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.