we get back. There were a number of recently released 70s called to be mission presidents. The Lord certainly has prepared men and women to serve as temple and mission presidents at this time.

We were disappointed to find that the Tobings are not ready for us to hometeach tonight. We thought that this was a regular thing set up by the Petersons so they would know we were coming. I was careful to tell them that we would see them this week and bring the new couple who will home teach them. We will try again next week.

This with us with an unexpected afternoon off. I decided I would work on this journal – making the single days into months – but when we got home I took a nap that lasted way too long. So I will do my consolidating tomorrow instead. We read from the Kitab Mormon for over an hour. The reading is quite easy but there are still times that we miss the actual structure of a sentence or who is doing what. Sometimes it is because the translator has chosen to somewhat change the wording, but most of the time it is because we do not look closely enough or can not figure out the word sequence. As we finished I said to Mary that I hope we will reach a point where the spirit and feeling of the Indonesian comes through as well as what the words say or are trying to say to us.

I realized I had not posted the last few days of this journal so I got busy. It took forever because the internet is really, really slow tonight. Pictures took forever to get from the computer to WordPress and then to the blog. I finally gave up and will post the remainder tomorrow.

Before turning off the lights I read the PH lesson about strengthening the family. As I read I realized how much more I could have done to prepare our children for being better spouses and parents. I hope that each of them have done or will do a better job than I did. I am sure that I mentioned earlier about president Faust after receiving a new calling gathering his family around him and telling them that he can not be successful in his calling unless he was successful as a husband and father. There is a great lesson to be learned there. Hopefully my example of going on a senior mission will be a good one for our children and grandchildren.

I forgot to mention that we were excited to see that Cindy posted a lot of pictures and comments on her blog on Monday – her Sunday – and so we got to learn about their trip to the zoo and more. It is interesting that Olivia’s blog also had pictures from a trip to the zoo. I guess it is zoo time through out the US. Blogs are not as good as letters but they sure beat not hearing from our family at all. We wake each morning and immediately look at the mail in case someone has sent us an e-mail. We are grateful and excited when there is one from our children, grandchildren or friends.



17 September 2007

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17 September 2007 – Monday

Normal morning but shortened because we needed to be out of the apartment by 8:10 to start our day of adventure with the Christensens.

There is not really much to say about the day, but that it was a nice trip that was longer than I thought it would be. The drive from Bakasi to Bandung has some wonderful scenery. Unfortunately the day was overcast – the way it usually is when Mary and I go to the mountains – so a lot of the great scenery was not available to us. The drive from Bandung to Bogor would been much nicer on a clear day or if we would have stopped more. If I was doing it again we would start at 7 a.m. instead of 8:30 – I misjudged the time to Bandung. We stopped in Bandung only long enough to buy a dozen pineapples that we will share with all our friends in Jakarta – also the Christensens will try to get one home.

But the Christensens enjoyed it and they now have seen new parts of Indonesia and I think have a better idea of what the country is like. They have seen the humble villages, the people working to just exist. They have seen the smiles of the children and the beauty of the landscape. They will certainly go home with good memories of Indonesia.

We had a problem finding anywhere to eat – most places were closed because so much of the population is fasting for the month. We ended up at a Japanese fast food place that was not very good. It is a shame we could not have let them taste good Indonesian food for one meal.

It of course rained as we came down out of Bogor. But I managed to sleep through much of the trip back to our apartment. The Christensens and us then had Walls Classics and yellow watermelon – a good combination. We talked more about our families than about our callings. It was fun to share stories about our children. We found out that the Christensens adopted their children. After about an hour or so we wished them goodbye and a good trip back to Hong Kong.

I spent some time making my February journal pages into one file and saving it as a Word file. This way I can open it anywhere and also can print it easily. I think that before I go home I will print it out and have it bound. It will certainly be cheaper here than at home. I think I will have about 700 pages or so of journal by then. I will need to add some pictures but I am not sure if I will just add pages or will work them into the journal itself. We ended our day by reading from the Kitab Mormon – we are having a hard time reading for a full hour. One of us seems to always get tired.



16 September 2007

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Elder Christensen bearing his testimony with Hendra translating. The Sunday Night dinner bunch – minus office missionaries – Walkers, Piers, Marchants, Christensens, Davises, and brother Meeks.

16 September 2007 – Sunday

I had a great night’s sleep and did not miss exercising at all. We read for about a half hour from the Kitab Mormon before Sam picked us up. We then got the Christensens and headed for Jakarta Raya where Sam dropped us off and headed for his own branch.

We were among the first ones there – even the elders did not get there before us. Soon after we arrived, President and sister Marchant pulled up with the President driving. I think he will soon be driving on Sundays and when the traffic is not too heavy. Also the president did not wear a suit coat – he wore a long sleeve shirt and tie. So I guess the standard for senior missionaries has changed.

It was a good set of meetings, we are hearing more and more words but we still seldom can put a complete thought together. Lukito interpreted for us and elder Erickson helped the Christensens. The highlight of the sacrament meeting was when President Marchant asked elder Christensen to bear his testimony. It certainly surprised him but he recovered nicely.

The four of us caught a taxi back to our apartment and then the Christensens continued on to their hotel so we could all get a rest before heading over the mission home for dinner. We read from the Kitab Mormon and rested.

Dinner at the mission home is rather like a family get-together. The president and sister Marchant like to cook and when we got there, we helped out where needed. The Walkers, the Davises, the Marchants, all the office elders and elder Whitmore, and a member who the president heard about that was stranded in Jakarta after all his papers were stolen, plus us were there for dinner – 14 I think. We had a great dinner with lots of good conversation. Elder and sister Walker talked about their experience helping the people in Sumatra who were affected by the earthquakes.

They told of how they were led by the spirit to areas that needed help. How people seem to just show up or were found who had the information or help they needed to have a successful program. They ended up giving out 500 plus food packages that should feed a family for at least 2 weeks. They had the experience of eating off the street, seeing areas and conditions that most of us will never see, and above all feeling that the Lord was guiding them in their work. They also worked from morning well into the night and did not falter. They are a lot tougher than they look. You could feel their spirit as they told us about the things they had seen and how it had touched them.

Sam had used the car while we were at dinner to take the Selatan branch president to the hospital to visit the member that Sam and Ari had taken there last night. Later we found out that she had died before they got there. He then came back to the mission home and waited for us.

After we got home, we read from the Kitab Mormon and then immediately crashed for the night. I do not know why I have been so tired the last couple of nights but I certainly have been.



15 September 2007

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We decided to let Sister Christensen travel in style on the LDS Charities Scooter. It comes in handy when we are delivering commodities in very tight quarters. Of course it takes a long time to move 500 hygiene kits but no longer than it would take in a truck.

15 September 2007 – Saturday

Regular morning with exercise and reading the Kitab Mormon. There was an e-mail from Fae Call saying that she and John Dahl were getting sealed in the San Diego temple. These are old friend of our from Lennox Ward and it was a real surprise to read about their getting married. We are very happy for them. Now they can go on missions together.

We picked up the Christensens and took them to the office where we spent most of the next 4 hours being trained and sharing experiences. They had a number of good ideas that we can probably incorporate into our work. They are a delightful and humble couple. Elder Christensen and I are both working on the same Christ-like attribute – that is patience.

Just at about the time we were closing up, a patron came in and we started to help him. Thank goodness for Sam who did most of the work. Unfortunately after getting his resume all done, it crashed. This is the second time this has happened and it is maddening. I told everyone that next time we will take down the information so if it crashes again we can just type it back in so the person does not feel like we are wasting his time.

After he was through, Sam took Mary home and the Christensens to their hotel. I stayed for a meeting of the District Welfare Council. It was a great meeting and besides being able to share some things and ask for their help in employment, I learned a ton. First of all I gained a greater appreciation of these humble men and what they are faced with everyday. Some of the decisions they have to make never came up in my 8 years of being a bishop. My heart went out to them as they talked about problems such as taking care of the aged, the sick, the dead, the crippled, the mentally handicapped, the poor, those who can not afford to send their children to school, and on and on. None of them were complaining they were just asking President Marchant and the other leaders for guidance.

As I heard how they handled these problems on a day to day basis, my heart was touched. And I was thankful that the Lord had chosen such dedicated and humble servants to be branch presidents here in Indonesia.

President Marchant basically told them that they were empowered to make the choice the spirit led them to make. That it was for this reason that the Lord had called them and ordained them to their calling. That although he might counsel with them, he would never overturn one of their decisions as long as they followed the proper Priesthood line to get permission for major expenditures. Elder Subandriyo gave the same counsel and President Mak was in agreement.

I believe that the branch presidents were glad to hear that they could use their wisdom and the prompting of the spirit to fulfil their calls. As I said I feel that I learned a lot more tonight than I shared. The power of the gospel and the priesthood certainly were in evidence tonight.

I got home about 8 and Mary said that she was certainly glad I did not have her wait for me. We read from the Kitab Mormon and I was in bed before 8:30 – I do not doubt that I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.



14 September 2007

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We are thinking of getting this as our second car for me to drive. We figure no one would notice if I have an accident. The Christensens, Lukito and us having lunch. A delivery going out from the bakery supply shop – eggs, water, and miscellaneous things. I am afraid we have been working Sam too much – he took a nap while waiting for us to finish looking at a gift shop.

14 September 2007 – Friday

I did not get moving quickly today but did get most of my exercise in. We had a short morning because we were to pick up the Christensens at 8:45 to go out to Tangerang. We read some from the Kitab Mormon – the Anti-Nephi-Lehis laying down before their enemies.

We had a nice talk with the Christensens as we drove to our meeting. We got there early so Sam started driving around and we passed a shop that advertised Baking Lessons. We had seen one of them before and I wondered what it was they taught. So we stopped and went in.

The bottom floor had everything you could possibly want for baking, including all the ingredients. It was really rather amazing because while it was not very impressive looking, it really did have everything including large cans of Del Monte cling peach halves in heavy syrup for only $2.00 – less than we would expect in the US. It is part of a chain of what I think is franchises. We will check into it more.

It turned out that the upstairs was a full kitchen for teaching everything from bread making to cake decorating. The prices for the classes seemed a little high but it would be a cheap way to use PEF funds – or perhaps Returned Missionary funds – to teach some of the single mothers a practical skill that they could use to start their own businesses.  The Christensens were impressed – I told them that we set it up to impress them.

Then we went to visit the State Vocational School. They teach a wide variety of practical skills that might lead to jobs. We visited the machinist, the welding, the automotive, and the construction sections. The man at the machinist area said that about 80% of the graduates found work. The costs are minimal – in fact it is free if the person can not afford it – and a student can take each section a number of times until they become proficient at the work and hopefully get a better job. In the welding section there was just one student and he was getting one on one instruction. Unfortunately there are no night classes. Now we just need to find a way to get this information to the members and hopefully some will find a way to use it to help their employment situation.

Lukito joined us for lunch. Unfortunately Agus had another appointment. We took them to the new mall that was near where we saw the school and we had a great Chinese lunch for 6 that cost a grand total of $20. After lunch we came home and spent about an hour talking about different things before putting the Christensens in a cab and sending them back to their hotel. They looked a little tired and I do not think they are yet up to feeling 100%.

In the Kitab Mormon and I was embarrassed to find out that we had not reached the half way mark yesterday – we did this evening. For some reason I thought the Kitab Mormon had 608 pages when it has 616. But now we are half way through and are still on line to finish in less than 4 months. After we had read, I went back and wrote down the words we had to look up and will try to learn them tomorrow while I am walking. I have stopped doing that and therefore I have stopped learning vocabulary.



13 September 2007

13 September 2007 – Thursday

Wow the days of our mission are streaming by and I do not imagine they will slow down. A normal morning. The only thing that was different was that the sewer that runs through the grounds of the apartment had a more pungent smell than usual. I am spending more time in the gym so I walk/jog less.

We got lots of e-mails asking if we were OK. We are glad that we are on people’s minds. So far we have managed to avoid all the disasters that have struck Indonesia in the 9 months that we were here. Of course we were affected by the flooding in February but only because it closed a lot of streets that we usually would have traveled on.

We read from the Kitab Mormon – Aaron teaching Lamoni’s father and the wonderful geography lesson about where the Lamanites and Nephites lived.

The day was a rather ususal Thursday which included going to the office and getting things ready for English classes. Then we went to the mission office for lunch and so Mary could teach her first lesson of the day. But before that we got a SMS from Catherine that her family would not be at our evening lesson and that there was something going on that would probably mean that no one would be coming. So we thought about all we would do is go to the district meeting and then come back home.

We were going to have lunch from BYU but it turned out that since it was the start of Ramadahn – where Muslims fast during the day – they had a very limited menu and so I only got part of my usual order, nothing that Mary wanted was available. I shared part of mine with her, but that was not enough so I asked Sam to run to KFC for some food.

While at the office we had a good talk with elder Subandriyo about PPMK and got his thoughts on some ideas on how to get the information out. Later I talked to the president about ideas for the next couples conference and he gave me the go ahead to do some research.

Elder Whitmore has been called into learn about being an A.P. to replace elder Merrill when he goes home next week. It is both sad and joyful to see each great missionary leave after serving a worthy mission.

After Mary taught her class we took a quick trip to SoGo for a few things. Then we came back to the apartment where I called to the Christensens and found that while they had just made it to their hotel room, they had decided to rest up instead of going out to Tangerang with us. They have been battling some illness and it is probably better that they had this chance to recover from a 5 hour flight which means that they had been traveling for 8 or 9 hours or more.

Since I did not know when they would arrive, I had earlier SMS the missionaries and told them we would probably be late to DM. But the traffic was not bad and so we were only about 40 minutes late. We had a chance to participate, give them the fliers about the English classes, and the surveys for the Universities and Trade Schools.

No member came for English class but an investigator did. Since I knew nothing about his English ability I was rather stumped about what to teach but Mary suggested we study family relationships. So we spent the hour learning about everything from parents to grandchildren by asking about each person’s family. Elder Hadi Suyatmo has a tough time with figuring out his family in English but I think by the time we were done he had finally got it right. I hope we did not set the investigator back by the class.

The trip home was again quick – hopefully this traffic pattern will continue for the whole month. We read from the Kitab Mormon before going to bed. We made it to the half-way mark about a week before we had planned so we might get through in about 3 ½ months instead of 4. But with the Intensive English class coming up in October, nothing is sure.



12 Septmeber 2007

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A good motorcycle load of rice crepes, workers building sewer, worker’s statue and the building with the ‘blue mosque’ top that we see from our balcony and is obviously not a mosque. However it is a very interesting building.

12 September 2007 – Wednesday

P-Day and we thought the Christensen’s were coming in from Hong Kong this afternoon. But about 11:00 I got a call from the president saying that the office had been informed that due to some passport problem they would not be coming. It is not a big thing because our only plans was to meet with them this evening for dinner and some talking.

I was up with the alarm but really wanted to go back to sleep. However I dragged myself out of bed and did my hour of exercises. I walked/jogged less and biked and treadmilled more. (Word does not like the word I just made up.) Although my weight is not moving down, I am feeling better and that is what is important.

When I got back to the apartment I read and marked Elder Bednar’s article – Seek Learning by Faith – and enjoyed what I learned. It got me to thinking about my own gospel teaching techniques. I tend to gear my lessons to get people to think and act more than by giving answers. It is the way I like teachers to teach – but that does not mean it is the correct way.

I liked his comments about how we should be ones who act and not ones who are acted upon. I had never thought about God’s question to Adam being a way for Adam to show responsibility and not a request for information. I think it is a good way to ask questions in a class room. I learned a lot from this lesson – things I needed to know and ponder.

I found the idea that the Spirit carries the message to the heart but not into the heart very interesting. I have found this is true when I am in a class. Sometimes I am in tune and so the spirit of what is being said comes to me and other times I am a million miles away and so nothing touches me. The need for being a good class member is as important in gaining learning as having a good teacher. I think the same thing is true about how we participate – do we answer or ask questions because we feel it will add to the spiritual nature of the class or to cause controversy. If it is to cause controversy is it because the spirit prompted us or because we just want to liven things up a little or show off our knowledge. I am afraid that the latter is often why I have done this in the past. I have noticed that for quite a while now I tend not to bring up questions or give answers that might lead to someone questioning their gospel beliefs. About the only place I ask those kind of questions is in the HP quorum meeting at home and those brothers can handle anything. But even there I try not to disrupt a lesson with my questions.

We read from the Kitab Mormon until Sam came to pick us up. We then went to the office so Mary could practice the piano. I checked the e-mail but there was nothing to answer. After she had practiced for a half hour or so we headed off to choose material for having seat covers made for our car. We want something that we can clean easily. We spend a lot of time in the car and eat and drink there. The cost for really good vinyl seat covers is $130 total for all three sets of seats. What a bargain – we set a date of next Wednesday to get it done.

On the way home we stopped so I could take some pictures of what appeared to me to be a statue commemorating workers. Right across from the statue a group of men were building a new sewer system – an open system of course – so I took pictures of the crew.

When we got back to the apartment we had lunch – I opted for watermelon and a piece of bread, did some house cleaning – it is P-day, and I did a second load of laundry, and read from the Kitab Mormon for about 45 minutes. Then I read from the July Ensign before taking a nap. The Ensign had a well written story about some young adult saints in Portugal that talked about how to have a strong foundation for your testimony so that can not be shaken by the many ‘earthquakes’ that we experience day by day.

Wow – I wrote about ‘earthquakes’ and real one happens off the coast of Sumatra about two exactly the same time as I was writing that. I did not learn about it until over an hour later when Sam called to check up on us. We had not felt anything but we turned on the news and found that it was a 7.9 quake and there was a tsunami alert out.

I immediately called elder Subandriyo and found he did not know about it. I then called president Marchant and he also was unaware. About 45 minutes later I got a call from elder Burr in Hong Kong and he wanted to know if everything was OK. I told him that it was not near Jakarta and also that our chapel in Medan was quite a ways away, that I thought that there should be no damage or loss of life among the church but that certainly there would be some damage along the coast of Sumatra nearer the center. I gave him elder Subandriyo’s number. He also wanted to know about the Walkers and I suggested he call president Marchant to find them. If there is major damage and need for help, I am sure that elder Subandriyo and either the Kanes or the Walkers will fly or drive over there soon. It would be a rather exciting experience for the Walkers who have been here just one week.

We read more from the Kitab Mormon – in Alma where Ammon and King Lamoni meets the king’s father and the result of that meeting. Hopefully the missionaries in Indonesia will be blessed as Ammon and his brothers were among the Lamanites. Not the part about being thrown in jail but the success.

It seems that we will be holding our second Intensive English Class starting on October 1 – the president called me this morning and said the two sister missionaries who were released today – I was mistaken about them being released yesterday – would like to come to the class. I love to have recently released missionaries because they are so motivated – especially sisters who have learned to be obedient. Hopefully they have learned to speak English fairly well on their missions.

So we had a very interesting day with more excitement than we expected and missed having the Christensen’s here. It may be an even more interesting day tomorrow.



We are fine – thanks

The earthquake that happened is off the Southwest coast of Sumatra and we should be fine. We did not feel the the quake and are watching the news on CNN like the rest of you. We will let you know what is going on.



11 September 2007

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Our first yellow watermelon – not as sweet as those in US but still delicious. Our latest floral arrangement – the lilies are gorgeous. A lady pushing her business down the middle of the street. It is not strange to see a cart on a main street. But usually they are not being pushed down the inside lane. She was doing this because she needed to turn right. So she then pushed her cart across three lanes of traffic to get across the street and continued her business. No one honked at her, no one said anything to her, and cars and motorcycles stopped and let her work her way across. I can not imagine what would happen if someone tried to do this on State Street in Salt Lake.

11 September 2007 – Tuesday

Happy Birthday Bob…you are getting old. The alarm did not start ringing until almost 5:30 so I got a late start on my exercises. At first I thought I would just do 30 minutes, but once I got going I put in a full hour. I am up to 80 sit-ups – 4 reps of 20 – without my muscles screaming at me. Hopefully I can build up both my physical and spiritual strength each day.

We got a great letter from Shauna and Kristy updated Olivia’s blog with lots of good pictures. It is amazing how Olivia has changed over the last year or so. The Oregon Piers sound like they are going to have a very busy week or two ahead with Octoberfest and remodeling.

We read from the Kitab Mormon – the destruction of Ammoniah and the rise of the church thought the rest of the lands. We ended where Alma and the sons of Mosiah are re-untied after 14 years. I caught up and posted this journal. I am afraid that for the most part it is dull reading but then every minute of our mission is not filled with great spiritual experiences. Each day usually has one outstanding experience that reminds us that this is the Lord’s work. It may come from our reading of the Kitab Mormon, Church News, or other church related material. It may come from meeting with members or it can be nothing more than finding a new contact.

This morning was special because I got a call from Elder Bennett. His driver Sam went in for an interview with Mr. Woo – the Korean gentleman I met on the plane flying from Semarang to Jakarta 5 or 6 weeks ago. The interview lasted for over 2 hours and it ended with Sam being offered a job learning to be the manager of Mr. Woo’s business. He has about 100 employees and has never had a manager. Sam would train for 2 years and then take over running the business. It is a great opportunity for Sam and hopefully it will work out for him. Mr. Woo did not offer a salary but asked Sam to come back with what a proposal. So a brief conversation as we exited the plane may lead to a career for a young man who can become a leader in the church in Semarang. If Sam gets the job perhaps he can help other members of the branch get a job in the factory or office. Another example of the Lord’s Tender Mercies.

We went to our regular office hours. No one came in. I was hoping that the brother we visited last week would come in with his thoughts about how to improve our resumes, etc. but he did not come and did not call. I decided we wait a day before calling him. I spent most of the time working on PPMK and answering e-mail, plus as always doing some English. It seems we are always doing something for English class. Mary practiced the music she is going to play on the 29th.

I got a call from Agus about our visiting the state trade school on Friday. Also got a SMS that Lukito had 19 at his first week of SEW up at Bandung. That is a good number and I hope at least half of them come back next week.

When we got back to our apartment we read for another hour from the Kitab Mormon. After that I decided to go out by the pool, soak up some sun and read the September Ensign. The sun was lost behind what was either high clouds or major pollution – in either case it was not very warm on my skin.

I enjoyed re- reading the words of wisdom from President Hinckley – especially his powerful testimony, the article on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and the one about the brother who could not commit to getting married until he listened to the wise council of his new bishop.

We finally got the information about the Christensen’s visit – at least some of it. They will be coming in tomorrow and staying until Monday afternoon. I am looking forward to seeing them again – they are a cool couple and have many good ideas to share.

For dinner I cut up a watermelon we bought a few days ago. When I cut into it, I was surprised to find that it was a yellow watermelon. I had heard about them but had never seen one before. It tasted exactly like the regular red kind and I ate it with my left-over half of a tuna sandwich. It was a good meal.

Our evening reading from the Kitab Mormon was about Ammon and King Lamoni. It is interesting that Ammon saw great opportunities in adversity and problems. When the men scatter the king’s sheep he sees it as a chance to show the power of the Lord that is in him. He never boasts of himself – in fact he is careful never to suggest that any of what he does comes from his own abilities but always credits it to the Lord.

His conversion of King Lamoni is a classic. First he meets a hostile reception – talk about having the door slammed in your face – and yet he does not fear. Then when he is welcomed and offered anything – including a princess – he says no and asks to be the king’s servant. He then proceeds to establish a relationship of trust with the servants and then the king. When he finally starts to talk about the gospel – something he has not done until he has established the trust – he goes back to the beginning and make sure the king understands all that he teaches him. When he uses a term the king does not know, he finds a common ground for explanations. He asks lots of questions and gives simple and clear answers. He makes sure the spirit is present and testifies often. A perfect missionary plan. Too bad more investigators do not get the spirit so strongly that they fall down in a stupor for three days.



10 September 2007

10 September 2007 – Monday

I slept in today so there was no exercising. We read from the Kitab Mormon and had our normal morning. I called elder Kane and we talked about the committee for coming up with a business plan for employing older men and widows. We only have about 8 months to get this up and running and we are still at square one.

We went to the office for a couple of hours. Mary worked on material for her English classes and I handled the e-mail and then copied some things for English class. We then headed for the mission home so we could have lunch and Mary could teach her class. Besides having a great BYU lunch, I got to talk to president Marchant and Elder Subandriyo about a number of things about the mission and our callings. As we talked I told the president that I was glad he was the one who had to make some tough decisions and not myself.

We learned that sister Artin’s young daughter had fallen down a flight of stairs and was in the hospital. Hopefully she will be OK. One of the problems here is that stairs are all made of concrete and tile so if you fall there is no give or padding.

The Walkers and Davises were not around. They had gone up to Bogor where the Walkers got off to stay a couple of days with the Kanes and then John was driving the Davises over to Bandung through the ‘Puncak’ or the tops of the mountains. We have not made that trip but maybe we will sometime soon. President Marchant loves the trip and takes every advantage of showing it off. He says the besides the great view, it is also cool. It takes about 3 – 3 ½ hours so that means if the Davises come home tonight they will have spent between 6 and 7 hours in the car.

After Mary’s lesson – she had four or five staff members today – we went to SoGo to pick up a few things. We ran into Judi Guttormsen who was doing some shopping. She and her husband just got back from 10 days in VietNam and had a great time. We only bought three things at BreadTalk.

In the evening we had an appointment to meet with the Lurah – one of the leaders – of a local sub-district. He and his office basically run a section of Jakarta. We went to his home which is obviously also his office and meeting area and spent about an hour with him and some of his staff. We mainly talked about the PPMK program and how it works. We found out how to apply for a loan, the limits, and how it is repaid. He assured us that it was available in every sub-district. I will not try to get some of the leaders in other sub-districts to see how it works in their area.

One of the men who was there was a Christian and he had some good questions. Including why were we interested in the PPMK program. This gave me an opportunity to tell him why we were in Indonesia and what we were attempting to do. I suggested that we would be happy to put on Career Workshops and Self-employment workshop for people in his sub-district. I had meant to take copies of the workbooks with us but I forgot and so Sam will take them back tomorrow. I also mentioned that perhaps we could help with some wheelchairs when they come in.

I am hoping that this contact will not help us to understand the PPMK program but also help us to become better recognized in the community. One of the most important thing we learned was that this program is available in every sub-district in Jakarta. So whoever Agus talked to was mistaken when they said it was not available in their area. Now we just have to find out who we must talk to in a sub-district to get an application started.

I am learning so much from this mission. I am slowly learning patience, I am learning to be more obedient, and I am learning the need to be closer to my Father in Heaven and my Savior. I am learning to appreciate more and more my wonderful wife and her great strength. I would like to think that I am learning to be more humble. One thing I have not been able to learn is to be more organized – there are some things that even a mission can not accomplish. Maybe by the time we have served two or three missions I will have learned even that.