This is the Indonesian version of a gasoline tanker truck. He has enough capital to buy a large amount of gas and then goes around selling it to smaller retailers or to other customers. It may not look like much but it will provide a decent – for Indonesia – income for his family. They are big on monuments here. They can be found everywhere and are usually well kept up. Funeral processions are not unusual but this was the first one we have seen where each vehicle had a wreath attached to the grill. The procession was quite long and all the flowers made it more impressive.
05 April 2008 – Saturday
If the rest of the day goes as well as this morning has, it is going to be a very good day.
My personal reading for the morning was President Eyring’s conference talk – or at least part of it – in Indonesian. I also went to the gym and had breakfast. When I checked Skype I found that the Rebers were on line so I rang them and we had a nice talk for about 30 minutes. They had some questions and we tried to answer them. They have started with their language lessons and I think they will do well. Sister Tippetts is their teacher and she said nice things about us. I told them that they needed to practice talking to each other because that is where made our mistake.
After hanging up – the connection was perfect for the whole 30 minutes – we read from the Kitab Mormon. While we were reading Sam came and we started moving a four drawer file full of English material out of the apartment and over to the office. Sam took the first load with the drawers over and we continued to read. When he came back we took the body and I went with him. Once there we put it in the office and loaded the drawers back in. It is not the nicest looking cabinet but it will let us have all the English material in one room. The new file cabinet gives us more drawer space but also another flat area to stack boxes, etc.
I worked on writing up the information that we got yesterday about the Job Training centers. I sent what we had learned to Elder Subandriyo along with some thought about how to get the information out to the branches. I then put a copy in our Area Book so the Rebers can continue with it. I also worked on vocabulary and then I tried to work on President Mak’s project but for some reason I could not come up with much new to write. I guess I need to do more thinking and praying before I try again.
We had a young lady come in so we could write up a resume or her. We had done one for her sister a few months ago and she suggested us to her sister. Since neither could speak much English, Sam had to do most of the work. It went much quicker than usual and they left happy.
Mary got the last of our PEF information posted and then worked on English stuff. It turned out that there was some Seminary event at 1:00 so her HS class did not start until 2 but she had 3 of her 4 students which has not been happening lately.
While she taught her class I watched a couple of programs on BYU TV including an interesting one on photographs of Brigham Young that were collected as part of research project to find all photos of him and research when they were taken and by who. One thing that the commentator mentioned was that until he was in his 60s he did not grow a beard. And the pictures with the long beard that we so often see he only grew and wore for about 9 months. I guess people think that he looks more prophetic with the longer beard. It was an enjoyable story.
During the evening we read the Kitab Mormon and while Mary crocheted more little caps, I worked on this journal and then continue with studying Indonesian. For the most part I have been reading and re-reading President Eyring’s talk about keeping a record of the way the Lord touches our life each day. I know that it is very important but I hesitate to record all of them. The problem I find is that many of them are very personal and I feel uncomfortable in relating them. I realize that perhaps sometime in the future one of our descendants may have their testimony strengthened by my sharing but it still difficult to put them down to be shared.
For some reason I was very tired and so by 9:00 I was turning off the lights. But before doing that, I set the computer to record Saturday’s Conference.