13 November 2007 – Tuesday
It was a full day for us and it touched all the areas that we work in. We open the office for helping with employment and Wawan came in to send some resumes. He seems to be really trying to find work, so I am torn between wanting him to succeed and wanting him to go back to Semarang and strengthen the branch. Much of the time, I worked on more vocabulary. Mary got her English material together, practiced the piano, and did some genealogy. She really likes the new Family Search program and is excited that it should be available to everyone next year.
Next came our trip to the mission office. While we were driving I got a call from Lukito saying that he needed the office laptop for our meeting tonight. Since it was back at the apartment, that meant we dropped Mary off so she could teach English and then Sam and I would get the computer. About the time the call came, Mary realized she had left her purse in the office so while we were in the area, we would stop and get it also. And so it happened!
When we got back I found Mary sitting and reading. I thought that they had cancelled the class, but it seems that as soon as she got there, the few students she had asked if they could start early – it seems they all wanted to leave early. Since my meeting with the District Presidency did not start for almost 3 hours, we decided to go to the Mall to look for some more posterboard for Mary’s music and to have dinner. We decided to splurge and eat at BurgerKing. And so it happened.
I had an opportunity to talk to Elder Subandriyo and got some counsel on a problem that had come up. We talked about the teaching of English to the high school students in Central Java. I think it is an inspired idea. I certainly hope it works well. He suggested that we might need to go to Central Java and observe some of the classes to see what might need to be taught.
The meeting that I had with the presidency was very interesting. They want to do something to help with the unemployment and underemployment in the district. They wanted to review the Self-Employment workshop and if it was helping anyone to become successful. We could not point to anyone that had seen their business grow after taking the class.
They had brother Putranto come in. He is the man who is looking for salesmen throughout Indonesia. He has developed a very successful sales organization and he started with nothing. To make a long meeting short, the presidency asked us to come up with a program that helps the youth prepare to be successful and to help those who have no job, and little in the way of skills, to understand they can make a good living by selling products. Either for someone else or for themselves. Brother Putranto is living proof of what can be done with vision and hard work. We will meet again in two weeks to give our ideas.
After the meeting we had a chance to say goodbye to Elder Tuxworth who is heading home to Australia on the Red Eye. We did not work very long with elder Tuxworth but I will miss him – especially his soft voice with a great Aussie accent. The new office elder with elder Rowberry is Elder Smith who we first meet in Tangerang. The new AP with elder Teng is elder Bastian who we do not know at all. The new Zone leader with elder Hadi Suyatmo is our old friend Elder Thiemann who we met at the MTC when we first started learning Indonesian. I wonder how many of these young men and women we will ever see again? Hopefully we will see some at reunions – but if we go on another mission in January of 2009 – that means the first reunion we could go to would be April 2011!