15 April 2008 – Tuesday
It has been a good morning. I studied Indonesian, went to the gym, and we read from the Kitab Mormon. But what made it special was that there has been new pictures posted on most of the family blogs over the last couple of days. Cindy and her family went to Boulder, Charlotte turned 4 months – but is not turning over it seems, and Kelli and William got to go to the Tulip festival. Those and other pictures allow us to see the grandchildren growing up. It is hard to believe that William is two and Charlotte is already 4 months old. I was also amazed at how grown up Tyler and Krista look.
We spent our regular office hours where I spent most of my time working on cleaning up the computer files and writing notes to the Rebers that I hope will help them. I figure they can always ignore them or throw them away. Mary worked on her English lesson and then practiced the piano. I sent some of the information about the IEC and the HSIC to the sister at BYUH. We also got to say hello to Tom, William and Kelli – William loves to talk. The only problem is that we can not understand a word.
We had one great experience while in the office. We helped sister Yoshie’s driver with some English material and told him about the free English classes on Thursday night. It turned out he had been taught by Elder Rowberry in Solo. I got his name and phone number so the elders could make contact with him. Hopefully it will come to something.
We made it to Senopati in time for Mary to teach her class. Elder Subandriyo had asked me to stop in and talk to him about the Job Training schools that we had researched 10 days ago. He ws very interested in what I had found out and wants to put together a pilot program for trying in Central Java. I told him I would get some letters for PH leaders together and he will follow up on it later. I do not think we will have time to help out but maybe we can go to at least one meeting.
We then started talking about BYUH, English classes, going to good school, etc. As we were talking I mentioned that above all we needed to give the youth hope in getting out of the cycle of poverty. That many of them just give up because they see no way for them to get a good education or a career that will lead to a good paycheck and security. I told him that as we talked to the young people that we found that almost none of them even have a dream that they want to achieve. That they do really think about the future or set goals for the future. They just exist in the now.
As we were talking the spirit touched Elder Subandriyo and he sat back in his chair and stared at me for a moment. Then he said to me that as a young man he never had any dream of the future because it did not seem that he had any control over it. But now he saw that this is something that we must change this for the rising generation. That we must show them there is hope for their future and that they are in control of it. That they can dream. We must teach the parents that they must support their children in their dreaming and help them to achieve them. He wants to convince the PH leaders of the need of holding firesides where he will look the youth and their parents in their eyes and tell them that this needs to be done. As I looked at him, he almost glowed with the spirit. I think it was one of those times when a vision of the future opened and Elder Subandriyo saw his role in bringing the Lord’s plan to the people of Indonesia.
He then asked me to research scripture, talks, etc. and give him an outline and ideas for his fireside talk. I guess that I do not have to worry much about what I am going to be doing for the next 6 weeks. What a blessing it has been to learn from him throughout our mission. How blessed we have been to be tools in the Lord’s hand in helping the Saints of Indonesia in ways we never imagined before we came here.
Mary and I had a chance to talk to President Marchant for awhile about a number of things. He has a lot on his plate at this time. I asked him a couple of things about qualifying for baptism and he sent me to the Handbook of Instruction to look them up for myself. Sam and Anny had a temple recommend appointment with him and so we stayed around until they were done. They are really excited about their coming marriage. They are so unprepared that it is scary but they do seem to be very much in love and so hopefully, with the Lord’s help, it will work out.
It was a very good day for me. I was able to help others, fulfill my calling as a missionary, and study the scriptures. I was able to clearly see and feel the Lord touch one of his servants with personal revelation and to see the immediate effect of that experience.