14 March 2008 – Friday

I just mentioned to Mary that we are in a period of our mission when there is very little to write about. We could almost take any week and paste it in for the next one. I do not mean that our mission has become boring, it is just that we are not having many new experiences and we have reach a point where much of our time is spent creating and ordering paperwork. It is all needed for the English programs we have been privileged start but it is not very exciting or spiritually uplifting. Maybe I am just feeling jealous of those missionaries who are able to get so close to their branches and the members.

We read from the Kitab Mormon this morning. We are at the point where Alma is trying to teach the people of Amoniah. It is interesting that this people who have been taught the gospel, had the scriptures, and so many blessings completely reject God and the prophet that he sends to give them a chance to repent.

We go into the office so I can get an agenda together for our ERS meeting this afternoon and so Mary can re-type Elder Subandriyo’s talk. I finished before she did so I worked on vocabulary for the next IEC. Just as we are about to leave Mary realizes that she somehow saved the re-written talk where it can not be found. Luckily she did print a copy so she does not have to start from scratch.

Our next stop is the mission office. When we get there we find that they are just starting District Meeting. We did not think they were going to hold one because earlier when I called Elder Rowberry he and Elder Smith were teaching a lesson. But everyone was there including President Marchant and we had a good meeting. Elder Smith taught the lesson on Accountability and I commented on the statement “Accept full responsibility for your efforts. Never blame others for difficult circumstances or lack of progress.” I said that LeGrand Richards would agree with that if he was alive. After the lesson we let them eat the dozen donuts we brought.

Then it was on to Tangerang and our meeting with Lukito and Agus. Agus was held up 20 minutes so I think we all took short naps until he came. The meeting went well and we made plans for the next two months and talked some about the time between when we go home and the new couple comes. We gave out some assignments for training and for going to the last week of a Self-Employment Workshop in Solo.

After that meeting we followed Agus to visit an inactive family. This was a family that had joined the Church just before we came to Indonesia. He had recently been retired from a very good job and had wanted to go to Sun Valley and was so disappointed when he did not get a job that he quit coming to Church regularly. We had a nice visit and I taught a lesson on blessings coming after we have kept the commandments. I also bore testimony of the Book of Mormon. They are a very nice family and hopefully through the love of the members they will someday come back.

The trip back from Tangerang took a long time. We needed to go back to the chapel so Mary could re-type Elder Subandriyo’s talk. I used the time to answer some e-mail and to work on more of the vocabulary.

I almost forgot to mention that during the afternoon Elder Subandriyo called with a new project for us. It has to do with choosing young people to financially help to get a good education. He wants to come up with some test or criteria for making the choices. I truly have no real idea about how to go about this but I am sure the Lord will help us as he has in all other tasks that Elder Subandriyo has given us. I do wish we had more than 2 ½ months to work on it, but we will just have to do what we can do and let someone else finish it up. We are getting good at plowing and planting…at least with the IEC we have been allowed to see it grow.

By the time we got home it was rather late so about all we did was read from the Kitab Mormon and then some from the PH/RS Manual in Indonesian. It was a good day and the opportunity to bear my testimony and share some thoughts made it even better.

13 March 2008 – Thursday

Our days are busy but it does not seem like we are accomplishing much. This morning, after reading from the Kitab Mormon, we cleaned out a shelf full of English books for children. We will give some to members, keep some for future English classes, and send some to other couples to use or give away.

At the office we worked on our English lessons and continued to clean up the English material. I filed what I had organized yesterday and went through some more piles. What I did not do was remember to take some vocabulary books to the mission office so the Taylors could take them to Erna in Jogya. Now we will have to have them mailed.

At the mission office Mary taught her English lesson while I talked to the President, the Taylors and the Davises. As we were visiting with Elder Subandriyo he mentioned that he was correcting his talk for the BYUH devotional. Mary happened to mention she was a experienced proof-reader so he asked her if she would look it over. Later he sent her a copy via e-mail.

We were early getting to Tangerang so we stopped at the mall where we had something to drink and bought donuts for the missionaries and our English class. When we got to the chapel only one companionship was there so we sat around and talked about the mission and other things. Elder Manullang and Elder Prause are having some good success including a family of four that have been coming out regularly. Later Elder Cheney and Elder Worwood joined us so we could have district meeting. As always I enjoyed the meeting because it is great to hear the missionaries share their successes and also their disappointments.

Unfortunately we had no one come for English class. It does not appear that anyone thinks it is important enough to re-schedule other events to come. It is disappointing but it just means we are going to have to do something new to get people to come. At least there was lots of donuts for the missionaries.

The best news of the day was that Sam and Anne are definitely getting married in April. The exact details are still being worked out but it appears that it will be on April 26th. I do not know what that will mean for our English class or our own activities but we will work it out.

12 March 2008 – Wednesday

It was P-day and so we did a lot of things around the house including having our air-conditioners serviced. It must be done about every 4 months or the drains get plugged up and they start spitting or dripping water. The charge is very reasonable and the serviceman knows us well enough that we do not even have to tell him our apartment number.

During the day I worked on getting the vocabulary lessons for IEC sorted out. I have a tendency to just toss them in a box when I am through with them which is not a recommend style of filing. Mary finished up a couple of the HS English class teachers supply sets – this has been a major undertaking and she and Daisy has almost all the work.

We read twice from the Kitab Mormon – we are moving right along. The other gospel reading for the day came from the PH manual – lesson 6 on John the Baptist. I found the comments that he made in the temple especially interesting. I do not remember reading them before. I could almost see him before me bearing his witness as a Prophet of God of the things he knew were true. Over coming what he knew to be false doctrine that was probably being taught in the Church by those who considered themselves wise. It reminds me of how the brethern continues to remind teachers in the Church to stick to the manual, scriptures and the words of the leaders when they prepare lessons so they are not led to teach things that may be true but not spiritually enlightening. I am afraid I have not always heeded their counsel. However I have finally matured enough to realize that if it does not add to the spirit of the lesson, it is best not brought up.

An interesting event happened this evening. We knew that the Davises and the Taylors were in town to get their visas renewed and I mentioned to Mary that we should call and ask them and the Marchants and see if they would like to go to the new Amigos we discovered. We decided not to because I really did not want to get dressed up and go out. About an hour later President Marchant called to ask me where the new Amigos was and then he called and asked if we would like to go to dinner with all of them! Great minds do think the same…<g>

Of course we said yes and hurried to get dressed. When we asked for a cab it turned out there were none and we ended up waiting 15 minutes for one to appear. We had a little trouble finding the right area but arrived about the same time as the group from the mission home. We had a great time and a number of interesting moments. First sister Taylor knocked over her smoothie and that had to be mopped up. Then the poor waiter tripped while delivering drinks and managed to spill on both sister Marchant and sister Walker. It only caught the arms of their blouses but the manager was really upset and even went as far as sending one of the staff up to buy sister Marchant a clean blouse. They assured him that was not necessary and so instead he gave us free chips before the meal and fruit afterwards.

There was a lot of sharing of thoughts about our mission and laughter about what we all thought when we got our calls. The President suggested that we should probably revise the information that is given to newly called missionaries so that they know that they will need to buy a car so they need to arrange for getting the money sent before they leave home.

I think we all were sorry when the evening ended and we had to part company. As I have often said, getting to know the other couple missionaries is one of the joys of being on a mission.