28 December 2007 – Friday

Normal morning with a good workout. There has been almost no one in the gym during the holidays. It is almost like it is my private gym and I get to control all the TVs. When I got back to the apartment there was an e-mail from the Barnards saying that the flooding in Central Java had affected a number of members including their driver. The Roberts are out delivering mail and the elders are mucking out houses. One of the families affected is sister Endang who is our ERS specialists in the district.

When packing up for the day I could not find my scriptures and finally decided I must have left them last night at the Tangerang chapel. I called around to the missionaries and found that I had left them there but no one had brought them home so they were still sitting in the room. I asked that someone pick them up so they did not get lost.

We went to district meeting at the mission office. As usual it was late starting but when it was over Elder Rowberry said that next week he would start it on time even if all the missionaries are not there. I told him that was a great idea.

The meeting was good except that they went back to doing it in Indonesian. We had a good discussions about a number of missionary themes and one gave me the opportunity to give my Widow Mites talk. Later elder Suyono picked up on it.

27 December 2007 – Thursday

Both Mary and I slept in – that is we made it past 5:30. I went to the gym for a good workout. I managed to not gain any weight over the Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday. I did not lose any either. I realized that I just do not do much in the way of exercise. I am either sitting in our office, our car or our apartment.

We went to the office and worked on English lessons. I also wrote and answered some e-mail. Elder Barnard wrote to say that the floods were a problem in their area. I wrote back to ask about damage to member’s homes. Floods and landslides have killed 60-80 people in Central Java. I hope none of our members are hurt. I have not heard back from the Hashes who live on a hill in Malang. We of course have little action on the job front at this time of the year. Everyone seems to be too busy to even worry about looking for a job. I also caught up our blog for the last few days.

In the afternoon we went to Tangerang for district meeting. We stopped at the mall so Mary could get some things from the store. She and Sam did the shopping while I bought donuts for the elders. Mary told me she liked not having me with her while she shopped because she did not have to hurry. Sam told us that he and Annie changed their plans and will get married on May 4th. It is hard to believe that it will happen so soon – just two months ago they had not even had a date.

The Tangerang district is doing better on getting progressive investigators. They are having problems getting 15 lesson taught. Elder Vatcher taught the lesson and seems to be quickly improving his language skills. It is amazing how quickly they pick it up. Of course they had two months intensive training before they come so they have the basics down before they get here. Still it is great how quickly most of them progress.

An investigator came for English class and elder Cheney was prepared and wanted to teach the class so once the class got started we left. Where it often takes 1 to 2 hours to get home, tonight we made it in just over 45 minutes. You just never know with Jakarta traffic.

Today we read twice from the Kitab Mormon – we are in the part of Alma where the Title of Liberty is raised by Moroni. It is not easy to understand how the Nephites or at least part of the Nephites so quickly went from being strong, faithful members of the Church to being apostates. As it says in the Book of Mormon – how quick we are at times to turn to iniquity and how slow we are to honor God.

26 December 2007 – Wednesday

I did not write this entry until Friday when I realized that there was none for this date.

It was a normal morning, gym, breakfast and reading from the Kitab Mormon. But we also were able to have a nice if brief Skype talk with Jim’s family. We got to see Charlotte and Olivia. Olivia is growing up so fast that before we know it she will be getting ready to be baptized. Unfortunately Jim seems to have had a terrible headache for at least part of Christmas. We also talked to Bob and his family – they all seemed to have had a great Christmas.

We then went into work and while I spent most of my time writing e-mails to those who are coming to the new Intensive English Class and to president Tatok, Mary worked on lessons for the new HS English class.

Nothing else of any interest or importance happened for the rest of the day. In the evening we read again from the Kitab Mormon and I spent a lot of time cataloging the 120 pictures I took on Tuesday. I am always surprised at how long it takes to keep up with the pictures. Mary continued to work on English lessons – she has collected a large amount of games and other activities that should make the classes very interesting for the students. I get to develop the more serious lessons about careers, education, goals, etc.

25 December2007 – Tuesday

Our second Christmas in Indonesia and although we love being here it feels completely different from being at home with the family. It will be good to be home next year and to have all our family around us.

We had our own Christmas morning and opened the packages from home – Jim and Kristy’s package of goodies, the Mitchell’s gorgeous new 2008 calender, and some material and a photograph book from the Subandriyos – and those we gave each other. I surprised Mary with at least one stocking stuffer – a really rich looking ladybug necklace. She got me two beautiful ties and some expensive material for making more ties. I also replaced her $4.50 purse with a genuine Hugo Bass (Indonesian version) one.

Sam picked us up and we went to the Selatan branch’s Christmas program. Once again we were amazed that so many families would come to church on Christmas morning. But as we thought about it, Christmas does not seem to be the family holiday as it is in the US. They have the family gathering earlier in the year during the Muslim holiday of ….. The program included almost everyone at one time or another. There was a Primary choir, a Seminary skit and song, the Single Adults sang, the elders and sisters sang – Teng and Bastian – Hinckley and Sadimin, a number of families took part and of course president Bob sang. Then there was Santa and finally lunch. I took a lot of pictures and some movies.

From there we went to the mission home and had a wonderful time with all the missionaries from the Jakarta zone. The only ones missing were the Marchants who were in Bali with some of their children for Christmas. There was lots of food – which the elders devoured to the last spoonful – lots of great conversation, a short testimony meeting to which I contributed a very short but to the point thought about our missionary work in Indonesia, and a white elephant gift exchange. Once again I took a lot of pictures of the gathering.

Four hours zoomed by and at that point they were starting to show the third movie from The Work and the Glory which we have seen a number of times. So we decided to leave and caught a cab back to our apartment. By the time we got home we were rather tired and so the rest of the day was relaxed. So another Christmas in Indonesia came to a happy and peaceful end.

In reflecting back the Indonesian Saints have an excellent way of blending the of remembering Christ’s birth, branch fellowshipping, and family sharing for their celebrating of Christmas.