Entertaining an active young man. Sister Marchant with elder Porter at dinner. Sister Roberts will shoot me if she ever sees this blog…she is a great missionary and lots of fun.

The sun is up here in Solo before 5 a.m. – I guess it rises over Surabaya even earlier. I almost got up the will power to go to the gym, but the fact that the only way there is to tramp through the lobby in my gym outfit cooled my desire and it did not take much more for me just to turn over and go back to sleep.

While I was working on this journal, I got a Skype message from Lukito. He made it to the airport and will call when he gets to the hotel. Breakfast and reading from the Kitab Mormon made up the morning.  Later Lukito came up and we went over some things for the meeting today. We will get together for lunch and then go over the chapel.

Basically the training is a bust. Only one specialist comes to the meeting so he and sister Endang get a lot of personal attention. Mary and I sit there without really knowing what is going on but it seemed to me that they were not doing much talking about training. It turned out they were discussing why the church did not use the money that goes to non-LDS through LDS Charities for the members. It is a re-occurring question here. Things like why do we build new houses on Sumatra for non-members instead of for members in Solo. Telling them that it is the Lord’s way, does not always satisfy their feelings.

After that meeting we meet and greet until it is time to go to the general adult meeting of the district conference. They have translators but other than Vita they are only fair and for some reason my headphones keep cutting in and out. I was impressed by the talk of the first counselor and the president of the district. Although some of their words got lost in translation, their love and spirit came through clearly. Unfortunately there was a problem with president Marchant’s video presentation so about ½ of the translation could not be read. It was on how members can influence their neighbors and help them to find the gospel. It was the story of four or five converts and why they joined the church.

I had the interesting experience of entertaining the young son of the district president. For some reason he thought I would be a great person to play with so he came and visited me a couple of times. I ended up picking him up and holding him. At least this kept him from running all over the chapel – something he was doing for most of the time I was not holding him. Sister Roberts told me later that it was strange that he went to me and let me pick him up. It seems he does not do that with most people. I guess he liked my wrinkles and gray hair.

After the meeting we headed back to the hotel where all the missionaries – senior and young – enjoyed the buffet. The president arranged a special meal for all of us. The missionaries ate their fill – all the desserts disappeared and so did a lot of ice cream. We had a good time talking to other couples and the missionaries we knew. President Marchant took the opportunity to make a contact and I supplied him with a pass-along card. Never leave home without one.

After stuffing ourselves, we said goodbye to everyone and headed up to our room. We then read from the Kitab Mormon before going to bed. The day was good because of the company and the spirit that I felt, but I do not feel good about the main purpose of our trip not being fulfilled. We did not really get a chance to train sister Endang on what we put on the computer and we did not get to train most of the branch specialists about the importance of their callings. Hopefully sister Endang can train them in the months to come.