18 March 2008 – Tuesday
Normal morning – I even made it to the gym. As I was doing my workout, I decided that I would only do the strength routine every other day. I feel much better when I do not do it each day. We read 5 pages from the Kitab Mormon – before the day was over we had read 15 pages which is good for us. Of course we are in the section of Alma that is easy reading and we know about 98% of the words.
The new microphone did not work any better than the old one. When we got to the office I tried again it worked great, so it would seem that the problem is somewhere in our lap-top. Either a bad connection or something is incompatible. At least we now know we can communicate from the office computer. It will be good for the Rebers when they come.
At the office Mary worked on her English lesson for later today and I cleaned up more files. I also spoke to the Christensens in Hong Kong. Sister Christensen is having withdrawal pains from the lack of Magnum bars. I think it is strange that Walls would run out if they are that popular. We have not had anyone come in for help with finding work for over 2 weeks. We have talked to some of those we know about their work, but no one has asked for help. They do go through the magazines that we post each week so at least something is working.
Today I again thought about the idea of setting up each Sunday in a different branch. Unfortunately that would mean Sam would miss a lot of his meetings and we would not go to our branches very often, but maybe we could be of more help that way. I know we need to be patient, but that does not mean we can not try to come up with something that will help with the employment. At least the Rebers will have lots of English classes and they can become involved in Humanitarian projects.
Mary hit the jackpot as to clothes today. Our wonderful seamstress brought her lots of blouses, skirts and two temple dresses. She is going to go home with a huge wardrobe – I am going home with two new shirts and a lot of ties. Oh and she took in a couple of pairs of pants for me. Hopefully she will need to do more before we are released.
Speaking of that while at the mission home we got our travel plans. We will leave here on Monday the 2nd of June and spent the next three nights in Hong Kong before flying home – we arrive 1 ½ hours after we leave – which is pretty good for a 12,000 mile flight – on the 5th of June. The only complaint is that we are traveling economy. So I wrote the travel department to find out how much it would cost to move up to business class. It would be a lot nicer for that long trip across the Pacific. Hopefully it will not be too much more. It was interesting that we did not get excited about getting the plans – we are not in any hurry to leave but I am sure we will feel different when the time comes to go.
When we went to the mission home I had a long talk with Elder Subandriyo. He has to add 5 pages to the talk he will be giving at BYUH – he is the only speaker. We talked about the scholarship fund and scholarships in general. It seems you have to be in the top 5 of your class to be eligible for scholarships. We need to make sure the young people know this.
He told me that PEF for Indonesia is not dead. They are now thinking about making the loans straight from the US and the student would repay the loan through a credit card. But that is not anything we will need to worry about. Hopefully it will come to pass so all of Indonesia will be opened for PEF loans. That with the scholarship program that may become a reality would mean the qualified students would be able to go to good schools.
While Mary taught her class, I read the latest Chruch News – the story on the back about the missionary who did not find out for 50 years about his success was great. It is the kind of thing that all missionaries need to read. If we do our best, we should not worry about the results that are seen but trust the Lord to harvest what we plant. While we were there we shipped some things off to the Bennetts and the Taylors – a week late but at least they are on their way.
We did our usual shopping at Sogo including BreadTalk. Watermelon has become a staple of my diet – I am sure it has little in the way of nutritional value but it is filling and easy to prepare. I know nothing that we bought from BreadTalk is good for us…we will repent sometime.
The afternoon and evening was spent at the apartment. I spent much of the time at the computer working on pictures and the blog. It takes a good deal of time to post and I can see why the kids do not update very often. But it is enjoyable and I always feel good when it is done. As I mentioned above we read for a couple of hours from the Kitab Mormon and I spent some time trying to get the weather related words into my mind. It seems to be going better as long as I do not try to remember too much at one time.