15 December 2007 – Saturday 

I ate way too many cookies last night and so a good workout at the gym was necessary. More folks came in that is usual for a Saturday morning. Maybe everyone is getting for the big holiday meals. We read from the Kitab Mormon – Ammon teaching king Lamoni so much that he went into Spiritual overload.  

We had to be at the chapel at 9:30 so we could start practicing for the Missionary Christmas program. We practiced from 10:00 to 4:15. Actually I practiced from 10:00 to 3:00 and then helped a brother from Tangerang with a CV for a new job. He is the brother who left a good job for what he thought was a better one only to find that the new employer was not honest so he started asking his friends that he was looking for a job and one of them got him a chance. Hopefully he will be get it because he is very unhappy where he now is. 

The program went very well. Mary played a medley of songs before the program started. During the program we sang in the choir. Mary also had a speaking part – she told the story behind the candy cane – in Indonesian. We had a great time and if it was not for the fact that my feet felt like they would fall off from all the standing in one place.  

It was great fun to participate with all the other missionaries in this district. Only the Kanes were missing and they came to watch even if they were not in it. It seems that the RS had asked sister Kane to teach a cooking lesson this morning and it had been on the schedule long before they learned about this program.  

The best part of it for me was the part as we walked down the aisles singing ‘Here we come a caroling’ and when we sang ‘ Oh come all ye faithful’ – especially the chorus where it rises in volume but also in feeling. The hairs on my arm stood up and I tingled all over.  

By the time we got home we were exhausted but happily so. We now look forward to the Missionary Christmas dinner on Christmas day. This is our second Christmas away from our family – the first came just two days after we arrived in Indonesia.