18 October 2007 – Thursday

This is our P-day but we have the IEC to teach in the morning and Mary has a class at the mission office in the afternoon. I pull myself out of bed and get in 40 minutes of exercises. We read from the Kitab Mormon before heading off to the chapel and teaching. The Lord’s tender mercy touches me when for some reason I remember that I need to take the equipment so Lukito can teach a Career Workshop for elders Whitmore and Pagalla who are about to be released.

We found that we are giving the students so much homework that they do not have time to sleep. So we only gave them a small amount today and hopefully they will catch up. At least we know that they are serious. They also did not sleep well because there were lots of mosquitoes that bit them all night. The joys of living in Indonesia.

After our morning class we let the students off until tonight when they will go to president Smith’s for dinner. We headed for the mission office. But we were about 1/3 of the way when I remembered I needed to take some workbooks and we had to turn around and go back to the office. The only reason we got to the office in time was that the traffic was so light.

At the office I had lunch – Mary ate hers in the car while we were traveling. While she taught the class I talked to elder Roper, elder Walker, and elder Subandriyo. Elder Subandriyo showed me pictures of their new house in Bakasi. It is a great house with a nice yard – they will move there when he retires in about 3 years. We were talking about the IEC when Mary joined us and the conversation changed to what his staff needs to study to pass their English test in November. Mary had looked at the sample test and has a good idea of where they need the most help.

After that we came back to the apartment where we cleaned house, took a nap and read from the Kitab Mormon. I still need to do the laundry and we will also read one more hour from the Kitab Mormon. Amazing Race, dinner, another hour of the Kitab Mormon – we are reading about 10 pages a day now because we need to look up only a few words. We find ourselves commenting on what we are reading in Indonesian, which means we understand what is being said as we read it. Now if speaking and hearing went so well things would be great.

The mission has made us more spiritually alive – that is alive to the spirit. The need for the Lord’s help with so much of what we do draws us closer to him. It is one of the great blessings of our mission.

Early this morning I answered a survey from the training department about the MTC training for senior couples. Looking back we did not really learn much about what we would be doing on our mission. What it did do is give us a lot of spiritual experiences  – just being in the MTC with all the young elders and sisters is great. Then there is getting to know the other senior couples in our group and working with some of them for two weeks is also wonderful. But as to the actual training I think it is of minimal value. The MTC is like crossing over a bridge from the everyday world to the world of a mission. It is a needed time of transition and I feel sorry for those who have to wait for an extended period of time between the last day at the MTC and the first day in their mission field. You need to go out fully spiritually charged and that is what happens in the MTC.

Before turning off the lights I read some of a talk in the Liahona. When I do this I am both encouraged and discouraged – I guess it is another way the Lord is helping me with my impatience.

17 October 2007 – Wednesday

I slept in until after 6 so I did not go down and exercise. Mary said she slept much better than the night before. I caught up with my journal posting on the blog and added some pictures. We read a couple of pages from the Kitab Mormon – we hit a chapter from Isaiah in 3 Nephi and that caused us a pause. We both broke out laughing when we hit the first verse in 3 Nephi 23 and the words “karena besarlah kata-kata Yesaya.” That may not so when you are trying to translate the words.

I wrote a few e-mails to different missionary couples including the Petersons who are back in Utah. They tell us they have held a number of firesides and have used some of the motorcycle load pictures I had shared. I also wrote to Mike saying that I was sorry that Cal lost just when they had a chance to be ranked first nationally. I wrote to Kristy about some pictures on her blog. It is good to hear from the family.

The traffic is still really light so the trip to chapel is very quick. This will all change come Monday when everything opens again. We have not missed the traffic jams that adds so much time to any journey.

Mary taught the first half of the morning class and I took the other half. Today I changed the relay race some and I am not sure it was so good. Tomorrow I will try to refine it some. I think they are trying to speak English more – Wawan said that he was dreaming in English and that is really good. I had them read some of Elder Hallstrom’s talk and I was surprised how many of the words that I thought might throw them, they already knew. Only occupy, procrastination, prior and consequences stopped most of them.

Explaining about the meaning of Consequences gave me a chance to expound on their choices about how much Indonesian they speak when they are not in class. I may pound on that a little too much but I know that the less then use Indonesian the easier it will be for them to hear and see when they make a mistake in English.

While waiting for some copies to be printed – or printer is really slow – I read president Hinckley’s talk about anger and had to confess to myself that it is something that I still need to work on each day. I have always felt strongly that General Conference and the thoughts and instruction we receive there is very important. However since we have been on our mission and I have needed the spirit as much as I ever have, this inspired information has become even more important to me.

As I wrote that I thought how much I have missed by not feeling this way no matter what my calling. I have always needed the spirit in my life as much as I do now. I just have not thought about it that way. I imagine I have often felt that I can get by on past knowledge, stored up light, etc. What this means of course is that I have not been able to do my best, to fulfil my calling as well as I could, and have in some way failed to keep the commandments. Hopefully as my children and grandchildren read this, they will learn from my mistake and ponder the conference talks and then follow the instruction that is in them. 15 living prophets spoke to me – how wonderful that is to think about. Not only that I can go back and see, hear and read their talks as often as I want – as often as I should. Only in this last dispensation has so much been available to the saints of the kingdom. There is so much that I foolish take sips of living water instead of drinking my fill again and again.

 

This is a mobile gas station. I do not see many on bikes, but there are lots of them with carts. He is either taking this load to his own station or is taking it around to sell to others for resale.  See the ‘Things go better with Coke” picture to see a typical small gas station.

16 October 2007 – Tuesday

I woke at about 5 and read from the Kitab Mormon before heading down to exercise. It was a very pleasant morning to be on the track. It was drizzling for about the first 3 or 4 minutes and then a nice breeze came up. The combination kept the temperatures down. This is only the second time this has happened since I started using the track. After a normal morning we read a couple of pages from the Kitab Mormon. Christ institutes the sacrament and talks about its importance. We only look up a couple of words today.

At the chapel Mary teaches the first half of the class while I work on getting ahead on the vocabulary. Then we switch places and she comes into the office to catch up on some paper work. The students are working very hard and I think by this time next week they will have a lot of confidence. They are still not working together well so there is not a lot of synergy but I am trying to get that going. As I was writing this I realized I have not felt the spirit very often when I am teaching. I think I need to work more on that. Brigham Young said that nothing should be taught without the spirit.

We spend our lunch hour working on more English stuff. It is amazing how much time we put in on preparation, grading, etc. I can not imagine what it is like being a professional teacher and having to do this day after day for years. I have even more respect for teacher than I had before. Especially those who must teach all day, every day in public schools.

The Walkers taught the afternoon class so we were able to leave and go to Sogo. We did not need a lot so we were not there very long. I need to put in a point about the traffic this week. It seems that the week after Ramadahn is vacation week in Indonesia. All the offices shut down – even the LDS office staff has it off. What this means is that the traffic in Jakarta is amazingly light. Normally if we leave from the office and go to Sogo it will take us about 2 hours. Today it took one!

After we got back to the apartment we read from the Kitab Mormon for an hour. We are now reading about 4 pages an hour because we do not need to look up many words. I am not sure how much of the spirit of the writing we are getting. I guess it is like any time we read from the scriptures. That is if we are open to the spirit we receive the spirit of the writing and if not they tend to be just words. Not too long ago we were reading where Christ tells the Nephites to search the scriptures that were laid out before their eyes. Not to read them but to search them. In the New Testament he reminded the Jews that ‘they are they that testify of Me.’

Which reminds me that as I read through my notes about the latest conference talks, again and again the speakers point out that whatever subject they are talking about is based on the atonement of Christ. Also both Elder Packer and Elder Cook pointed out that the only real qualification that was necessary to be a general authority is an unwavering personal testimony. I thought it was interesting that Elder Packer learned it from the first presidency and Elder Cook learned it from Elder Packer.

We finish our companionship study by reading another hour in the Kitab Mormon.