The first picture has gotten more reaction here in Indonesia than any I have taken. I am not sure if he is carrying the tire just so he has a spare if one of his goes flat, if it his version of an air-bag (note that the sign says Hati-Hati which means ‘be careful,’)or he is just deliverying the tire. The next two came on the same day about 2 hours apart. The one on the left is a washing machine and the one on the right is a room air-conditioner and what they need to install it. I keep hoping to snap a kitchen sink being carried. It is about all I need to complete my collection.

 

This is the Polytron 32″ TV I won from BCA. Mary enjoying the Christmas party that her English class at the Service Center threw this week. Finally our best Christmas present of the year.

We were able to attend the funeral of Joshua Samad the young son of Looky and Diana from Tangerang 2. They have a beautiful custom of spreading flowers over the coffin and the grave.

The young lady in red became my close friend at the Limbong’s Christmas party. She loved to chew on my missionary badge. The picture of Mary is here just because I liked it. The last picture is our Christmas decorations and presents for this year.

20 December 2007 – Thursday 

Other than an hour of discomfort and getting up a few times, I slept well. Went to the gym and almost no one was there. Of course it is a holiday here but not one where all the Muslims have the day off so things are closed. As usual the Christens take off on the Muslim holidays and visa-versa, so I imagine a lot of folks are off today. Sam is going to borrow our car so he can drive out to see his family. Due to things that will be going on in his branch he will not be able to go see them on Christmas day. 

Except for my small problem we had a good morning. We read more from the Kitab Mormon and are now about a day behind where we should be. Quite possibly we will be caught up by tonight. We are not going out at all but will work on English lessons and our talks. I wrapped Mary’s Christmas presents and so now we have a rather festive looking Christmas area.  

Daisy came to clean the apartment. She now has a full time job at the Area Office substituting for a sister who is going to have a baby. It will be perfect for her because it is only for a couple of months and hopefully by then she will have other opportunities.  

I got to feeling so bad that I decided to take a nap. Actually I laid down to read from the A&P but instead fell asleep. The nap did not help a lot – I am still tired and still not well. But it is only annoying and so I will be able to write some more English lessons during the day. 

To make the rest of the day short, I never felt good all day. But I did work on English, read from the Kitab Mormon and A & P. The Ajaran &  Perjanjian is as easy or easier to read than the KM. The ideas are repeated more often and there are less flowery sentences.

19 December 2007 – Wednesday 

I did not even roll out of bed to pray until almost 6. But I quickly got up and went to the gym. I did some extra time on the bike because I am eating too many cookies. I am hoping that I will not gain any weight over the holiday season. Back at the apartment we had our regular morning and read 4 ½ pages from the Kitab Mormon. Since today and tomorrow are basically holidays, we should be able to read between 20 and 25 pages. Today we passed the half-way point. It is interesting that many of the words we did not know the second time through still stumps us this time. They are either words that are not used very often or just will not stick in our minds. Today I took memperhatikan for memperingatkan – so instead of the lord ‘watching over’ his people I had him ‘warning’ them…unfortunately Mary agreed with me. 

On the positive side, one of the books that Mary ordered and Lisa sent to us is called ‘10 skills you really need to succeed in school.’ It is a great book to use as a basis for many, many lessons and the concepts and skills taught will help the students in all of their classes. The task now is to figure what to teach, how to teach it in a way that increases their English and is fun. 

Sam took me out Christmas shopping – it is P-day and besides during the holiday week little gets accomplished here – and although nothing that I planned to buy worked, I did find some things for Mary. When I got home I found that she had wrapped her presents to me and put them under our ‘tree.’  

After lunch we took naps – at least I took a nap. Then we read for well over an hour from the Kitab Mormon – we are trying to make up for some of the days we did not read or only read for an hour. We read where Alma gives his great discourse on wanting to have the voice of an angel. It is such a wonderful part and so full of things to think about. Like the better parts of the Book of Mormon – that is the part that is not about geography, lists of goods that someone is rich in, or battles and their results – it just breathes of the spirit and cries out to be pondered and absorbed into my life. 

I spent much of the night coming up with some suggestions and ideas to give the teachers of the new English program. Ideas that we hope they will think about and find a way to incorporate into their classes. One of the main one is the 20 – 80 rule that the teacher only talks for 20% of the time. Unfortunately here in Indonesia and elsewhere the opposite is true. The teacher often speaks for 80% of the time and maybe gives the class members 20% of the time to respond. It is interesting that the leaders thought so strongly about the need to improve the teaching in the church that they used a whole worldwide Church Leadership session on this subject. The 20% rule was taught in those lessons. 

We read for the third time from the Kitab Mormon. We read over 13 pages today and it was really good. There are still words that we do not remember even after looking them up at least two other times. But each time we read there are fewer and fewer of these. 

It was a good day – not a greatly spiritual one but enough spiritual experiences to ponder over. Like changing the subject of my talk on Sunday, the great need I have for the Lord’s help in preparing the English class of Solo and eventually all of Indonesia, and for feeling the spirit when reading the Kitab Mormon.  There was one problem that came up. It seems that I ate something that is disagreeing with my stomach and so I visited the bathroom more than usual and probably will for the rest of the night. I can not think of anything I ate in the last 24 hours that might have caused this.

18 December 2007 – Tuesday 

It does not seem possible that it just a week before Christmas – actually it does not seem like Christmas without snow and family – especially family. I just figured out that it is different also because we are not immersed in work and the busy flow of things during the Christmas season. Of course we were not last year either but we were so involved with getting ready for the mission and going to the MTC, that it was not as noticeable. 

I woke a little late and decided not to go to the gym but as I thought that I realized that the Lord would not be telling me this, so I quickly got ready and went down and had a really good workout. We read from the Kitab Mormon and then got ready to go to the office. 

At the office Mary’s seamstress came by and Mary gave her a number of projects. She going to have a major wardrobe to take home  – especially some great skirts and blouses. I spent most of my time working on a lesson plan based on the Career Workshop. It will be a lot of work but I believe when I am done there will be a dozen or more 15 – 30 minute lessons that will use all aspects that we are trying to teach and they will also learn more about some necessary skills for getting a good job. I imagine it is going to take two or three days to come up with all the lessons. 

After our regular hours – we did not have any clients – we went to the mission office. While Mary taught her English class – a very noisy one because they played games. I ordered 100 Career Workshop books in English to use in the classes and found that they did not offer a teacher’s manual – or at least we could not find it in the catalog. I think there is one somewhere in the office so I will either get the number and order some or have copies made here.  The Walkers were up in Bogor and the Marchants are in Solo so I just found a comfortable place to rest and read the latest Church News.  

There are some wonderful articles about how the Church is helping out in Mexico and being honored in Brazil. We are definitely letting our light shine before men and they are seeing it. The stone cut out of the mountain is rolling forth.  

We then went to SoGo and got another ton of food and goodies. It is amazing how much we spend on food when we eat so few meals at the apartment. This batch is for making a large carrot cake for the mission Christmas party. 

Once we are back at the apartment it is one of our normal evenings. That is a mixture of study, reading Kitab Mormon, looking at some English, and watching some T.V. I imagine that we could spend some of time doing more spiritual things, but usually by the time 6 or 7 comes around we do not seem able to do nothing but read scripture or PMG or to do more for our English class. Both the spirit and the body grows weak.  

17 December 2007 – Monday 

Normal morning – Kitab Mormon we read Alma 18.  

At the office Mary worked on getting the reimbursement for the month written up. We had a lot of expenses in the last 30 days. I posted a week of my journal on the blog and then worked on ERS tasks. I had Sam make an appointment with one of the Hotel schools here in Jakarta that was recommended to us as having the best programs in the country. Unfortunately there are no programs in Central Java that have a good reputation. It is amazing how quickly time goes by when I am busy. 

We had an appointment with brother Limbong of the English branch at his University. When we got there the electricity was out in the whole neighborhood so we held our meeting in a room that had lots of windows. We found out a lot about his school – he has both a high school and a University – and about how he came to be an educator. It is a very inspirational story and I told him he should write it up so we could let the young people know that anything is possible if they are willing to work hard and trust in the Lord.  

It seems he is very wise about what he teaches. The schools concentrate on teaching Hotel and Recreation, accounting, office machines, and a course on entrepreneurship. Just the ones I would suggest for most students without desires to a more technical field. So instead of getting a general degree they have a very competent in a very employable field. They also teach English. 

We talked to him about scholarships and he said that if the District President or the Mission President were to write a letter saying that a young person could not afford a good education the school would offer them a scholarship. That is about $250 a year which does not sound like much to us but to most people here it would be about 2 months of income for a family. It will be interesting if this works out – the next school year does not start until June. 

After the meeting we came home so Mary – who is not feel well – could take a nap. I started cleaning up the apartment which had gotten somewhat out of hand over the weekend. Mainly because we were never home and because of all the supplies for the next Intensive English Class that we will start in January but we bought on this year’s budget. 

We read two more times from the Kitab Mormon. We fell way behind over the weekend. We were either not here or too tired to put our minds to reading and translating. Just to go through the motions does not add much to our growth. That is why reading in the morning is so important. Our minds are alert and the words seem to flow much better. 

 

 

16 December 2007 – Sunday 

It was a long day but it contained a couple of very special experiences.  

We left the apartment at 8:30 and attended the Jakarta Raya meetings. For some reason a lot of people were late getting to the chapel so the meeting started over 10 minutes late. This is very unusual. But it was the start of an unusual day. Today was one of the first times that all the speakers did not have the same theme – our friend Lukito even mentioned this when he started to give his talk. It was so unusual that after hearing the first talk he asked the branch president if he had the right theme for his talk. That drew a laugh. Another unusual thing was that Elder and Sister Davis and the sisters and elders from Bangdung came to the sacrament meeting – I figured that we had between 15% and 20% of all the missionaries in Indonesia in the meeting. They left after Sacrament to continue towards their home city. Oh I forgot to mention that two of the new elders that came in on Tues or Weds are now assigned to Jakarta Raya. Elder Corcoran seems to already have pretty good language skills and elder Moreno will be fine. 

There was a visitor that did not speak enough English for us to communicate but seemed to want to stay near us when we went to the Gospel Principles class. He was dressed in a traditional sarong which is not worn much anywhere we have been. We are not sure any of the elders really found out much about him.  

The PH lesson was on being member missionaries and I contributed a couple of times. As it was ending I felt inspired to give them a challenge that they committed to. I said we always talk about being member missionaries but seldom do anything about it. I suggested that a special gift to some of their neighbors that before Christmas they give two referrals to the missionaries and even better yet that they go with the missionaries to the two referrals. Many of them committed to this and we will see how it works. I am going to try to do it also so that when I go back in two weeks I can tell them about my experiences.  

As soon as the meetings were over we hurried to the Tangerang chapel to be part of the baptism of two sisters. They are both from the Romunba Family that we home teach. Agnus and her 8 year old daughter Cindy. President and sister Marchant were there – it is the first baptisms in the Tangerang area for the better part of two years. It has been even longer since they baptized anyone in T 1. President Sujud performed the baptisms without fault.  After the baptisms, Mary played the interlude music so we could all sing Christmas carols. I gave the closing prayer.  

It is always special to be part of a baptism. I was struck at how simple the ordinance of baptism really is – there is no pomp – no chanting – no beautiful robes. Just two people dressed in white, a few words spoken by the power and authority of the Priesthood, and then immersion. But what a change takes place in the few moments when the candidate is under the water. They come up out of the water as a ‘fellow saint in the household of God.’ They have gone through the ‘strait gate’ and their feet are firmly planted on the ‘narrow path that leadeth to Eternal Life.’ They are now ‘one of the few that find it.’ They are now eligible to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And all of this happens in that moment of change. It truly is special to witness this great event in the life of these two daughters of God.After the meeting president Sujud asked if we could run the Romunba family home. It seems Agus who usually takes them had to leave early. This made a complication because I had already told President Marchant that we would give them a ride because Ari had dropped them off early that morning so he could go to his own branch. But when I told the president the problem he said they would catch a taxi.  

As we drove to their home I could see why it was so hard for them to get to church. It took us a little over an hour – not helped by needing to go past a stadium where a major soccer match was about to start. We could not imagine what it must be like to take public transportation. Not to mention the expense for the whole family when they have so little. This is one of the main reasons they will have a chapel out in that direction some day. 

After dropping them off we headed to the mission home where we were to meet the Marchants, the Walkers and a dozen missionaries to go to what we thought would be a very nice Christmas program at the university owned by the Sinambela family – that is the one that the Jensens were adopted into and where Mary taught for a few months.  

I must say that I did not find it a very enjoyable evening. I felt that we were on display as ‘bulais’ to enhance the position of the Sinambelas and the University. We were treated very well. Fed what to most Indonesians was a very excellent dinner but to me was much too spicy and uninteresting. We were led into the room by the Sinambelas through crossed swords of the navy contingent. We got to sit on the side near the stage where everyone could see us. And we got to perform a song – which was not on the program. If it was not for the long and very loud sermon that went on way too long. Followed by a poorly edited film that really made little sense and again was much too loud. And finally there was a MC for the last part of the program that sang and spoke way too loud. This took up about 90 minutes that just was not needed.  

However as I sit and think about it, we did get a chance to sing and for the people to feel our spirit. President Marchant got to give a short talk about families. I met a teacher from the University who wants some help with his class. And Mary got to see her four English students who came up and gave her lots of hugs and kisses and said they wanted to start up the class again. They also said they wanted to come to our church. So as I look back I see how the Lord did not let us waste our time but provided an opportunity for us to shine our lights before a large crowd of people. I also met the head of the Organization of Chruches in Indonesia – I asked him if we were part of that organization and he said not yet. I am going to suggest to the president he look into becoming a part of it. It might give us more good contacts in the government and among other churches. I must learn to be patient and trust in the Lord and his wisdom. 

After the program ended we walked down 7 flights of stairs – there were just too many people trying to use too few elevators – and headed home. We dropped off the sisters at their apartment and finally made it home about 10:30 having been gone for over 14 hours. Strangely enough neither of us went right to bed. But when I did at about 11:30 I do not think my eyes stayed open for over 3 minutes.