23 May 2008 – Friday

Ok so we may be getting just a little trunky – that is we are thinking more about what we need to do before we go home.

At the office today we had great internet connection and I was working my way through the things I needed to do when they turned off all the power to the whole area. Luckily we have the battery back-up so we could save what we were doing and shut down the computers. Sam went out and checked if he could find out when it would come back on but they would only say they had no idea.

We called it quits and came back to the apartment where at least some things could be accomplished before we went to have lunch with our friend Rudi.  We met him and Yanni Mongan from Tangerang 2 at a restaurant that served traditional Indonesian food and had gado-gado – which is basically vegetables and rice in a sauce. In this case it was peanut sauce. After that we had something that was definitely not traditional – some very good ice cream. It was nice to meet with Rudi and talk some about our brief friendship. I doubt if we will ever meet again in this life, but I hope that sometime we will on the other side.

After lunch we went to the mission office for just a few minutes to deliver the Tangerang elder’s weekly reports and to talk to the translation folks for a few minutes. The President was busy talking to the office elders – they are very busy because right now there is only one assistant and he is in Medan. So they get to do all the work. Then we made a quick stop at Sogo to get some orange juice and of course a visit to BreadTalk for our next-to-the-last bunch of goodies.

We came home and basically did not much except read from the A&P, work on this journal and pictures. Our date night was watching the first two episodes of the life of John Adams that was made for TV. It was pretty good and they seemed to stick to history well. I like the fact that Abigail Adams is shown as the strong and intelligent woman that she was. That their marriage was one between equals and filled with love. I need to read her biography. Before turning off the light I read from the Teaching of Joseph Smith in Indonesian. It is at times challenging.

 

Bicycle loads are sometimes more fun than motorcycle loads but are not as often seen. We saw two today which were quite good. The first is empty plastic containers going to be recycled. Notice that it is passing an empty trash cart that has probably just dropped it’s load and is going back for another. The second is something very bulky and probably not very heavy but it makes an interesting picture. The last is one of the public street cleaners. Notice the broom – hand made, even crude but it works very well for the task it has been assigned.

22 May 2008 – Thursday

I had a good morning starting with going to the gym and studying Indonesian. We read from the A&P and other wise kept busy until it was time to go to the office.

It was one of those frustrating days at the office. That is the internet was not working and so I could not do any of the things that I had planned to do. Much of it I can not do at home because we do not have a current edition of Microsoft Word. So I kept busy writing vocabulary exercises and tests until I finally finished both word lists. Then I made up some things for tonight’s English class. Mary worked on her English classes for the office and tonight.

We got to the mission office in plenty of time for Mary’s English class. I spent some time with the translators working on vocabulary. They are my test group for the lessons and tests I have been making. We went through how they were pronounced and I corrected those tests they had completed. We agreed that they would send me five sentences each day using the vocabulary words and I would correct them and send them back.

I talked some with President Marchant. His desk was covered with paperwork that he needed to get done. It is one of the things I do not think about when considering the work a mission president is faced with.

After Mary finished the lesson we headed towards Tangerang and went to the mall until it was time to go to District Meeting. We bought Jco donuts – the next to the last time we will be doing that here in Indonesia – before leaving the mall.

District meeting started a little late – Elder Djarkodi and Elder Laki were working together so Elder Herman and Elder Prause got to go out as a companionship. Elder Djarkodi is rather quiet but he is very spiritually strong. He kept the meeting on course and gave a good lesson on how to judge your success as a missionary. He got everyone involved which is always good.

We gave Elder Herman some pictures and I asked Elder Prause for his mother’s e-mail address so I could send his family some. We also brought Elder Herman a letter from his mother. We found it interesting that his mother mentions that we sent her some pictures via e-mail.

Other than Agus and Catherin’s family, the missionaries and Sam and Anny,  we only had one student. Billy is a fine young man and it was good to see him again. My class studied prepositions and then I taught them ‘Go Fish.’ It started out slow because no one knew how to play but as they started to understand how it worked they got more involved and had fun while learning.

Agus and Catherin liked it so well that we told them we would print off some sheets that they could then cut up, paste on cards and have laminated so they could play the game with their family. We talked a little about the fact that it seemed like yesterday we were at their house with the Lieshmann’s for their farewell dinner. We are going to miss their family and I think they will miss us. Everyone enjoyed the donuts.

The trip home went smoothly and I spent the next hour or so working on pictures and the journal before going to bed. I need to stop taking so many pictures each day.