25 November 2007 – Sunday

We went to the Tangerang branches for church but came home early so Sam could take care of some things. We would not have done that if the elders would have had any investigators, but all of them fell through. Elder Cheney and Peate are an interesting pair – they seem to be working well together and are visiting universities as the president has asked. Hopefully they will have some success in teaching in one of them.

We got another job contact, but all the jobs are in Sumatra which means they would not have much contact with the church unless they could get to Medan. I am not sure that is a good idea but if you need a job, you need a job.

Back at the apartment we start planning for our trip. We need to be packed early tomorrow so we can load up the car before we go to the office. Sam will leave sometime in the early afternoon. We read twice from the Kitab Mormon – we fell a little behind in our reading but hopefully will catch up during the week ahead. We usually have plenty of time in the mornings and evenings when we are away.

I have been fighting a slight headache today – something that seems to be a re-occurring theme over the last month. I don’t know if it is stress, the weather or what. Speaking of the weather, it has been really hot the last two days. The sky has been bright blue so there are no clouds to keep the sun from beating down on everything. Thank goodness for air conditioning. They say this is the way it is most of the time in Solo and Surabaya – I would not be able to handle that very long. Especially since the couples there go out almost every day to visit members who’s homes are hardly ever – or never – air conditioned. The Lord knew my problem and gave us an assignment that lets us be in air conditioned buildings or autos most of the time.

We just got a letter from the Taylors saying they are coming in tomorrow. It seems that elder Taylor may need an operation for a digestive tract problem. The president told me that there was another elder with a hernia – hopefully unlike elder Roper he will not have to go home for it. But if he does maybe he will be allowed to come back here to finish his mission. The president mentioned that he had his hands full with about 75 missionaries and wondered how those with 150 – 200 were able to do it. Just reading the weekly reports and answering them takes a lot of time.

It is easy to pack when you have all the room you want. We just started putting things in two large suitcases that Sam will take with him in the car. We will only take a couple of carry-ons so there will be no waiting for the luggage to be de-planed.  Inspired by Nancy mentioning that Neal had already read the Book of Mormon 4 times this year, I started to read it before turning off the light – I only got 3 pages read when my eyes stopped focusing.