17 April 2008 – Thursday

As I think back on the day, I come to the conclusion that it was a very typical day in our mission. There were some wonderful spiritual experiences mixed in with a lot of normal activities. The morning included studying Indonesian by reading conference talks, going to the gym, reading from the Kitab Mormon and doing more research for Elder Subandriyo’s project. The four hours seem to rush by and before I know it I am hurrying to get everything together so we can leave for the office. In those four hours I have done many mundane but necessary things while enjoying some spiritually uplifting exeriences.

At the office it is hard not to become frustrated with the internet because so much of what we do is done through over the net. We were able to say hello to the Rebers and found they had no questions. But it was almost impossible to read or send e-mail so I finally gave up. I then used the time to prepare my English lesson for tonight.

Sam had borrowed the car this morning so he could go to be interviewed for his passport. But he arrived at the chapel early enough that he could drive us to the mission home. There Mary gave her English lesson to the staff. While she was doing that, I talked to the Walkers. They are doing a great work. From looking at Walkers  you would not think that they were the fighters.  But when they are doing the Lord’s work they are fighters. They have got through a number of projects that they were at first told could not be approved. But they felt the projects were so important that they just kept at it until they got them through. Much like Nephi when he would not give up on getting the plates from Laban. It has been a pleasure to see them grow in their calling.

Then I met with President Marchant and Elder Subandriyo. I gave Elder Subandriyo the first fruits of my research and we talked about what he wanted to accomplish. Before leaving we picked up the mail for the Tangerang elders.

District meeting was very good. We had a short lesson on finding and as I read out of Preach My Gospel, I learned that the missionaries are to just start teaching a gospel message without any lead in. As we talked about the fact that they did not have a lot of referrals, I asked them if they knew all their neighbors and had they asked them for referrals. They said that they really did not and so I challenged them to spend a day and just go through their neighborhood introducing themselves and letting their neighbors know they would love to be of help to them. That is was part of what they were supposed to do while on their mission. They of course can not trat but they can be neighborly. Hopefully they will try this – they actually did a little role playing exercise about how to approach a neighbor washing a car.

Our English class is growing. Besides Agus and Cathlin’s family, a young man and a young woman who the Elders had met and invited to the class came. Also one of the inactive sisters who we had tried to help start a small business came. I think my beginning class went well. I had everyone introduce themselves – the young woman is 15 and her English is quite good. We went through opposites, then a review of prepositions, then we played fruits and vegetable Bingo, and we ended with identifying musical instruments. Next week I want to come up with a way to put all of that together and have them write sentences using the words. I think I will make a list of what we have learned and let them choose what words to use.

We were worried about the traffic to and from Tangerang because they were supposed to be doing some testing. However everything flowed smoothly both ways. We always count that as a tender mercy from the Lord because an hour trip can quickly turn into a nightmare if there is any problem along the way.

I forgot to mention that we picked up our nativity set made from cinnamon bark that Elder Palmer brought us from Singapore. Unfortunately we did not know he would be here for less than a day and did not get over early enough to pay him. So now we must figure out how to do that before we leave.