Daily Archives: October 30, 2007

Some Pictures –

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As I was walking back from the bank, I came across these two children and their dad and I asked if I could take a picture. You could see the pride in the father’s eye as I paid attention to his children. Later I watched them drive away. The little girl sitting behind her dad holding on to his jacket.

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Everyone needs a job and salt. This man is seen delivering and selling it in a traditional market.

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When you stop for gas, there are people who are allowed to try and sell you their goods. This man is selling crepes, but with little success.

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This is a fruit snack salesman. There are many of them on the streets but this man’s cart is either new or he really takes care of it. We would not dare eat from a cart like this.

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This is the elder’s choir that sang in Zone Conference. From left to right – Elders Louhannapessy, Rowberry, Teng, unknown, Roper, Cowan. They did a good job and Mary played for them.



30 October 2007

30 October 2007 – Tuesday

I got up and went to the gym before anyone else was up. By the time I got back Mary was up and dressed. I quickly showed and dressed before the Kanes got moving. We read from the Kitab Mormon for a short time before Mary had breakfast with the Kanes. Earlier I had my usual orange juice and banana breakfast. We got a nice letter from McKay and I answered it. She seems to be quite busy at school. She is in a choir and is going out for a play. I wrote her an answer.

We head off for the zone conference and when we get there I figure out I left the office keys back at the apartment so Sam and I have to go back. He does a great job of getting us there and back just before 8:30. When I get into the office something smells wrong but I am a little late in getting up to the meeting that – I found out later – was supposed to start with a half hour of meditation to get spiritually prepared for the conference. Without knowing it, that is what I do by reading from PMG – some of the time in Indonesian. Mary played for the conference including a half hour of prelude music.

Elder Hallstrom asked all the missionaries to come up and shake hands. To the young missionaries he gave a piece of counsel. President and sister Marchant also greeted us. As I shook hands with them, I received more testimony that they were called of God to lead this mission at this time.

The five hours of meetings went rather fast. I enjoyed the lessons taught by Elder Hallstrom and wrote lots of notes in my ledger. I was very impressed with sister Hallstrom’s talks – she gave one in the first half and one in the second. In both of them she used the scriptures to make her point. Now many speakers read the scriptures when giving a talk but she wove the scriptures into hers like a true artist would weave material. She used Jeremiah 20:7-9 and Alma 48:7-9 for her second talk. My favorite thought from her was “Do you have fire in your bones” for your mission.

Elder Hallstrom did more training than teaching. I got two great quotes from him that take a lot of thought. “Are we messengers worthy of our message.” “We mistake activity in the church as being the same as activity in the gospel.”  When he spoke about ‘vain repetitions.” He pointed out that this does not mean we can not ask the same thing in each of our prayers if we are sincere. What makes repetitions vain is that they are just words without any real meaning.

The real high point for me was near the end when some of the missionaries went up and bore their testimony. Elder Hallstrom said that he was in a meeting where 12 prophets and seers gave their testimonies in a total of 12 minutes. So the testimonies that were given were short and powerful. Elder Whitmore started it and it just kept going – about 2/3 of them touched me deeply. What power there is in personal testimonies – especially those of serving missionaries. I was sorry to have them stopped so Elder Hallstrom could share his testimony.

While the conference was going on some other interesting things were happening that had impact on Mary and I. The main one was that there seems to have been a power surge in the building that fried a number of our pieces of equipment. We lost our last printer, one computer and a monitor. Luckily for us it seems that happened was that anything that was on with a power supply or a converter was zapped. So all that we should need is to replace the converters on printer and the monitor and they will be OK. Hopefully when they replace the power supply in the computer it also will work fine. Personally all I really care about is that we do not lose all the info on the hard drive. We have not backed it up – something we will do very quickly. But until they are fixed we have only one computer and no printer at our office. Surprisingly after the first shock, I did not become excited about the problem. I guess I am learning a little more about patience. I guess it helped that the conference was on and I really had to attend so I left it to Ari to get the damaged piece to Hendra at the office.

After the conference we came back to the apartment and we have spent the evening finishing the Kitab Mormon – we made it in 100 days which is 20 less than we had set for our goal. The time is not what is important – what is important is that we were able to become closer to the book and also that we continue to improve our ability to read Indonesian. At least the Indonesian used in the Kitab Mormon.

I spent much of the rest of the time we had catching up this journal and reviewing my conference notes. I also downloaded, titled, and edited the pictures from the last two days. I will read more from PMG before finally turning off the lights.



29 October 2007

29 October 2007 – Monday

We had a rather busy morning before leaving for our classes. We had to do laundry so we would have clean sheets for the Kanes. I exercised, we read from the Kitab Mormon and stayed until I could get things hung up.

The day of classes went pretty much as usual. Sam and I left after lunch and came back to the apartment to make beds. On the way back to the chapel for some reason I asked Sam about how the water for the student were holding up. He said that they were OK but that we were out of water at the chapel. Since I knew that tomorrow 30 – 40 missionaries were going to be there for Zone Conference, I told him that we needed to get some bottles of water. To make it short, we had three 5 gallon (approx) bottles delivered at about $1 a bottle. I am sure the Lord had me ask that question because there was really no reason that I would normally do that.

After the afternoon classes, we went to the apartment and the class headed off to a distant part of Tangerang. We tried to figure how long it would take to get to the mission office. Sam had said that the traffic was bad so we decided that we would not take any chances and left at about 4:15 for a 6 p.m. appointment. Of course we got there in 25 minutes and was left with over an hour to wait. But we had time to talk to some of the staff, to the missionaries, and even to president Marchant. A little later we met Elder Hallstrom from the area presidency for a brief time.

Later we went down and helped get things ready for dinner. All the couples in the zone was there along with the Marchants and the Hallstroms. We had a nice dinner with lots of small talk. Near the end Elder Hallstrom told us some facts about the area. It contains over ½ the world’s population and includes three of the four most populated countries in the world. He insured us that when the Lord feels it is time, those countries would be open to the gospel. It was a nice evening.

After dinner, the Kanes came home with us. Once again the trip went quickly so we had some time to sit around and talk. Sister Kane needed to iron her skirt and we had to tell her we did not have one because we gave it to our sister students for their clothes. She really needed an iron so I suggested the two ladies go to some of our neighbors and ask for one. A short time later they came back and were laughing so hard we were afraid they would have an embarrassing accident.

They were laughing because they had gone to an apartment and was greeted by a nice Australian man who said that they could borrow his iron. He left them at the door and went to get it. Soon they heard this very loud pounding on a door. It kept on for over a minute. The ladies thought he was trying to get his maid’s attention so she would open the door to her room. Finally he came with the iron and explained that he thought he had locked himself outside the back door and was trying to get their attention to let him back in. When sister Kane asked how he got back in she thought he said he ‘prayed’ and Mary thought it was ‘pried.’ They decide that it could have been either – they could not figure out his accent. For some reason they thought all of this was terribly funny and hardly could keep straight faces until they got out of his sight and hearing. They then just exploded. Neither elder Kane nor myself thought it was all that funny so I guess you had to be there to really appreciate it.

We finished the day by reading a little in the Kitab Mormon – we only have 6 pages left – before going to bed. It was a good day as we were able to help our students and share dinner with our good friends the Kanes, the Walkers, and the Davies – as well as the Marchants and the Hallstroms. The sharing of a mission is something that makes bonds that are special. Not only with the couples but also with the younger missionaries.



28 October 2007

28 October 2007 – Sunday

We went to the English branch for church. It is only the 4th or 5th time that we have attended there. We feel we have to have a special reason to not go to one of our branches. Today’s reason was that four of our English students would be speaking.

We got there early enough to stand in the line of missionaries and greet people. Some we knew some we did not. Brother Willis asked to home teach a sister who lives in Puri Casablanca. Later he introduced us and she will call us when we can come.

The students did great with their talks. None of them read their talks. They had notes but they only had to refer to them a few times. Puji was able to speak clearly and told her story about teaching a woman who was deaf and dumb. She could not talk to the missionaries and they did not talk to her. But Puji said that they understood each other and the woman was baptized a month ago. Puji said that there were still miracles being done. Daisy changed her talk a little by telling the story of her mother’s last months. She could not hear very well and she could not walk. Daisy would go to church and then come home and speak right into her mother’s ear to tell her about the talks and the lessons. It was a truly touching story. The guys also did well but I did not feel the same spirit that I felt with the two young ladies. It was amazing to hear them speak before a whole audience of English speakers and be able to do it so well. We are truly blessed to be able to teach such fine young people.

As the sacrament was being passed I read about the crucifixion of our Lord. As I read in Matthew I noticed 27:36 that reads after the guards had cast lots for his clothing,“And sitting down they watched him there.” )I must have read it a dozen times or more, but I do not remember ever noticing it.) It then says that they put the sign “King of the Jews” on the cross. None of the other gospels has the line about them sitting down and watching Jesus as he died. I do not know even now why this struck me as of any importance. I tried to join those guards as they sat there – probably as they always did – bored with their job. Hoping that those three men on crosses would die quickly so they could get them down and then go home for a nice dinner. Maybe they bet about which of the prisoners would die first. But maybe one of them felt something special, maybe one of them had a life changing experience as he witnessed that scene. “And sitting down, they watched him there.” Front row seats to the most important death that will ever happen.

Sister Moore gave a very meaningful lesson on the importance of our bodies and the need to develop Christ like attributes. She challenged us to choose one from a long list of attributes of members of the Lord’s church that we gleaned from the scriptures and work on it. She also had the whole class introduce themselves and for us to try and remember the name of one of the people who we did not already know. I remember Bob Willey – a member from Lindon who comes here to look in on a project and then flies back to Utah.

I had a special experience between Sunday School and PH – and it happened in the restroom. I found myself next to a brother and introduced myself. I found that he was not a member of the branch – he lives in Shanghai – and was only visiting for the day. He works for a German company that has a factory in Bekasi. I told him the I was here to work with employment and suggested that he might be able to get us an introduction with the HRD of their factory. So we exchanged cards and hopefully he will be able to get us an appointment. It is another one of those coincidences that I think the Lord arranged. Brother Peterson was only here for one Sunday and it was the one Sunday that we would be at the English branch for months. Then we are put together in a situation where it was natural to introduce myself. Add that he works for a company with a factory in an area where we need jobs and I see it as a tender mercy from the Lord.

Priesthood was fun and informative. We talked about women in the church and our relationship with them. We talked about wives and mothers. Brother Orton told how when he was in a bishopric, his wife had to do everything to get the children ready and bring them to church. Later he was released and his wife became Stake RS president. The roles reversed because she was almost always away visiting other wards. He had to learn to do his daughters hair – an experience she still talks about and uses in lessons – in a positive way. When we were singing the closing song, elder Roper rebelled when they tried to sing only the first and last verse of the song. He said, no and proceeded to start the second verse in such a loud voice that everyone soon joined him. Elder Roper is truly one of a kind.

It was strange to get back to the apartment before noon. Since then we have had lunch, took naps – Mary got in two – worked on more inference practices, read 6 pages from the Kitab Mormon – we are in Moroni and that goes rapidly – and caught up this journal. We ordered in Pizza for dinner – this was the first night we could do that this weekend.

We got a call from Elder Kane saying that the Harris Hotel was full. I told them that they were welcome to stay with us. Sister Kane insisted that she would sleep on the couch or they would not come. I told her OK. But later when we started thinking about it, it is a lot easier for us if they take our bedroom and we sleep elsewhere. So I called her back and asked her to please let me sleep on the couch because it really was easier. She did not believe me so I had Mary talk to her and that convinced her. She finally agreed.