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.

Sisters Atin and Titik who do all the translating from English to Indonesian. At this time of the year they are exceptionally busy because they are translating all the conference talks. At least they will not need to do it again for the May Liahona. Another picture of sister Atin wearing her mask – we are not sure if it is because she is afraid of catching something or trying not to spread what she has.

 

A rich sunset as seen from our balcony. Krista with sister Steffie on her left.  From left to right – Sister Findlay who is from San Diego and sister Sadimin from Jogya and us in front of the chapel. The sisters have a great spirit and it is was fun to have them with us today.

21 March 2008 – Friday

A different kind of day for us but the morning was quite normal. I have decided it was time to learn all the parts of the body. When I started writing them down, I realized I actually knew most of them when I read them, I just did not have them in my mind as vocabulary. But more and more words seem to be sticking and that is good.

Cindy wrote and said that she took a portable heater over to Sister Steffie so now she will be warm. Krista went with her and they had a nice visit and some Indonesian food. Krista also ended up with some ear rings. She sent us a couple of pictures from their visit and I sent them on to Elder Subandriyo.

I also got a response from the sister who’s son is coming to Indonesia. It turned out that Sister Roberts, our good friend in Solo, had also sent her a letter and answer a number of her questions but she did have a few for me so I answered them and gave some advice for her son about studying Preach My Gospel and the language.

We told Sam he could have the morning off to do things with Anne so we took a taxi over to the mission home for our other District Meeting. It is certainly nice during the holiday – we got there in about 10 minutes. We talked to the sisters in the translation department – they do not get any holidays because they are in the middle of translating all the conference talks. They know what is going to be said a month or more before conference but are very careful not to let anyone else know.

I also got to see President Marchant for a couple of minutes. He was dressed for walking through the mud of the puncak because he is going up to speak to the youth that are up there camping. I took a picture of our casual president. He looks good in jeans.

We convinced the elders to start DM almost on time and by the time we had finished the opening song the missing elders and sisters had arrived. We had another great DM. Elder Rowberry is determined to keep it to one hour but he does not cut corners to do that. As we talked about the investigators, we were able to add a few thoughts. Interestingly enough, elder Rowberry also chose to have the lesson on preparing the investigator for the baptismal inverview. Near the end I asked about the point that suggests that the missionaries should make sure they feel the investigator is spiritually ready to accept the covenant. Almost all the missionaries shared an experience where they either knew that the person was ready or where someone had been baptized without being converted and the problems that causes. It was a good discussion and some meaningful ideas were exchanged.

As we sit in District Meetings I see how dedicated these young men and women are to serving the Lord and the people of Indonesia. They are truly concerned with each investigator and are often crushed when someone will not take the effort to really read and pray about what they are teaching. I do not think they feel that way because they are not getting credit for a baptism but because they know that the person is going miss out on all the blessings that the missionaries are enjoying. They are here because they love the Lord and they have come to love the people of Indonesia.

To make the rest of the day short, after DM we and the sisters went to lunch at A&W before driving out to Bekasi to see Elder Subandriyo’s new house. The drive to Bekasi usually takes anywhere from a hour to an hour and a half but today it took just 35 minutes. And that included getting a little lost. Their new home is big and very nice. It has a yard that is big enough for lots of fruit trees and flowers. The high ceilings seem to keep it cool – at least by Indonesian standards – and they have air-conditioned the bedrooms. I can see why they try to spend their Saturdays there.

The trip back to the chapel went even faster than the trip out. The sisters left us there and we came back to the apartment. The evening was spent like most with some studying – I continued to learn the parts of the body – and reading from the Kitab Mormon. I wrote and posted from this journal. I tried to take  pictures and capture a beautiful sunset but I needed a tripod to get a really clear picture.

I had a rather strange experience as I tried to read the scriptures tonight. Nothing seemed to work – they were just words. I tried the bible, the KM and the D&C but none of it touched me. It was not a good feeling and I can not remember it happening before.

 

Jakarta has thousands of fast food restaurants. Besides KFC and A&W almost anywhere you look there are rows of small restaurants and food carts where you can stop and get a quick meal. The first picture is a very typical one where the motorcycle rider just pulled up and had a quick lunch. The second picture speaks for itself. Those are 100 kilo sacks of rice – about 220 pounds each – and notice the woman is riding sidesaddle so if the rice shifts she is going to disappear off the back of the bike.

20 March 2008 – Thursday

Studied a little Indonesian and then had a really good workout. The gym was very quiet – probably because it is Muslim holiday and people are either sleeping in or are away.

We read from the Kitab Mormon before heading off to the office so Mary could correct Elder Subandriyo’s revised talk. While she was doing that I worked on some English activities and answered e-mail. It was very quiet because everyone was gone and there was little we could do.

Mary was just finishing her corrections when Elder Subandriyo came to the office to pick up a copy so he could review it before sending it to Elder Packer for his thoughts. We figure if Elder Packer Oks it, whoever is supposed to read it to make sure it is doctrinally correct should find it OK also. While we were talking to him Elder S. told us about his wife Steffie who was visiting in Salt Lake and was freezing to death at her sister’s apartment. We told him that our daughter lived just a couple of blocks away and we would e-mail her and see if she had an extra portable heater that she could loan Sis Steffie while she was there.

After we were finished we came back to the apartment until it was time to leave for Tangerang and their District Meeting. For some reason we were both very tired so we managed to get a short nap in before Sam and Anne came back to pick us up. We then ran by the mission home to pick up any mail for us and the Tangerang elders. Since it was a holiday, the traffic was really light so we had time to drop by the office supply store in the mall before going to the chapel.

We had a really good District Meeting with elders Worwood, Cheney, Prause and Manullang. They have a few good investigators and are hoping to baptize at least two of them early on April 6th. We told them about our visit to the Manurung family and they told us that the father had come to church on Sunday – the first time in months. We felt very good about that and we will visit them again soon to re-enforce our visit. Elder Manullang taught a short lesson on preparing investigators for the baptism interview. I do not think we have studied this part of Preach My Gospel before because it is not something we have had to think about.

I shared my thought about President’s Eyring talk on prayer and how it caused me to change the what I pray for. I suggested that as missionaries we may need to concentrate on our investigators and inactives and not ourselves.

Since there was no English class and the traffic was light, we were back in the apartment before 7:00 – the earliest we have been home on a Thursday night for quite a while. It gave us plenty of time to have dinner – yummy leftover meatloaf sandwiches – read from the Kitab Mormon, and do some other things before it was time for bed. I read from the Liahona before turning off the light.

One of the things I did was to write to a sister who’s son has received his call to the Indonesian mission and will report to the MTC in July. I told her a little about the mission and said I would be happy to answer any questions she might have. Hopefully we have a lot of missionaries coming in the next few months including more couples and sisters.

As I look back through the day it reminds me that often we do not have any outstanding happen but that each day there is something that reminds us that we are engaged is a very special work and we are able to touch lives in ways that seem small at the time, but often grows into something we did not expect.

Brother Lukito is an example of what it means to be completely committed to doing the Lord’s work first. He is the District Employment Specialist for the Jakarta District and we have never asked him to do anything that he has not made time to do it. I have called him the day before he needed to put on a Career Workshop for some missionaries who are about to be released and he has rearranged his business schedule to be there. He is always ready to help in any way that he can. He often leaves his family and his work for a weekend to fly to some city to give a Career or Self Employment workshop.

He never seems down. When the flood waters entered his house and destroyed a lot of his furniture and his piano he did not blame the Lord. Instead he went out to help others, cleaned up his mess and gave his usual advice – “Cheer up and be happy.”

I am happy to write that he told us just a couple of weeks ago that by the end of February he had already made as much income  as he did all last year. I do not doubt that the Lord is blessing him for his willingness to serve – to go and do whatever the Lord commands.

19 March 2008 – Wednesday

Woke, prayed, studied, went to the gym for a good but shorter workout, breakfast, wrote a long letter to the Rebers who will be replacing us. We hope to be able to prepare them for coming to Jakarta so there will not be any surprises and they can quickly get to work. We read from the Kitab Mormon. We are where Aaron and his brethern are teaching the King of the Lamanites about God. As I read about the faith that the King shows in believing their words, it reminds me of how the early Christian missionaries went to the edges of the known world to spread the gospel and how so many Kings and leaders accepted it. Someday Indonesia will ripen for the gospel and until then we just do what we can do and trust the Lord to know when the harvest will come.

Since it is P-day we worked on cleaning the apartment, doing laundry, mopping floors etc. The kinds of things you have to do while on missions but never really get mentioned in home coming talks. Mary worked on more HS English stuff, crocheted a couple of baby caps, proof-read Elder Subandriyo’s talk and fixed a great dinner. I worked on pictures – the problem with having a digital camera is that I take way too many pictures – and my journal. I also managed a nap, studied Indonesian – still working on the weather with snow just not sticking, answered more e-mail, and checked all the family blogs.

We read from the Kitab Mormon two more times in Alma and ended exactly ½ way through the book for the fourth time. Hopefully we will finish by the end of April so we can get a good start on the fourth time through. As I often do I end the day trying to read from the Liahona – at least I only have to look up about every 20th word instead of every other one.

Tonight, after finishing Elder Gonzalez’s great talk on how we prepare for ‘personal earthquakes’ that are likely to strike, I turned to President Eyring’s PH talk on prayer from his personal experiences.  I know I listened to it and I know that I have read it before, but this time the message burned into my mind and heart. I was especially touched by his comments about what the Lord said to him as he prayed about his new assignment. On page 57 of the conference issue he said “The answer was very clear and very direct and really a rebuke as I prayed.’Forget yourself – start praying about the people you are to serve.’ I knew immediately that this was what I needed to do – to stop worrying about myself, how I am, my weaknesses, my failings and to start being concerned with others and their needs. I still have over two months to touch people’s lives and I need to find out what the Lord would have me do. I feel that being prompted to read this talk was one of my tender mercies from the Lord today.

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.

Big bulky load of something – there is a driver somewhere in there.

The first two are just interesting load. I call the second one One of Everything. The third picture is a load of fresh goat skins – now if I can just get one with a couple of goats on the back.  MacDonalds delivers everywhere. This is one of 8 to 10 at one location. Motorcycles are the only way you can deliver food in Jakarta – if you tried to use a car the food would always arrive cold if at all.

 

The first picture is sister Hash with the Roberts. Next is Mary with the Walkers and Sister Marchant. As you can see we ate well at the mission home. We often laugh at how often President and Sister Marchant have overnight guests in the mission home and how often they have guests for lunch and dinner – we call it the Mission Hotel. The third picture from left to right – The Roberts who are serving in Solo, Us, and the Hashes who are serving in Malang. This is probably the last picture of us together in Indonesia. If we get together again it will probably be in Utah.

17 March 2008 – Monday

We had a great surprise this morning. Jim and Kristy called on Skype. We did not have our camera so we could see and hear them but we could only chat with them. It worked well and there was no drop out. I think I will buy another camera today and a separate mike and see it that works – I am thinking that the camera we got is not good. It is too bad I have taken 18 months or so to figure that out. Olivia is really speaking clearly and we got to hear her sing a couple of songs.

We read from the Kitab Mormon before leaving for the mission home so we can get out Visas renewed. We thought we were to leave at 10 but of course there were some problems and we did not leave for Immigration until 1:00. But we had a nice visit with Hashes and the Roberts – especially Elder Roberts who I really enjoy talking to because he has had a very interesting life. Mary, and sisters Hash, Roberts and Walker started crocheting baby caps – it looked like a real knitting circle. The Marchants were nice enough to fix us all lunch.

Diaz – the expediter – is a really good man. He works very hard to see that things go smoothly at Immigration. Today he started at 7:30 but he could not get things ready until just before lunch hour and that is why we had to go at 1:00. Once we got there it took less than 10 minutes to get the paperwork signed. We said goodbye to the Roberts and Hashes for probably the last time before we head home. Actually we will probably see the Hashes when they leave in May.

On the way home we stopped at Carrefour to see if we could get a camera and microphone that worked better for Skyping. We bought a cheap camera and separate mike. Back at the apartment I hooked things up and found that the camera worked well but the mike did not. I fiddled with it for a long time with no results. I will try again tomorrow.

The rest of the day was rather laid back. We did read from the Kitab Mormon for a couple of hours and I read from Psalms and the Gospel of John but it seemed the day just slipped away. It seems anytime we break our regular routine we are not able or perhaps willing to make alternate plans.