We were up and moving around early today because we had to be ready to leave at 7:15 for the Tangerang chapel. Once we got there we greeted the members at the door because the other missionaries came late. It turned out they were bringing an investigator – one that had been found by the Tangerang 2 elders but who lived actually lived in T1. Hopefully the drought of convert baptisms will soon end in T1. All they need is some successes to get things rolling.

As usual, Mary played the piano. They could really use a pianist in the branch but they have a player piano so they are not without music. When the meeting started there were not more than 30 members present and that included 5 missionaries, president Gjarot and his family, and those on the stand. It seems that the big branch outing the last couple of days wore people out. By the time we spoke there were about 60 total.

Mary and I were the first speakers and so we were careful to leave time for the main speaker who turned out to be president Gjarot. I think our talks went well. Mary spoke on gifts we can give to the Lord and I spoke about the Widows Mites. Both of us spoke in English with interpreters. I am not sure how effective I was because when I asked Sam what I had talked about he did not get it right and he could hear it both in English and Indonesian. Mary said that sister Gjarot gave her a couple of compliments about what we talked about. President Gjarot spoke on Joseph Smith. I had forgotten that today was his birthday.

We did not go to any other T1 meetings but stayed in the foyer and greeted T2 members as they arrived. We also started taking pictures of families so we can make up a book for the missionary couple that follow us. I have always been thankful for the few pictures that the Leishmanns left. We are going to try to leave more information about them – like all they names, what they do, etc.

We were surprised and delighted to see Elder Thomas with the T2 missionaries. He will be going home on Friday and should arrive in time to spend New Years with his family in St. George. He interpreted for us and did a great job. The elders thought at first that they did not have any investigators but it turned out that two sisters did come to church so both T1 and T2 had investigators. It has been a long time since that was so.

Sister Agnes and her daughter Cindy were confirmed today – I was surprised when the branch presidency did not ask the elders to stand in the circle. Maybe that is just the way they do things in Indonesia. The first speaker was a sister who was from the Philippines but had been living in Indonesia for 17 years. She was so caught up in trying to express her feelings about the church and the members that she just could not stop and took about twice as much time as she was supposed to. I think everyone understood and the branch presidency adjusted the program and let it run over almost 15 minutes. After the meeting we talked to her about her children – who only speak Indonesian and English. She said that they should do fine and she would send them to an English speaking school. She must have a pretty good job with security. She will be a great addition to whatever branch she is in.