17 January 2008 – Thursday

We have discovered that the days tend to blend together when we are holding an Intensive English Class. I do no more than think about going to the gym. It is a combination of waking later and a shorter morning before it is time to leave our apartment. We usually manage to get in a half hour of reading from the Kitab Mormon before we leave and that gives us a spiritual boost.

 Today was our P-day.  We had morning class from 9 to 12. I split the time so Mary could get some things ready to send to couples to get them ready for their High School English classes that hopefully will start sometime late in February or early March. The local copy shop is going to be able to expand just on the work we give them. It is one of our regular stops each morning on the way to the office.

 I had a good time teaching. I led them through a review of the 80 vocabulary words that they have had and most of them did very well. It is wonderful to see their minds working and their English skills improving day by day. Best of all their confidence is increasing so that they are willing to talk to everyone and anyone in English. I am a little worried about their talks for the English branch – none of the talks I heard this morning seemed to be well prepared. But it was their first time and hopefully they will improve before they actually give them.

 After that we head over to the mission office where we met with the represenatives from BYUH and talked about teaching English. The two brothers are touring Pacific Rim and putting on firesides to introduce people to BYUH and what they offer. After that Mary taught the staff their English lesson and I had lunch. I also picked up my 120G portable drive the elders bought for me. It is amazing how small and cheap they are. I will be able to pull everything off of both computers and take it all home.

We were able to spend two hours at the apartment – that was our P-day – and then went back to the chapel for the BYUH fireside. It was very informative and I found out some important things about admittance. It is just too bad that they do not have more courses that would prepare Indonesian students for higher paying jobs with multi-nationals.

In the morning we received a call from a recently released sister missionary who heard that one of our students had left and wanted to join the class. We talked it over with the young ladies who are already 3 to a room and they said it was fine. So we invited her to come so we are back to our 6 students and Sam.

So it was a busy and uplifting day. The Lord continues to bless us and gives us many opportunities to grow.