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.