These three of the motorcycle loads we saw in one day. The problem with pictures is that they really can not show how the loads look as we pass them or they pass us. We could not figure out what were in the blue boxes – they did not look like there were insulated for carrying something that needed to be kept cold. I am not sure the woman carrying the bookshelf had any way of seeing where they were going. I think she just had to stare at the back of the case.

20 May 2008 – Tuesday

I went to the gym to try and get off the pounds I have managed to gather over the last 4 or 5 days. How easy it is to put them on and how hard it is to get them off. I guess that weight is like sin in many ways. While riding the bike at the gym I started watching ‘We are Marshall’ about the university that lost their whole football team in a plane crash and what happened after that. It was so interesting that I had to finish watching it at the apartment. The moral that we must not let tragedy stop us from living. It is right to mourn but there is a time to stop mourning and to start living. We honor the dead by living the best we can in their remembrance. If they loved us, this is what they would want us to do.

After that we read from the A&P and as we finished and I marked where we stopped by writing the date, I got goose-bumps on my arms as I realized that we have less than two weeks more here in Indonesia. It does not seem possible and is almost unreal. How can 17 months have passed so quickly? Where did they go?

I started cleaning out some of the drawers. The accumulation of 17 months has to be gone through and divided between take home, give away or throw away. Much of it ends up in the trash. Pieces of my life – things that at one time seemed important but now seem to lack meaning are discarded. Pages of a calendar that no longer make sense.

We went to the office by taxi and when we got there we found that the Selatan branch was having an activity to clean the chapel and grounds. I was touched by the fact that so many of the Indonesian Saints gave up a holiday to come to the church as families and clean. Their willingness to serve is unwavering.

We worked on a number of tasks including cleaning up and labeling more files. I worked on my vocabulary and now only have two more tests to write and I will be finished. Mary worked on getting more of the cards that we are giving to members so they can contact us if they come to Utah.

Elder Subandriyo stopped by and said that the decision has been made to give up on getting PEF into Indonesia. That is sad news but now he will get going on how to use the scholarship fund that has been set up in his daughter’s name to help the Indonesian youth to get an education or to learn a skill. I will work with it when we get home and hopefully build it up to a point where it will allow 10 or more young people a year get a better education. He also talked to me about the government Job Training program and I had to tell him I had not done anything with it. It is something that I must get done before we leave. So I guess that is what I will do tomorrow or Thursday. I plan to continue helping establish this program even after we have returned home.

Bob wrote to tell us about Tyler and Ryan’s up coming high school graduations. We are sorry we will miss them but we know we are doing what we need to do. Not that anything is going to fall apart when we leave, but we were called to serve for 18 months and we will do what we can until then.