15 November 2007 – Thursday
This is the first Thursday in over a month that we will go to Tangerang for the district meeting and to teach our English class. We are going early to have a meeting with Lukito and Agus about employment – I am afraid it a backseat to our IEC last month. We are going to have to do something about that for future IEC.
Normal morning but we had some extra time because we do not have regular office hours today. I continue with my exercise. Next I posted a lot of pictures and comments on the blog. Keeping up the blog takes more time than I expected. I can see why Cindy and Kristy do not post each day. We diligently read in 2nd Nephi – we continue to work our way through Isaiah.
We go to the office for about 45 minutes so we can do some necessary work and to pick up some things that we will need later. I make the agenda for tonight’s ERS meeting. We get away early enough that we do not get caught in the lunch time rush.
However as we are about to the mission office, I got a call from elder Subandriyo that rapidly changed what we will be doing for the next couple of months. Possibly it will change the rest of our mission. He told me that he had a vision of a version of our Intensive English Class but on a local level for all the high school students. He feels that they can meet and be taught 4 days a week right after school is out. They would get a meal and a lesson. Mary and I are to make it work.
When I asked him for more details, he said that he had the vision but not the solution. That sometimes that is the way things happen. I immediately thought of when President Hinckley announced PEF as an inspired program that would change the church. He then called men to figure out how to make it work. It took them about 2 years to get it working correctly but it is changing the church in some areas of the world.
Since we were just getting to the office, I went right in and talked to him. I hoped to get a little more instruction. The only new thought I got was that he felt that in 3 years, all high school graduates would be able to converse, read and write English with confidence. I told him we were for it but before we could suggest a curriculum we needed to find out the level of the students it would be aimed at. We decided that we would need to go to Solo for a few days and see for ourselves. So on the 26th we will be in Solo and will hold classes with the students.
It is a humbling experience to be told that we are to be in charge of developing a program that he feels with change the church in Indonesia. However it is not the first time we have been in a position where a program we would help to develop would have a major effect on the future. When we were serving our first mission at the MTC, we help develop the system where the missionaries practice teaching in their languages. There has been some changes since we left over 10 years ago, but the basic principle has not changed and it is now one of the main features of a missionary’s experience at the MTC for learning their language. Hopefully we will set in motion something here that is as effective and long lasting.
While Mary taught her class, I started brain-storming some basic ideas. While I was doing that I got a call from elder Roberts in Solo asking what he was supposed to do with this new program. I told him we had only got the assignment 40 minutes earlier and I had not quite worked out the details yet. I told him we would be in Solo on the 26th to get some feeling for what needs to be done and then hopefully come up with how it is to be done.
When we left the mission office, we headed for Tangerang and our other meetings. We stopped on the way so Mary could buy some poster board for her music. She also found Uno and Monopoly in Indonesian. While we were in the Mall it begin to rain but not very heavy.
We had out 4 p.m. ERSC meeting with Agus and Lukito and basically told them that while we will be able to help somewhat, that they will need to run the country program themselves. So Agus will make the work class schedule for next year and will have it for our next meeting.
We then went to our first Tangerang District Meeting in 5 or 6 weeks. It is always a blessing to sit in one of these and hear how the missionaries are doing and to share in their great spirit. Elder Cheney is the new district leader – I think he will do fine once he gets a little more confidence. The other new elder is elder Worwood who we had met once before but did not get to know well. He has only been out two or three weeks but is doing well.
We did not have an English class because no one showed up. For some reason they did not have a seminary class and Agus and his family told us that they would not be there. So we packed it up and came home. We read from the Kitab Mormon and I have been busy with English matters ever since.
Two other things happened today. First elder Subandriyo mentioned that someone in the states is starting a fund to help members who do not have enough money to send their children to high school. The Bennetts will be happy to hear about that one. I will send them the information as soon as he sends it to me.
Ezra Subandriyo has been accepted to BYU Hawaii and will go there on December 26th. He showed up for Mary’s English class and I told him that we would be happy to teach him one on one during the week. He is excited to do this and we will probably start on Saturday. It is good to find someone who is eager to learn as much as he can.