09 March 2008 – Sunday

Sam called early to tell us that he was very sick and from his voice I would say that was an understatement. Without a driver we decided to take a cab to Jakarta Raya. Actually I suggested we go to the English branch but Mary thought we should visit one of the other branches and I agreed that she was right. It is too easy to go to the English branch and they are not our assignment.

With some help from us, the taxi driver made good time to the chapel and so we got to greet most of the members as they arrived. Elders Thiemann and Suseno are serving there and I always enjoy talking to Elder Thiemann who we have known since he was in the MTC. He agreed to be our translator for the meetings.

All the meetings went well. President Anthony was the main speaker in Sacrament meeting and he spoke on the Atonement of Christ. Lukito’s wife also spoke on the same subject and quoted a lot of scripture. She is an older woman with an Indonesian smile and lots of energy. You can see where Lukito gets all of his drive.

In Gospel Principles there was an investigator and a number of newer members. Elder Suseno taught the lesson on Faith in Jesus Christ. We ended up touching on all the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel. The investigator had a number of questions and seemed very interested in the answers. Near the end of the class I told him that 50 years ago I was an investigator and that it was not until I sincerely prayed about the truthfulness of what the missionaries were teaching that I came to know the Church was true. I also bore testimony of the Book of Mormon. I could feel the spirit bearing witness and I hope that he could also.

PH was on lesson 4 and 5 in The Teachings of Joseph Smith and tied the coming forth of the Book of Mormon to Repentance. Although I followed along in the English manual I did not make any comments. It was a rather straight forward lesson and there was not many questions. The investigator sat in on PH but did not say much – I hope he understood what was being taught. Especially about the importance of repentance and the role of the Book of Mormon in the Church.

We had a quick taxi ride back to the apartment where we had lunch and I took a nice nap before we read again from the Kitab Mormon. We finished up with the Lord leading Ammon and the people of King Limhi back to Zarahemla.

We got a call from Elder Walker saying that President and Sister Marchant’s plane was delayed and they would be late. We agreed on 6:30 as the time for dinner. When we got to the mission home, we found that they still were not there but we did get to meet the Baldwins from Snowflake Arizona who are the Humanitarian directors for our part of Asia. They will be here for a whole week.

When it was evident that the Marchants were not going to be home any time soon, we sat down to dinner with the Baldwins, the Walkers, the office elders and the A.P.s. It was a very nice dinner of beef stroganoff, steamed veggies, salad, rolls and lots of fruit. We learned that the Baldwins were almost the same age as we are – his birthday is exactly one month before mine. They would have been out on a mission earlier but he was stake president and the brethern did now want to release him. Since they seem very healthy, I would not be surprised if they go out again. He is a CPA and I think he said that his son-in-law is running their business while they are serving. We told them something about our work with English classes and shared some of our plans for the future.

Soon after 8:00 we left with the Baldwins to see them safely to their hotel. As we walked out we saw the Marchants getting out of a taxi. This surprised us because Elder Walker had been trying to call them for some time to see where they were. The Baldwins and them had a quick introduction and will meet again tomorrow. We took advantage of having a taxi right there and piled in for the trip to their hotel. Unfortunately when Mary said ‘Marriott’ the driver thought she said ‘Meridian’ and took us there instead. Luckily it was not too far from the Marriott so it only added about 15 minutes to our bidding the Baldwins good night.

So ended a good Sunday with a couple of spiritual experiences, reading from the scriptures – I also read the latest Church News – and meeting another missionary couple. Not to mention talking to the members of Jakarta Raya where a large part of the people have excellent English. The only sour note of the day was that Sam was sick. When I called him in the evening, Annie answered and said that they were at the hospital where the doctors said that he had food poisoning. He thinks he got it from the fish they served at District Meeting. I am glad that neither of had any. I told Annie to tell Sam that we would not need him tomorrow and to rest and get well.

08 March 2008 – Saturday

I find it interesting how hard it is to get myself up to go to the gym. I run through all kinds of excuses to stay in bed a little longer. But then I remember that the Lord probably would not be telling me this and so I get up and go. Although I was the first to the gym this morning, I was surprised how many came in after me. Usually on Saturday I am finishing up when the next patron comes in. But today there was a steady stream coming in.

We read from the Kitab Mormon by finishing up Abinadi’s story and starting in with Alma establishing the Church a the Waters of Mormon.

We spent much of the day at the chapel and I spent most of the time there trying to organize the Intensive English Class files. I also sent out e-mails to members of the English branch who has helped us in the past with the IEC and asked for their support for the April one. We can not have a real effective class without their help. I filled in the time with reading from 1st Corinthians. I went on line and found a good commentary but it did not add anything to my study. It is interesting that Paul in Corinthians 1:19 – “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” I am afraid that I through much of my life I was one of those who thought having knowledge was being wise.

Mary had only one young man come to her HS English class. I joined them for a couple of games. One was unscrambling the 13th Article of Faith. I am ashamed and humbled to say that I came in a distant last. Obviously I need to brush up on my Articles of Faith.

Sam was sick in the morning and got sicker as the day went on. He spent all his time on the couch sleeping or in the bathroom. Annie came and took care of him but after the English class he took us home and I told him to go home and get some rest. We gave him some medicine which we hope will get him to feeling better.

We read again from the Kitab Mormon, rested and had dinner before catching a taxi and returning to the chapel so Mary could play for the choir. The size of the choir seems to be shrinking. Some I am sure are taking advantage of the three day holiday and of course Sam and Annie were not there. But as I listened to them practice I thought they sounded great. They will sing for the English branch next week.

While they practiced I continued to work on the filing. I can only do so much until Mary is available to help make decisions about what to keep and how to file what we do keep. We have accumulated a lot of lessons and other material over the last three classes. I also had a visitor – brother Pohlman who recently returned from BYUH and is trying to find a job. We had a long talk about a number of subjects and his plans for the future.

After choir practice we caught a taxi – we are getting really good at this – and came back to the apartment. It was rather late so I curled up with the special section on President Hinckley and then 1st Corinthians before turning off the light on a busy if not overly productive day in the mission field.

Charlotte and Olivia in yellow caps and white outfit at the same age. It is amazing how much alike they appear when you hide Charlotte’s hair.

Mary and sister Kane knitting baby caps. There is a tremendous need for these in Indonesia and in other 3rd world countries. It saves many lives and is easy to do – at least if you can knit it is. It is the kind of project any RS anywhere in the world could do. I just read an article on the Church website about an 80 something man who has made over 700 quilts for humanitarian services.

I am pretty sure this is a 2 meter piece of downspout. I was going to crop the picture but thought the background is quite interesting.

07 March 2008 – Friday

Today’s scripture to ponder: “A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.” Proverbs 1:5&6

I am afraid that today is going to be Saturday for me. I woke thinking it was and it continues to feel that way. Maybe it is because there will be a District RS meeting all day so we will be at the chapel much of the day.

My morning study was Proverbs 1. This is one of my favorite chapters in the old testament. When we get home I am going to start studying the scriptures more closely and one of the first is going to be Proverbs. Like most wisdom literature it is not easy reading but there is great insight into what it means to be wise in the ways of the Lord. I think it fits well in with the idea of developing Christ like attributes because Christ certainly is the example of what it means to know what God wants us to do and then doing it.

Our reading it the Kitab Mormon today was in Mosiah where Abinadi is preaching to the people of King Noah. It is interesting that the priests seem to really think that they are doing the right thing and can not understand what is upsetting Abinadi and the Lord. We all justify what we do as being right for us. We like King Noah and his priests distance ourselves from the spirit and then deny the power thereof.

Today was an assortment of District meetings held at the chapel. We went in early because Mary was hoping that her seamstress would come in before the RS meeting started. But of course she came in late so Mary missed some of the instruction. While she was making arrangement to have a whole lot of things sewn, I worked on some e-mail. After she had returned to the RS meeting I started through the files so that we could clean them up for the next couple to use.

Hani Louhannapessy came in to see me and I talked to him about the Michigan test and convinced him that he should really study for the next two months so he can take it again at the end of April. I gave him a pile of homework and told him we should meet regularly. I would really like him to go to BYU Hawaii because he has strong family ties here and I am sure he would come back after graduation.

In the afternoon the sisters knitted caps for newborns and since I could not go any further with sorting until Mary was around to make some decisions, I had Sam run me back to the apartment so I could have lunch and take a nap to get rid of a headache that started earlier this morning.

When Mary got home we read again from the Kitab Mormon – continuing in Mosiah. I spent some time working on putting captions on pictures going all the way back to the start of our mission. I certainly wish I had done it at the time because it going to take all three months to get this done. I am also editing and enhancing some of the pictures.

After dinner I continued to work on the photographs until it was time to read again. I like it when we read three times a day. I think it helps me to keep the spirit and of course it helps with learning Indonesian. What is interesting is that we seem to forget the same words each time but at least the number of them are going down.

My scripture reading for the evening was the Proverbs 1-6 and from 1st Corinthians 1-3. I found it interesting that both contain about the same words of wisdom. Proverbs 3:5 – “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” In 1 Cor 2:13 – “Which things we speak not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” The Lord and the prophets continually remind us that seeking learning is good if we do it for the purpose of building up the kingdom. But all too often we become caught up in pride because of our knowledge and forget why we sought it in the first place.

This is the first floral arrangement that we have seen on a motorcycle in quite some time. Maybe it is not practical during rainy season?

The elders of the Tangerang district and sister Rosilla about to play a version of Go Fish to help them learn English. Going from left to right around the circle is elders Hadi Suyatmo, Prause, Thiemann, Cheney, Manullang and Worwood.

Another version of Go Fish, only this time it is at the grocery store where you get to choose the fish you want for dinner and the butchers catch it and prepare it while you wait. Usually most of the tanks are full but it seems that fish was a popular choice today so only a couple of tanks were in use.

06 March 2008 – Thursday

Today’s scripture to ponder: “But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they lead to gender strifes. And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient.” 2 Timothy 2:23-24.

As I read this last night, I decided that it would be my scripture for today. I wish I had lived this idea more fully. Especially the parts about avoiding strifes and being patient. I am glad I have eternity to work on these ideas – I am afraid it may take that long for them to truly sink in.

I had a good workout at the gym this morning. I am usually the first one there so I have my choice of equipment. It also lets me choose what to watch on the TV while I am on the exercise bike. If I can find something that I am interested in, it makes the time go by quickly.

Our reading from the Kitab Mormon this morning was in Mosiah where Ammon tells what a seer is and King Zenif give an account of his life in the land of Nephi-Lehi. It seems the only real mistake Zenif made was to pass the kingdom on to Noah. It goes to show that sometimes we just overlook the weaknesses of our children.

We went into the office and we both worked on our English lessons for the day. Since we have missed a number of lessons this year, I developed one that was a lot of fun but also taught a lot. Unfortunately Kathlin called and said her family would not be there. It turns out tomorrow is a holiday and so we did not have anyone show up for the class. But at least I have a great lesson for next week.

We went to the mission office where Mary taught English while Sam and I went shopping. I took a picture of the fresh fish tanks at Grand Lucky – they do like their fish fresh here. Of course there is a long aisle of cases of fish on beds of ice.

Back at the mission home, I was invited to have lunch with the Marchants and the Davises. Since I had already eaten, I just had some fruit and joined in the talking. The Davises were in Jakarta to have their KIDAs renewed but it turned out that someone at Immigration had lost the paper work and so they could not get it done. The Davises have had really bad luck when it comes to losing things. They lost the money for their car in the banking system for 3 or 4 weeks.

Then it was on to Tangerang and the District Meeting. Elder Manullang and Elder Prause got there early and let us in. Elder Cheney and Elder Worwood joined us a little later. DM went really well. Since everyone – including Elder Manullang – could speak English they were nice enough to hold it in English. We get a lot more out of this way and are better able to participate. We told about what we were doing in Central Java with the English classes and later Elder Manullang had us practice our contacting – I am afraid we were not very good.

Towards the end of the meeting Elder Thiemann and Elder Hadi Suyatmo, the Zone Leaders came in – they had been stuck in traffic – and gave some good ideas on how to improve our contacting.

Since there was no one there for English class, Sister Pier asked the elders to play a game of Go Fish that she developed for teaching English using an idea that we got from the Barnards last week. They had a great time and just as we were about to leave an inactive sister came in and so they decided to play it again. We told them that we were going home and we would pick up the cards later.

The trip home took two hours because the toll road was packed with people trying to get out of town for the three day weekend. I had enough sense to sleep through about half of it but Mary, Sam and Annie got to experience the whole thing. Speaking of those two it seems they will get married sometime in late April and Sam will go to school here in Jakarta. We are happy for them. Since the traffic was so slow, Mary was able to snap a series of pictures of a building that has neon lights around the windows that goes through an interesting color sequence. So even dark clouds sometimes have a small amount of silver lining. That sounds like a good theme for a talk or lesson on how we experience the world.

After going to bed I read again from 1 Timothy and then started another of Paul’s letters, 1 Thessalonians. As I read 3:12 “And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you.” It brought to mind the scripture from yesterday about teaching our children to love one another. Also I thought of D&C 121:45 that starts “Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith….” It seems that the last week has been filled with reminders to me that I need to show more love for everyone.

This is the series of pictures that Mary took in about a 45 second span of a office building that has neon lights around each of its windows that changes color as it cycles through a sequence. It is quite spectacular and we have seen nothing like it.

These are two pictures of the load that was so heavy it lifted the front wheel off the ground. Unfortunately the best shot of that has my reflection blurring it. The clear shot shows the load – notice the black bag between the seat and the front wheel. We could not figure where the driver was going to sit and we were past it before he got on. The load is a good 4 feet wide so it overhangs each side about 2 feet.

The last shot is the road leading to the mall that is in the background. It does not really show all the activity that goes on. I shot it at a time when it was peaceful. We were still about 15 minutes from the mall at this time.

05 March 2008 – Wednesday

Today’s scripture to ponder: “But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another.” Mosiah 4:15

I had one of those nights where I woke at about 3:00 and never really fell back into a sound sleep. Luckily today is P-day and I should be able to get some sleep during the day. Before reading from the Kitab Mormon I finished yesterday’s journal and after reading I posted it and some pictures that I took yesterday.

I used my personal study time to ponder today’s scripture. There is a lot to think about in this scripture – both as parents and as fellow Saints. I found a talk by H. Burke Peterson from 1974 that pretty well summed up my thoughts – things that I should have done more of when our children were young – the emphasis is mine – and I hope our children are doing now with their children.

“The most effective examples a child will ever have— for bad or for good —are his own parents. Few of us realize how very pliable and teachable children are in their primary years of life. How quick they are to pick up parental habits and traits and teachings!

May I suggest that as parents we must require more of ourselves. May I suggest that we give more of ourselves, that we give more good experiences to our children, experiences that are love-producing and family-solidifying. Whether the times we give are measured in minutes or hours is not as important as what we do in them. It may be five minutes at a child’s bedside each night or a fifteen-minute walk in the evening. It may be a day in the hills or a three-minute phone call from the office at midday. It may be a clever love note to a little girl or a night out to a ball game with a boy. It can even be the experience of a family home evening. It can even be the experience of a family learning to pray together and reading the scriptures together and fasting together.”

For our P-day activity I agreed to take Mary to a huge fabric/clothing mall that had been recommended to us by the Kanes. It was truly insane from the moment we got within a couple of kilometers. Due to the number of cars, angkats, and people, the traffic just crawled along. After we finally got inside the 15 floors of goods it was not possible to take any picture that would even start to represent the vast amount of goods. I think that each floor has 8 to 10 aisle that are perhaps 500 feet long and every square inch that is not narrow aisles is jam packed with soft goods.

We concentrated on one floor that was 90% fabrics. Mary had a wonderful time (even I enjoyed it but I am not sure about Sam) and came home with material for at least 6 blouses, 3 skirts, and 2 temple dresses. I got enough material for one tie. We also were able to get some gifts for the folks at home. The trip home was much quicker.

To give you an idea about how bad Jakarta traffic can be at times. Today we could not catch up with a huge handcart filled with cut grass and pushed by a single man that I wanted to get a picture of. We followed that cart for at least 3 kilometers and only got close to it once. But in the long run it got to where it turned off the main road and was 100 yards away before we came to the same place and I could take a clear picture.

In the evening we read from the Kitab Mormon, listened to some programs on KBYU TV – including Mahler’s 2nd Symphony. While I was listening, I wrote about today in this journal. Mary worked on English ideas. Before turning off the lights, I read Paul’s letters to Timothy. They are certainly full of good counsel for all members of Christ’s Church. I thought about those who left Paul when he was in prison in Rome. What were their thoughts and what became of them. That would make a good story to tell. It reminded me of those who left the Prophet Joseph when he was in Liberty jail. Some like W.W. Phelps repented and came back while others such as most of the Whitmers did not. What would I have done when threatened with prison or death? I doubt that anyone can be sure until actually faced with the situation.

We shot this because the sign on the bus says “Department of Public Works – Secretary General.” So if Bob worked in Jakarta, he would ride in this bus.

This motorcycle load does not look like much from the back, but notice the variety and how neat each section is. From the side you see even more variety with each in its own neat section. The person who packed this load was truly an artist.

04 March 2008 – Tuesday

Today’s scripture to ponder: “Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” D&C 88:63

As I pondered today’s scripture, I tended to focus on the part that says “seek me diligently and ye will find me.” As in all of this scripture it seems to say that the Lord is always available to us and the only thing that keeps us from him is our own desire, unwillingness, or lack of diligence that keeps Him from us.

Elsewhere the scriptures often says that the Lord’s arm is always extended to us. Even when we are not keeping the commandments or even fighting against His work. Then there is all the scriptures that warn us about choosing to do evil instead of good and the consequences of this action. Yet almost all of them end with ‘except they repent.’ So even when we are in the deepest of pits, as soon as we are willing to truly repent and come unto Him, we can be lifted out and restored to His presence.

So when I do not have the Holy Ghost with me, it is because I am not diligently seeking the Lord. I am not knocking and I am not trying to draw near Him. It is my choice, my actions, and my decisions that keep me from the promises in the last two verses of  D&C 121.

I woke just before 6:00 and arrived at the gym while the attendant was still opening the door. I had a good 30 minute workout. Back at the apartment I got ready for the day, worked on this journal and posted to the blog. The family blogs have been quiet the last few days. I guess it is hard to find the time to update them. I know it is easy to not find time to write and post things. There are times when I almost have to force myself to sit down and do it. As Marie Seimars said about 50 years ago – ‘If you do not have time to do something, you really did not want to do it badly enough.’ Since that time I have never really been able to use the excuse ‘I did not have time’ very well. I of course do but immediately know that it is lame.

We read from the Kitab Mormon – continuing in King Benjamin’s speech to his people. I can still remember sitting in my car outside El Camino College reading those words and feeling the spirit. I had been a member only a few weeks and found that the words and concepts about Christ that he taught were just what I needed to know.

Today we have regular office hours but before we got started we called and talked to Cindy and Tom’s family. We used a special phone number that the Bennetts gave us for cheap rates. The only problem is that we have to do it from the office because it only works through certain providers and the one at the apartment is not it. It was good to talk to some of the family and we plan to talk to a couple of them a week. It would not be necessary if Skype worked better.

I then got busy and sent out a lot of e-mails. I needed to get some help from the couples to make the workshops more successful in Central Java. I am surprised at how many e-mails we get and need to answer. And with the new idea of sending group SMS through Skype we will be able to reach more of our specialists. Mary as usual worked on English. She keeps collecting games to use. The kids really enjoy them and if used correctly will help them speak English.

The best thing we heard to day was from the Roberts in Solo. Sister Roberts said that on Sunday 6 of their HS English class got up and bore their testimony in English! You could hear the excitement in her voice and she said the branch members were also proud of their youth. Hopefully the program will continue to grow and develop as the months go by. Maybe we wil come back in a year and see how the class is doing.

In the afternoon we headed over to the Mission Office so Mary could teach her English lesson. While she was doing that Sam and I went to Grand Lucky to buy some things we can not get elsewhere. It is really close being an American style supermarket except in America you usually do not find live fish in tanks at the meat department.

We got back before Mary had finished so I talked to President Marchant about a number of things that he was interested in. He mentioned that they had 10 baptisms in February and 6 of them were men! That is great because usually most converts are women and children. I really think he is on the right course in asking the missionaries to try and search out those who are better educated and have good jobs. That is the kind of leadership they need here to help those who have shouldered most of the work for the last 30 years.

I also talked to Diaz who finally found out why he could not get a Visa to the US. If he had known that in October or November we could have fixed it so he could go to Sun Valley. I suggested he write a letter to the man who had hired him and explain what the problem was and thank him for his patience. Also that he would make sure he got the experience he needed so he could come next year. I told Elder Subandriyo about the Robert’s success and he suggested they write up a short piece to put on the mission website. I will send them a message to that effect.

After all of that we went to Sogo to stock up on many things we were out of. We ended up spending much too much on food today but we should be good for the rest of the month except for fill-ins of things we use everyday.

When we got home Mary did not feel well and I finally convinced her to lay down and take a nap. I worked on this journal and got it posted.

The Piers and the Christensens with Elder Subandriyo outside his home.

Mary and the street where Elder Subandriyo lives. Notice the width of the street – it is for motorcycles and pedestrians only. Also notice all the plants. The Indonesian people love plants and give them plenty of TLC.

Sisters Sadimin and Findlay with two young women investigators at Elder Subandriyo’s house for FHE. Sister Findlay has been out about 3 weeks and seem quite comfortable with the language. It is amazing how quickly the young missionaries develop enough vocabulary to communicate much of the time with the people.

Elder Subandriyo, his lovely wife Sister Stephie. They could represent the heart and soul of the Church in Indonesia and we have met many couples with the same testimonies and attitudes. Sister Christensen is a very funny lady – she also is addicted to Walls Magnum Ice Cream bars. I do not know what she is going to do when she gets back to the states in a couple of months and can not find any. We have truly enjoyed our acquaintance with the Subandriyos and the Christensens. We have shared an special experience over the last 14 plus months.

This is the Walkers. They are the Country Humanitarian Directors for Indonesia. They are wonderful folks. Within two weeks of landing in Indonesia, they found themselves on Sumatra arranging aid to the earthquake victims. They have already done yeoman service here and they have another year to go. They are also very good at eating Chinese food.

03 March 2008 – Monday

Today’s Scripture to Ponder: “And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me.” Moroni 7:23

Today started strangely – well given my recent record with clocks I guess it was really normal. First the alarm went off – it seems I never turned it off on Wednesday when I found we were an hour late getting up to go to the airport – however I was able to go back to sleep. When I woke up at 5:30 I decided I really needed to go to the gym, so after pondering the scriptures for a few minutes, I did. I was happy to see that the lights were on in the gym but when I got there the ‘Closed’ sign was up. That did not bother me because I supposed the attendant had to go do something for a few minutes. Instead of just waiting for him to get back, I decided to jog/walk the track. As I was doing this I noticed that the sky was quite dark for it being 6 a.m. but decided that maybe the days were just getting shorter – I do not seem to think well early in the morning.

To not drag this out, after about a half hour and the gym not opening I looked at a clock and found that it was only 5:30. It seems that I had somehow set the time ahead 45 minutes. The good side of this is that I had an extra 45 minutes for personal study and pondering the scripture above. There are many additional scriptures on faith but I found Helaman 10:5, Alma 18:35 and Alma 14:26 helpful in thinking about this scripture and what it might mean in my life. How wonderful it would be to be trusted by the Lord as Nephi is in Helaman 10:5.

We had a normal morning which included reading for an hour from the Kitab Mormon. I answered a number of e-mails including one from Tom Alexander asking a number of questions about our mission. I am including it at the end of this page because it may be informative to others who wonder about how it is to serve in a foreign country that is 90% non-Christian.

It took Sam almost an hour to get the car from the repair shop and then he picked us and the Christensen’s up so we could go to the mission office. We needed to pick up a letter that came from the missionary department – it was our Internal Revenue letter – and so the Christensen’s could talk to the Walkers. We also got to see Elder Subandriyo and President Marchant for a few minutes.

After that we headed over to Mandala’s – a Chinese restaurant that we have been trying to get back to for months – for lunch. We were surprised to see the Walkers outside the restaurant – elder Walker had come to get his hair cut but they were closed. We invited them to join us for lunch. We managed to have a good lunch with lots of conversation. The cost was a lot more than I expected – I had not remembered it being that expensive. The drinks were especially costly – I guess we had water last time.

The we and the Christenesens went to the office where they gave us some training about the new report forms, how to use Skype SMS system to send messages. It should be good for sending information to the employment specialists. Most of them do not have computers so e-mail is not very practical but almost all of them have cell phones.

After the training we came back to our apartment where we talked about our missions and what we might do after we were released. Hopefully we can get together and talk about old times.

We went to the Subandriyos’ home for FHE. This is always a good experience because of their glowing spirituality, their hospitality and the brief lesson that is shared. Tonight the sister missionaries came with two investigators. Sister Findlay gave a nice lesson on Charity and we all joined in the discussion. I brought up the point that the joy of charity comes from giving and that it fills us up spiritually to show real charity. One of the investigators has worked for an oil company for five years and I suggested she give us her resume so we could see if we could get her hired by a multi-national because they pay much better.

We said goodbye to the Christensens as we dropped them off at their hotel and came home. We read again from the Kitab Mormon before heading off to bed. I tried to read some of a conference talk by President Eyring in Indonesian but found it hard to keep my eyes open so I turned off the lights on a very good day.

Letter to Tom Alexander:

Hi Tom –

While it would be much more effective to be able to speak the language, it has not really hampered our efforts. First of the majority of the leaders we work with speak English quite well. When we meet with larger groups where many of them are not proficient in English we have translators – often they are PH leaders. In our everyday activities we usually have our driver Sam with us and he acts as our translator.

Of course the full time missionaries after a month or two can communicate quite well in Indonesian. All of them have native companions so they are constantly learning and improving. The couples that work with members everyday all have drivers who can interpret for them. We do this sometimes when visiting or home teaching and I find it very difficult to do. I do not find conversing through a third party to have much effect. If we were doing this everyday I think we would have learned the language. As it is we can read about 85% of the words but can not understand or speak it to any useful extent.

Our work is not much different but those who are proselyting couples have to be careful about who they approach and what they say to Muslims – especially married women. The young missionaries can not do street approaches, knock on doors, etc. but they become good at getting people to ask why they are in Indonesia and that allows them to tell them they are missionaries for the Church. They also go to universities and volunteer to teach English to the staff or to visit English classes. So they are able to meet and teach some Muslims. But since about 8% of the 240 plus million people are Christian, there are plenty to teach. It is just finding them and having them become interested that is difficult.

Missionary work goes slowly – 200 or so convert baptisms a year with only about 30 – 40 of those being men. They also have too many leave the church after a short time. One of the problems is the difficulty of fellowshipping. Often there is no other LDS family around and the cost of traveling is great when it is compared with how much the average family makes. Last week I spoke with a branch president that said the average wage for members in his area is $45 to $60 a month. A job that pays $2 – $3 a day is considered very good in some parts of the country.

Our mission has been great in some ways and disappointing in others. We have been able to help establish two major English programs which could lead to the next generation of Saints being better educated and able to have better paying jobs. Unfortunately we have not been very successful in getting better employment for the ones who need it most. Many are not qualified and others just happy with having any kind of job so they do not really try to get better ones. I am not sure what can be done in this area. What we are trying to do is to develop a better networking system so people who know about a job opening and those who are looking for a job can communicate through the branch and district employment specialists.

We just got back from touring the Central district where the new High School English classes are functioning and found that all the youth and their parents are excited about the program. Some parents travel an hour each way, four days a week so their children can participate in the program and then go to seminary. Our concern here is what will happen if there are no couples to replace those who will go home over the next 4 to 6 months. But since I know this is an inspired program, I am sure the Lord will work it out somehow. We just have plowed and planted – someone else must tend and harvest.

Trust all is well with you and your family – see you about 3 months.

Bill