24 March 2008 – Monday
It has been a good news – not so good new day. But it started off strictly positive with a great workout at the gym, a good breakfast – that is lots of orange juice and reading 5 pages from the Kitab Mormon. Both of us also slept well – which is unusual. I got a lot done on this journal and sent out got some necessary e-mail sent out.
Not long after we got to the office we got a Skype call from the Rebers, the couple that will replace us in July. After figuring out why their mike would not work – luckily they could hear us – we had a nice talk for about an hour. They are really excited about coming, they are going to buy our car – which is great news – and wanted to take over our apartment if the details could be worked out with the owners. Since I am writing this a few hours later I can say another piece of good new is that the owner has agreed to our terms so they will have an apartment when they arrive. That will make it much easier for them to adjust to being here. So far that is the good news. Revision: Unfortunately later in the day the owner changed his mind and wants us to pay for the time we will not be here. I wrote back that would not work for us and we would look for another apartment in the complex.
The bad news is that we are going to cancel our next Intensive English Class because of lack of students. In one way this is good because it will give us all of April to get more of the lose ends tied up before we leave. We can work on the government trade school project that Elder Subandriyo wants done and perhaps do something about the youth program that President Mak has wanted us to work on. I think that maybe why things are turning out the way they are. I have been feeling a spiritual nudge to do something about that.
Other good news is that I wrote to brother Wiser about him shipping some things for us and he wrote back that he would be happy to. So we may be able to send a number of things home that we would probably have left here or had to pay a lot to ship home.
The other possibly bad news is that I may be getting a cold. While at the office for some reason my head started hurting and my nose started to run. A little later my throat felt a little sore. For this reason I came home to take vitamin C and rest while Sam took Mary shopping for lace, buttons and it turned out material at the fabric district and then to a mall for other things she needed.
I really feel that the Lord has shown some tender mercies today – I hope they will be extended to me not catching a cold or getting ill. He has taken a number of worries off our minds so we can spend all our time doing his work while we are here. Just the fact that we do not have to move everything out of the apartment will give us 2 or 3 more days to serve. We really are not spending much time thinking about leaving, but it would be wrong to say that we are not aware of the future.
I wrote a letter to the Rebers telling them the good news about the apartment. I also wrote the president telling him that we had a good talk with them and that they will be ready to go to work as soon as they get here. This will somewhat make up for the 7 weeks between our leaving and their arrival.
Mary came home after her successful shopping trip and we read from the Kitab Mormon. We are where Alma is talking to his son Helaman about turning over the plates and other holy things to him for protection.
The major project of my evening was to finish burning cds with all our photographs from May 2007 until now so we can send them to Cindy for safe keeping. I also have them on our portable hard drive but good to have a second back up just in case. I must confess that we watched an old Amazing Race on TV tonight. One good thing about having a limited long term memory is that I can watch it and most of the time not have any idea what is going to happen.