05 February 2008 – Wednesday

Woke at 5:00 and read the Indonesian translation of Elder Ballard’s conference talk about service. I found it more difficult than other talks because it uses phrases and words that were not familiar.

After that Mary and I watched the press conference where the new First Presidency was introduced. It was wonderful to see President Monson, President Eyring and President Uchtdorf walk in. President Uchtdorf said in his remarks that it was obvious that his call must have come from God because no man would have chosen him. As they spoke, I felt the spirit confirming that they were called of God.

It is a shame we did not thing about watching KBYUTV earlier in our mission. It would have been a great way to spend some of our time at the apartment. What is really great is that we can go back a couple of weeks and watch just what we want with fairly good video and audio.

After breakfast we read one page from the Kitab Mormon. That does not sound like much but since time was short it is all we had time for. It takes 15 to 20 minutes for us to read a page out loud in Indonesian, do our best to translate it into English and then read the English version. So reading 6 to 10 pages a day takes anywhere from 1 ½ to 3 hours. But it is a great blessing for us for we learn Indonesian and get to know the Book of Mormon better. Now if I could just remember all that we read it would even be better.

Today was our last regular one for our IEC-3. Tomorrow we will give the young ladies and Sam the Michigan test and then in the evening we will have the graduation. It is the best of times and it is the worst of times. We divided the teaching for the morning class and then Mary went to the mission office to teach an then to Solo to do our grocery shopping. So that left me teaching the afternoon period.

I must confess that my heart was not completely in it. But one great thing happened. Sesi pointed out that I was teaching them incorrect grammar. We were doing an exercise about ‘I wish’ and I said that a sentence should say – ‘I wish I was  home.’ She very nicely said that she wanted to disagree with me and that it should be ‘I wish I were home.” She then turned to the page in the book that showed me I was wrong and she was correct. I was both embarrassed and happy and I told her so. But I always knew I was not the one to teach English grammar and will always be amazed that the Lord has me doing it.

At the end of the morning class, I gave them my pep talk about how it was up to them as to what they do with what they learned in the class. I gave them the example of an aircraft carrier that launches a plane and then it is up to the pilot of the plane if they fly or crash. I also encouraged them to get an education but to be sure to come back to Indonesia and help the Church grow.

After class we came back to the apartment. We had so many groceries that Titan and Hani had to help Sam and I carry them up.

For the second day in a row, I took a much too long nap. But we managed to read 6 more pages from the Kitab Mormon tonight. I listened to a talk by President Eyring on BYUTV and read the latest Church New. It was dedicated to the life and accomplishments of President Hinckley.

We got an e-mail from Puji, one of the students from our second IEC. She wrote that she was getting married today and she knew that it was the right thing to do. We had heard that she was thinking about getting married to a non-LDS man and members in the area were worried. I wrote back wishing her a happy marriage and told her to keep up her English and stay active in the Church.