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.