These are four of the pictures I took on Sunday. The head of Christ is cropped from a Bloch picture hanging in the foyer of the Tangerang  chapel. I took the picture because I love the look on the faces of Christ and the rich, young man. I ended up cropping it to this because I have the same picture hanging on the wall of my music room at home. I bought it after a spiritual experience in the bishops office.

These are of course my Easter orchids that I bought yesterday. I bought three but gave one to Sister Kane and after taking this picture we took one to Sister Walker. When we gave it to her Elder Walker told us that orchids were her favorite flower and she had them at home.

I took this after Tangerang 2’s sacrament meeting. Ida – the young lady – works in the mission office and took some time off to have their first child. It seems appropriate to show a mother and father with their first born. We know from modern revelation that Christ was born as well as died about this time of the year.

The Primary Choir singing during the baptismal services. The young lady in the dark dress with the beautiful face and eyes is the sister of Yoga. He was the one who was baptized. They are a very special family who have become our good friends. We will miss them and others who we will leave behind.

23 March 2008 – Sunday

I woke early and I am embarrassed to say that I was awake 10 minutes or so before remembered it was Easter Sunday in Indonesia. Although there is little to remind us of this very special day, that is no excuse for forgetting to remember the most important day in the eternal history of man.

Once I had acknowledge the great debt that I owed to my savior, I went about my normal morning. It is the early church day in Tangerang so we had to leave early and that means we did not read from the Kitab Mormon. As always with Sundays, we made good time to the chapel. However there was one problem. As we were coming up to the first toll booth I reached for my wallet to refill the almost empty toll tray and found that I had left it at home. Lucky for us Sam had enough to get us there and back.

It was a wonderful day at the Tangerang branches. First we got to greet most of the members of T2 as they came in. Elders Worwood and Cheney – who actually are in T1 but was there because they felt a need to be – were with us as greeters. Elders Prause and Mangullang joined us before the meeting started.

It must be very strange for a Christian investigator who comes for the first time on an Easter Sunday. Almost no one dresses any different than they do any other Sunday. The chapel is not decorated in any special way and except for the choice of songs and perhaps one or two of the talks there is not much special about the program. President Gjarot actually mentioned this in his impromptu talk in Tangerang 1. He pointed out that we celebrate Christ and His atonement every Sunday and hopefully every day. But I am still sure this is difficult for some people to get use to.

I mentioned President Gjarot’s impromptu talk. It so happened that in both branches the slated speakers ended long before the time was up – this is very unusual here – and so the branch president or whoever was conducting asked someone to speak. In T1 President Sujud spoke.

The highlight of the sacrament meetings was the choir from T2. Almost every adult and young adult in the branch sang and it was very good. Mary, as usual, got to play for T1. One thing I did notice that the level of noise before and after the meeting was over, seemed louder than usual. It was like no one had seen each other for a long time.

After T1 sacrament meeting we stayed in the chapel to attend the baptism of Yoga Sadiyono – Agus and Cathrin’s son. Mary ended up playing for it – they are going to miss her when we leave. I was greatly impressed by the program. Other than the Branch Mission President who conducted, all the prayers and speakers were young men and women of Primary age. Two of them had recently been baptized themselves. What a great idea! Not only did it keep the program short, but it gave the young people great opportunities to be part of a baptism. Between the baptism and confirmation, the Primary Choir sang with Mary playing. Again it was great that the young children were made a part of the program itself.

After the baptism the family provide lunch for everyone and then they held choir practice. The branch choir is going to sing for District Conference next week and two of the songs are going to be sung at least part in English. They asked Mary to give them some lessons on pronunciation. She asked for them to sing first so she would know where they needed help. As we sat on the stand listening to them sing, I closed my eyes and tried to hear if I could tell that they were non-English speakers by their accents. I could not – their singing of ‘th’ words was perfect and Mary said the same thing. So there was no lesson to give before we went to the Walkers for lunch with them and the missionaries.

Sister Walker prepared a lovely lunch of ham, potatoes, carrots, etc. Not a drop went to waste but too much went to my waist. We had a nice talk with the Walkers about what they are doing. Elder Walker has been a dynamo about meeting contacts and getting things done. He has gotten the OK for more cleft-palate and cleft-lip projects, has spread the water projects to other areas of the country besides Bogor, and has a number of other types of projects in the works. You would never know from looking at them that they had such power and determination to do good for Indonesia. They truly are tools in the hand of the Lord.

Finally back at the apartment we read from the Kitab Mormon and managed to keep busy doing an assortment of things. My main activity was to start burning cds of pictures so we can send them to our children. They can either look at them or just hold on to them but at least we will have back ups for all of them in many places. I want to do the same thing with this mission journal. Before we leave I am going to have it printed or as soon as we get home I will print it. Then it and the pictures will be a permanent record of our experiences.

Before turning off the light, I read and pondered D&C 17-19 and found that there is certainly a lot to consider there. These early revelations were given when the Book of Mormon was finished being translated and was being printed. The excitement about spreading the gospel is boiling in the blood of some of those who are already converted to the work. The desire for new revelation – the will of the Lord and their desire to have every question answered through personal revelation can be felt. It must have been an amazing time for all those who were ready for the coming forth of the Church in the last days. Just a touch of this excitement can be felt in the words of the revelations. What a shame there is not even one really good diary being kept in 1829 and 1830 of the day to day miracles that were coming forth.