I guess I could post 8 or 10 times a day. The missionaries in the district will put on a big Christmas program on Saturday. Mary will play a solo and I will try to hide in the back. More Catch Up –

 07 December 2007 – Friday

I slept in and did not exercise. No ‘Exactly Obey’ for me today. I did manage personal study and we read from the Kitab Mormon. I got a call from elder Cheney that Looky’s young son did die and the funeral will be tomorrow morning. Agus K. told me that he felt the family was doing fine and all the relatives are giving them support. The power of the church to comfort and support is one of its great strengths. 

We went to district meeting in a pouring rain storm. We only got wet going from the car to the building, but some of the missionaries arrived completely soaked. It seems some of them do not have umbrellas. Later we heard that elder Thiemann, who had already been soaked once, fell into a hole up to his chest. I guess it is a good thing he is tall. If his companion would have fallen in, it would have been up to his neck. 

We found that president Marchant was ill and so he had cancelled Zone Conference in Solo. It turned out he has something that exhausts him after working for an hour or so. He also is running a fever. Hopefully it is not dengue fever – if it is he is going to be down for quite a while.  

Due to the storm delays of missionaries coming in, the district meeting was an hour late getting started, but since there was little activity in the district and elder Rowberry gave a good but short lesson on “adjusting your teaching to meet needs,” it was finished in 30 minutes. I asked the missionaries if they ever had the experience of being prompted by the spirit to change what they were going to teach. Elder Rowberry gave a good example of how this does work. He was prompted to teach the Word of Wisdom early on and his investigator gave up all his vices that day.  

We then went to Sogo so Mary could buy even more supplies for cookie making. I told her we could have bought 20 or 30 dozen of good cookies for what she is paying for supplies and it would have saved her the work of making them. She agreed but it was too late by then. 

We hit terrible traffic coming back to the apartment. It took us an hour to travel what usually takes us 20 minutes. Rain and it being Friday seems to have been the cause. It was not fun. I tried reading from MIK but only for a short time. For some reason reading in the car does not work for me. I do not get sick, it just does not sink in. 

Daisy came to clean our apartment – she needs some income until she gets a job. I took a short – for me – nap while she was cleaning. She did an excellent job and Mary gave her a little more than we usually pay for getting our apartment cleaned. Daisy said she would like to clean our apartment even if she gets a regular job. She is a hard worker and I think she wants to save money to go to school. 

It was a strange evening for us. We had pizza and soon after we were finished, Mary lay down on the couch and hardly moved for a couple of hours. I finally got her to go to bed where she immediately woke up and started working on English games she found on the web. She has been spending hours finding and downloading games and activities for our English classes.  

We are fine – just can not post anything but short notes. We are posting this as the 6th so I can fill in later.  Love all of you – we really miss you during this holiday season. Here is some catch up –

06 December 2007 – Thursday 

Normal morning – reading in Alma from the Kitab Mormon. We also work on an antonym matching game for my class tonight and for the future. We are spending a lot of time on English. It was the start of one of our busier days.  

Once we are at the office, people start to arrive. First there is Franky who comes in to up grade his CV. Franky is living in hopes of getting a job either on a cruise ship or at a ski resort. He first came in over 6 months ago sure he would get the Sun Valley job but never got the call. Then he thought for sure he had a job on Holland America – his next chance is sometime in February but he has finally decided that he should perhaps try to find a job here. Just in case the other one does not come through again. He is a very friendly young man who for some reason quit his last job without having another job to go to because he did not think it was good enough. 

Lukas Subandriyo came in for his English lesson. Unfortunately Ezra is sick with the flu. We go through fractured sentences and we find that he does fine when he really stops and thinks about the sentences. I suggest that he writes out the whole sentence and not just try to correct what is there. He has problems with count and non-count nouns – but everyone does.  

When everyone is gone we work on more English class activities. Mary is finding a lot of good ESL activities on the web. They are easy to download and turn into classroom lessons and games. It is truly amazing what can be found there. 

We leave a little early because we were invited to go to a new warung by the office staff. But we got to the office too late to join them and Sam got us lunch from BYU. While Mary taught her class, I talked to the Walkers and elder Subandriyo, and then found a place to take a short nap.  

On the way to Tangerang for the district meeting, we stopped at the mall to get a lot of supplies for more English projects and ingredients for making cookies for the Missionary Christmas Program on the 15^th. We also got donuts for the missionaries. While we were shopping I came across a display of large umbrellas and decided we should really have one. Which turned out to be perfect timing because when we started to go out it was pouring rain. Sam used the new umbrella to get to the car and drove it to a sheltered entry so we could get in without getting soaked. 

When we pull into the parking lot at the Tangerang chapel, my phone rings and it is elder Subandriyo who wants my opinion and help about another of his ideas for Indonesia. This one is a very large one – he has the vision of a tourist destination on Bali that is along the lines of the Polynesian Cultural Center at Laie. I have no idea why he feels I am in any way qualified to help with this, but since the last two things he asked us to do seems to be viable, I told him I would see what I can do. It is strange that he seems to call when I am in the car with something out of the blue.  

We had a very good district meeting with the elders from Tangerang 2 – elders Cheney and Peate, elder Smith from the office and elder Hadi Suyatmo who is one of the zone leaders. Elder Cheney gives a lesson on Obedience and we have a good discussion. I talk some about the statement in PMG that says ‘Be exactly obedient.’ I suggest that we see how often we can record in our journals that we went through the day being ‘exactly obedient.’ I promised them that more often we can do this the more blessings the Lord can give us and the more often that the Holy Ghost will be our companion. They all committed to try this – elder Peate actually wrote down my promise. I also talked about studying English as part of being obedient. I think I will use this as part of my talk at Zone Conference – that is if the president remembers he asked me. 

Because of the rain and because Agus and Catherine’s family did not come, we did not have any English class. It is rather discouraging to go to the effort to have the classes and no one comes. We were asked by president Paul to have the classes on Friday night, so I asked president Sujud to get together with him and see if that would work for everyone. I don’t imagine we will have any trouble changing district meeting.  

After the meeting we give the elders the donuts – it is one thing that all elders enjoy. Then we took elders Hadi Suyatmo over to pick up some things for elder Woodword who came into the mission home because he was very sick. We do a quick inspection of the home and find that they are keeping it very clean. We were impressed since they had no idea we would be seeing it. The trip back to the mission office and then home seems to take forever. By the time we get here we are very tired – we were out for about 11 hours.

05 December 2007 – Wednesday 

We are going to take a real P-day and not do anything outside of the complex. At least that is our plan. We need to get our air-conditioners looked at, the new cleaning lady is coming, and we are way behind in reading from the Kitab Mormon. 

I woke at 4:15 and could not go back to sleep so I spent an hour working on language by reading from MIK. Some parts I can read well and some have strings of words I either do not know or can not remember. But I am no longer discouraged as much as motivated.  

I was just thinking about posting an abridgement of this journal a couple of times a week instead of the whole thing each day. There is little use of people reading the same thing day after day. It will also allow me to write things I would not want to publish on the web for anyone or everyone to see.  

I had a good workout at the gym and am happy to say that the weight is starting to come off. Today I reached 171 pounds – about 6 to 11 pounds from where I want to be. I would really like to get down to 155 but I do not think I can do that – but who knows. Even with the help of SlimFast. I need to write them a letter telling them how their product is the only way I can constantly lose weight and keep it off. 

After breakfast we start cleaning the apartment – at least straightening up things so that it can be deep cleaned. I do the laundry while Mary does the dishes We split up the tasks so it went quickly. We made some calls so that later today people will come to service the air-conditioners and hopefully to fix the drapes. After that we read from the Kitab Mormon – we are at the point where Alma the Younger and the Sons of Mosiah are trying to repair some of the damaged they did to the church. 

The maintenance men came by and fixed our drapes but the internet man has yet to come. Hopefully the cleaning lady will make it here – the apartment really needs it. After lunch we read another chapter from the Kitab Mormon. We decided that we would read often and not so long. That way we keep fresh and interested – it is not just a task but an enjoyment. 

The cleaning woman did not come – which is strange since I called her husband to make sure she was coming. We got the drapes fixed, the overhead light replaced, the air-conditioners cleaned and repaired, and the computer man speeded up our internet but I still can not consistently post to the blog. We read about 12 pages from the Kitab Mormon, I studied from PMG a number of times, Mary did a lot of work on English class stuff, and we had dinner sent up from the restaurant.  

We got some good news from Daisy. After waiting for a couple of weeks wondering about employment, she has two interviews in the next four days. One with Johnson Tobing and one with brother Nugroho. Hopefully she will get a job she will enjoy until she can go to school and get her private accounting certificate – CPA level.

04 December 2007 – Tuesday

A year has gone by since we entered the MTC in Provo and put on our missionary badges for the first time. It seems both longer and shorter than a year. It seems like we have been here for years. We have become comfortable in Indonesia, we have come to love the Indonesian people – especially the Saints, and we have even come to enjoy teaching English and working with ERS. We have experienced events we had not even thought about a year ago, we have been places and seen things that we had not even thought about in all our lives. We have had opportunities to serve in ways that we would never had been able to if we were still living in Provo. The Lord has comforted us, has blessed us, and has been with us. It has been a great year.

I woke just in time to go to the gym. I guess because of the rain it was not open so I walked and jogged until it did. A very light drizzle was welcome because it kept down the temperature. But I was glad to see the gym open up. I had a really good physical workout. Then back at the apartment we read from the Kitab Mormon to build up my spiritual side. We are in Mosiah where Alma the younger and the sons of Mosiah are persecuting the Church.

We were fairly busy at the office. We managed to get our report into the Christensens. It was a good month for employment – at least the numbers said that. I think some of the numbers came from last month when almost none were recorded.  While I gave Ezra Subandriyo his English lesson, Mary gave his older brother a piano lesson. Later we had a good time talking to Lukas about the foods he learned to eat while on his mission in Georgia. They were a lot different than the foods he grew up on here in Indonesia. They are two good young men, hopefully they will get their education and then come back here to be leaders in the years to come.

I checked with a few of our past ‘clients’ to see if they had any luck finding a job. Unfortunately most of them are still looking. One is coming in on Thursday to see us. Around noon Lukito came in with all of his report and we added it to the one we got from Agus. We talked about his business ventures. It seems he is going to open a new shop. He certainly has lots of irons in the fire, but he seems to do well with most of them.

We closed up the office at 2:00 and went to Grand Lucky market before going to the mission office so Mary could teach her English class. While she did that I had a good long talk with the president about a number of things including the need for the Indonesian elders and sister to learn as much English as they can. He is going to give me 15 minutes at the next Zone Conference to talk to the missionaries about this.

Then I talked to elder Subandriyo about the English class. I thought I could get him to help me with getting the program at least tested here in Jakarta, but he said that it was up to me to figure out how to motivate the PH to take the lead in strengthening the rising generation. So it is back to the mountain to pray for the Lord’s guidance in this matter. The work will go forward.

Hendra surprised us with our new computer and monitor – now I will just have to move all the files to the new one, wipe out the ones we do not need, and then figure a way to get the old computer to the Barnards.

President Sujud told us about a tragedy for one of his families. Looky Samad and his wife Diana are strong members of the Tangerang II branch with a wonderful family of 3 sons and a daughter. They found out two weeks ago that their next to the youngest son Joshua had leukemia and it was some rapid kind that strikes fast and hard. The president asked us to visit the hospital to give the family some support. We were happy to do this and I am glad we did.

When we got there Looky told us that Joshua was on lifesupport – unable to breathe for himself and that it was just a matter of time before he died. We went in with him to see Joshua and it was so sad to see this little 2 ½ year child hooked up to all these machines and in a coma. He asked me to offer a prayer and I did – I tried to assure the good brother that Joshua would be waiting for them when they crossed over. That they needed to live their lives so that they would be worthy to be with him. They have been married in the temple and so all of their children are sealed to them. They have great faith so I am sure while this will crush their hearts it will not crush their spirit.

When we came out the rest of the family went in and I sat and talked to Looky. I asked him if he had a priesthood blessing and he said he hadn’t. He asked me if I would give him one. So we went into the Muslim prayer room and I gave him a blessing. It was a humbling experience and after I was done, we had a tender moment together. I hope that it gives him some comfort and strength as he faces the terrible days ahead. I can not imagine what it is like to lose a beloved child. Especially one as sweet as Joshua. At least we have the truth of the gospel and knowledge that families are forever to help us through trials such as this. I am thankful that president Sujud felt inspired to tell us about this and invited us to go to the hospital. It was truly humbling.

At the apartment we got some bad news. Femmy did not get the job with Garuda. She was one of 300 that were invited to the interview and only 20 positions were open. I am afraid she is too young and did not have training on how to walk and look poised. She thinks she will get a job at a health clinic in Bekasi. Daisy wants to see us either tomorrow or Thursday. I am afraid she is getting anxious about finding a job. Each time one of our students fails to get a job it really makes us sad.

03 December 2007 – Monday

I woke up way too early and studied Indonesian until it was time to go to the gym. I stepped on the scales for the first time in almost a week and was surprised to see that I had not gained any weight after pigging out at the buffet twice a day. I guess all that worrying and Fast Sunday countered the food intake. It was great to be back in the gym and have a full workout.

The rest of the morning went as usual with our reading the Kitab Mormon and me trying to figure out why the darn computer will allow me to see our blog and even post a few sentences but not a full day of this journal or a single picture. Wednesday I will get Giganet over to see if they can figure it out. We listened to the 1^st Presidency’s Christmas Special on the computer and I recorded it for future hearing.

We went to the office where I spent almost all my time writing e-mails to Hong Kong about reports and to PH leaders about the new program. Mary was busy posting reports, gathering more English ideas, and practicing the piano. Ezra Subandriyo did not come in for his lesson. He had to go finish up his visa so he can head to BYUH on the 26^th. Sam made out his report for November including the trip to Solo. It turned out to be less than I originally thought it would be. Mary pointed out that it would have been hard to run our pilot program if we had not sent all the goodies with Sam.

Elder Subandriyo called and wanted to know about the last day of the pilot. I told him that I had just sent him a full report and some ideas about how we could use the program to help the youth learn about career choices, writing resumes, the importance of goals, and lots more. Also gospel themes can be used to re-enforce Seminary and other church meetings. I am very excited about the whole idea of building a curriculum that not only teaches English but educates the students to better prepare for life.

These ideas came about because President Mak of the Jakarta District asked us to come up with a series of programs or firesides to help prepare the youth better for a successful job or business future. I was wondering how to do this when the English program was given to us. I am thankful that we are having this opportunity to make a real contribution to the future of the church in Indonesia. Hopefully years from now the first student will graduate after three years in the program well prepared to be a success both physically and spiritually. All we can possibly do in the time we have left is to plow some ground and plant some seeds. If we are lucky we will see a few blades break through the soil before we move on.

We got a note from Anni – one of the Indonesian students at BYUH – that she has been contacted about being a Marriott intern next summer and will have a phone interview later today. Hopefully she does well and will be given an internship. Then when she graduates in 2009 she has a good chance of being offered a job in Marriott here in Indonesia.

After our office hours, Mary talked me into visiting a huge crafts mall in search of some more Christmas gifts for the grandchildren. It is a football size – or bigger – floor of a mall that is just crammed with Indonesian crafts. Most of them are just inexpensive trade goods that are over-priced – for instance a backscratcher that I bought for 50 cents last week in Solo was priced $2.50. But we do some bargaining and buy a few things.

Back at our apartment we pretty much collapse. We seem to be still recovering from the last week. It also did not help that I had been awake since 3:30 a.m. I do manage to do some studying but my heart was not in it. Finally I am able to take a short nap before dinner. After dinner I spent too much time on the computer writing. and reading.

It started raining about 6:00 and continued to rain, sometimes very hard, for the rest of the evening. When I went to bed there was so much lightening flashing that it almost was like there was a flashing neon sign outside our window.

One of the things that rather amazes us is how elegantly dressed women ride sidesaddle, with their shoes hanging from their toes, and not holding on to anything. The second picture is not a motorcycle but a bicycle load of bright toys for kids.  The last one shows a young man looking back at us – I can imagine him asking his dad ‘Who is that Bulai.’

Towels – lots of them. A young lady textmessaging while helping to transport a load. sunset after a storm taken from the chapel in Solo

 

Mary trying her hand at putting wax on a pattern. Us and the Roberts

1 December 2007 – Saturday

It is very strange. Now I can get to this blog from home and can post a couple of lines, but once I get over 3 or 4 lines it will not upload. It has to be a problem with our link at the apartment because it works everywhere else. Including the office where we are now.

30 November 2007 – Friday

I slept well – some of the problems I worried about the night before had disappeared. Also I was exhausted. I went to the gym and worked out for about a half hour. When I got back to the room Mary was already busy with a new game for tonight. Something to do with Tic-Tac-Toe – she is very inventive. We read from the Kitab Mormon – Abinadi is schooling the priest of King Noah about the scriptures. I think we are having more success with the youth.

This all that it will me post from our apartment.

29 November 2007 – Thursday

I woke in the middle of the night and had a very difficult time going back to sleep. But some time I did and woke up after 6:00. I spent the time that I was awake thinking about all the things we did and needed still to do. Worrying if we had made a good impression on the young people, thinking about the people who needed help with getting a job, and on and on. It is amazing how many things I can find to think and worry about when I should be going back to sleep.

We had a very quiet morning. After breakfast we read from the Kitab Mormon and then I wrote in this journal. Mary worked on getting activities together for tonight’s class. We came to realize that this is how we work best. Making up what we are going to do based on what we learned or did the day before. I made one of my matching games using opposites. I finally got around to going to an ATM so we have enough cash to finish our trip. I then walked down to the bookstore to see what they had. When Mary said it was close, I had no idea how close it was.

As I was in the bookstore, it struck me how busy it was. It was as busy as many of the bookstores in America. It shows that the Indonesian people, even in a smaller town like Solo, are interested in reading and learning. The problem is that there is so much poverty in Indonesia, that the fact that there is a growing middle class of very intelligent and inventive people. I believe in a couple of generations, Indonesia will over come the major problems of corruption and under employment and take their place with countries like Japan and Korea as major forces in Asia and the world.

Elder and Sister Bennett joined us for lunch and we talked about a lot of things. We shared ideas about English class, and a lot more. Sister Bennett came equipped with a whole list of things she wanted to get ideas on. We talked about a couple of problems that they seem to be having. It is always good to find out what the couples are doing.

After the Bennetts had to leave, Mary talked me into going to look at some Batik shops that the Barnards told us about. However we could not find them so we came back to the hotel and will go with the Barnards to see them tomorrow. We spent the couple of hours we had left getting everything ready for tonight’s class and then I took a short nap.

We arrived at the chapel in another wild rain storm. Not as bad as a couple of days ago but still a lot of rain and wind. There was only about a half-dozen young people at seminary and my first thought was that we managed to scare all the young people from coming. But they kept arriving and by the time the class started there were 14 – 3 or 4 more than yesterday. I am hoping that was because the ones that came yesterday told their friends that it was worth attending.

We did a number of activities including teaching them the first article of faith. I got a number of them to stand up and try saying it from memory. They are starting to trust us and so they are willing to try. I tried to work with one young man who I think is quite smart but has an attitude and I think he is coming around. At least when I asked him to come up he was willing to give it a try.

We did a number of other activities including one on verb tenses and one on antonyms. I was pleased to find that they know the words ‘antonym’ and ‘synonyms.’ During the class I had Sam get simple meals for the students. They were surprised and happy with the added treat. Some took the food home and some ate at the capel.

I talked to president Tatok – he is the CES co-ordinator for the district – about the class. He thinks it is great and said he has been trying to get the Seminary teacher to include activities in her lessons. He thinks if she did more young people would come. I really hope that the young people can get some of their non-member friends to come. At least they will learn the Articles of Faith.

When we got back to our room, we read for the third time today from the Kitab Mormon. We are still a few pages behind but are catching up. Hopefully by the end of the weekend we will be back on track.

We talked about the English class and my thought was that there should be four things taught each class. The next class would review three of them and add a new item. This way each item gets taught four times and something new is being worked on each class. Then a month or so later the concept would be reviewed for four more times. Then two months after that, if it was needed, it could be reviewed again. Once a concept or a skill was fully understood, it could be used at any time as part of another concept or skill.

I also think that as often as possible there should be two speaking activities, one reading and one writing activity each hour. Once the class is established some homework can be assigned. Nothing that takes long but something that they will find interesting enough to not find it a burden.

So it was a great day. It looks like the idea is workable and that if presented correctly the students will want to attend. Now all we need to do is work up a curriculum that will teach the students while being interesting and fun.