18 April 2008 – Friday

I woke late and just wanted to lie in bed. I do not feel sick but I do not seem to have much in the way of energy. Hopefully I am not coming down with something. I have no time to be ill. As we read from the Book of Mormon from the Kitab Mormon this morning, I was struck by Mormon’s decision to agree to lead the Nephite army even though he knew that they could never win because he was convinced that they would never repent. It also does not say that the Lord told him to do this or even that the Lord approved of him going against his vow not to lead them. But I have to believe that he would not make such a major decision without God’s approval.

We had a nice 30 minute Skype visit with Sister Hartford from BYUH. We talked about the Distance Learning English program they are running a pilot on starting at the end of this month. The purpose is to have incoming students better prepared in English so they can go right into academic classes and not just take English and Religous classes the first year. We are going to try to get 4 to 6 of our ex-IEC students to sign up for the 6 week pilot. She was also very interested in our IEC and High School classes. Sister Hartford had invited Sister Bunker who is also involved in the program to join her.

I was going to go back to the hearing aid store but while we were traveling there I called and found that the tech was going to be out for a while and I did not want to waste time. So instead we went to the mall for lunch and to go to Sogo. Then we went to the office so I could make an agenda for tonight’s ERSC meeting and Mary could practice the piano. I checked the mail and found that Sister Bunker had sent us an outline of the class and the application form.

Since we had some time before we had to leave for Tangerang and I was still not feeling right, we had Sam take us back to the apartment we read from the Kitab Mormon and then I took a nice nap.

Like most events that we have to travel to Tangerang for the 45 minute meeting took 3 ½ hours to complete. But the time was well worth it as we were able to cover all the agenda and set up a plan to work on some of the problems that we would like to see addressed over the next year. The reporting system and a way for the specialists to get job opening information from the members are the two big things that need lots of work.

We are going to miss working with Lukito and Agus. I hope we can keep in touch after we leave. I know that it will not be the same as working with them from day to day but it would be great to find out how they and their families are doing.

I am happy to say that by the time we got home, I was feeling much better and hopefully a good night’s sleep will take care of the rest. The Lord has truly blessed us with good health while we have been on our mission. The mission also kept us spiritually healthy.