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.