24 February 2008 – Sunday

Scripture to ponder today: Alma 32:21 – Hebrews 11-12:1

I did not spend much time yesterday pondering my selected scripture, but this morning as I thought about it again, I felt that for some things the Lord wants me to ‘figure it out’ in my own mind and then ask him to confirm my decision. For others the Holy Ghost prompts me to do the right thing – often times without me even considering the guiding source. Then there are times when I either do not ask or ignore the prompting of the spirit and just go ahead and do things. Sometimes it works out fine but more often as not I have to repent and try again.

Woke early enough to spend some time trying to read a conference talk by Elder Snow on service. There were a lot of words I had to look up but others that I could get from the context. In the introduction part of his talk, he told how as she lay dying her only regret was that she had not done more service to others. Elder Snow then went on to show that she had served others all of her life, but her spirit was such that she wished she had done more. I thought of the times I have hesitated to serve others because of personal selfishness of not wanting to give up the time or the effort to exercise Christlike service.

Because we did not have a car, we went to the English branch for our meetings. Although we would have liked to go to one of our branches, this did give us a chance to start getting ready for the next Intensive English Class – I want to do better in planning ahead so we do not have to get homes for them to go to at the last minute.

As the sacrament was being prepared we sang the hymn“God loved us, so He sent His Son” and instead of stopping at the end of verse three we sang all five verses. As we sang verse five with the worlds ‘Partaking now is word for deed, that I remember Him my Lord’ I felt something special. That it not what I say that shows my love for my Savior but what I do. It tied in so well with the general feeling of the week for me.

During the meeting I tried to pay more careful attention to the speakers and took notes. The first two speakers had the subject of personal revelation and the District Council speaker spoke about the need for Wisdom. Among the things I wrote was: Man did not create God! and ‘We need to get a PHD or Master degree in righteousness. As I listened I had the thought that the internet is not the information highway for truth, the Holy Ghost and personal revelation is the real source of all truth and guidance.

As usual Sister Ventura’s SS class was great.  She is so well prepared and many of the class comes ready to participate. The lesson was on the resurrection and she gave me a couple of things to think about. Before the block started Mary told me that sister Ventura’s white board was a black board so I took my trusty WD-40 and a towel and cleaned it for her. Brother Wiser taught the PH lesson and he chose President Monson’s talk on the resurrection. I guess it was our day to ponder about the importance of the atonement and the resurrection.

The English branch here in Jakarta is unusual – at least seems that way to me. It has members from two nations in Africa, Korea, England, Canada, Philippines, Scotland, Indonesia, the US and probably a number of other countries. What they have in common is the Gospel and being able to speak and hopefully understand English. I say hopefully because I know there are some that do not have enough English vocabulary to follow all the talks and lessons. Another universal ‘language’ is music. I am surprised at how many members – young and old – like to sit down and play or try to play the piano. Also most members – especially the younger ones – love to gather around the piano and sing. Any number of times I have been walking in the hall on my way to one of our Intensive English classes and have heard the students singing hymns while one of them played.

After church we had our ususal Sunday activities of reading, working on English – Mary prepared a very detailed lesson plan for Sister Marchant so she could substitute for Mary on Saturday, and napping. We got a nice surprise when President Marchant called us and asked if we could come to dinner at the mission home. When the cab came to pick us up, we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was the same driver that took us to the mission home earlier in the week. He thought that it was cool also.

Dinner with the Marchants, Walkers, and elders Teng, Bastian, Rowberry and Smith was not only delicious but good for our spirits. Unfortunately there are a couple of missionaries who are quite sick – one seems to have the measles and one has been running a high fever. I noticed that the President really depends on his Assistants to help him – it should be great training for these young men to have so much responsibility. I don’t want it to sound like the President doesn’t make the final decision, but that he does not micro-manage the mission. It reminds me of the scripture that says that we are free to act and not just be acted upon.

Unfortunately the President and Sister Marchant need to go with the Walkers to Medan this weekend for a hand-over ceremony so the office elders will teach the HS English class. At least they have a complete lesson outline to get them through.

When we got home we had time to read the Kitab Mormon again before heading off to bed. It was a good Sunday. What I did not do is spend any time pondering the scripture for the day. I just did not take the time so I will carry it over to tomorrow.

Mary’s English Class from left to right: Mary, Ovi, Intha, Bryan. These young people give up 3 to 4 hours of their Saturday to come to the class and then they stay to have Seminary. Four on a bike is not unusual but I liked this picture because the young man in front was looking right at me as I took the picture.

23 February 2008 – Saturday

Scripture to ponder today: D&C 3:4 – about the loss of the 116 pages of the Book of Mormon. How often do I follow after the dictates of my own will instead of seeking the Lord’s desire. How do I learn when to seek Lord’s guidance and when should I ‘anxiously engaged in a good cause’ without being prompted? There is a lot to think about in this scripture.

I have decided to choose one scripture a day to ponder and see how I can liked it unto myself. I certainly need something to focus on that is outside my usual routine.

Woke early and after reading some from the Liahona went down to the gym for a brief workout. As always it was tiring but in a good way. A very regular morning – we read 5 pages from the Kitab Mormon. One or two verses really get us but over-all it goes well. I have always found Nephi’s comments on the Law of Moses rather interesting. It reminds me much of what Paul will say a few hundred years later but after the Law has been fulfilled in Christ.

We catch a cab to the office and we get a very nice driver who goes out of his way to help us. He is another 8 year star driver and is proud of it. I start to take a picture of his license and then decide that it might offend him – I do not know why I felt this way.

We spend the morning working on different things. I ask Sam to come in so he can do some errands for us. He and Anne come in and head off to get things done. Stupid me forgets to give him the CD with the pictures we want printed so we will need to do this on Tuesday when we are at the mission home. We call Daisy and she agrees to come and help Mary get the English books for the couples ready. That takes a big load off of her mind.

After lunch Mary teaches her HS English class and three of her four students show up. At least one of them has very good English and I am sure this is helping her quite a bit. I think I will help teach the next one – two weeks from now. We find that the Walkers probably can not help us with the class – they are just too busy on most Saturdays. Mary came up with a good idea that we hope works out. I would like to start the English classes in Tangerang. Perhaps Thursday night and then Saturday and Sunday. We need to see how many young people we might get.

While Mary taught the class, I started cleaning up files – both on computers and the three file cabinets we have. Some of the things in the files have been there for 5 years and are of no value. We still need to get another 4 drawer file cabinet for the English program. We want to leave both the Intensive English and the HS English class material in a well organized condition so our replacements can pick right up where we left off. The office is starting to look much better – but it would have been hard for it to look worse.

Unfortunately we do not have one come in for help with a job. We would really like to have some successes so that more people might hear about it and come in. We can not give them jobs but if they will follow our suggestions they have a much better chance to get one or get a better one.

After Mary finished her class, we caught a taxi and came home for a couple of hours before going back so Mary could play for district choir practice. I got Skype up and running but could not test it because no one was on line. I tried to listen to the latest Worldwide Leadership Training program but the DVD we got did not work. So instead I used the time to ponder the scriptures and to send off a couple e-mails that I had forgotten to send earlier. We ended the day by reading in the Kitab Mormon.

Thanks to the Lord’s prompting I was able to achieve my scripture goal for the day. I am thankful for His love and concern for me. I am afraid that often I get so caught up in what I am doing that I forget to thank Him for the simple but important blessings that He gives me.

 

Inri and Tingnoi – our home teaching family. The others are just a couple of loads that we saw today. I especially like the fruit seller with colorful fruit pushing his cart down a main street in the middle of traffic – this is not an unusual sight in Jakarta. You have to do what you have to do to make a living for your family.

22 February 2008 – Friday

Scripture to ponder today: D&C 1:10 – What did I do for others today that the Lord can bless me for doing. I think of the song ‘Have I done any good in the world today.’ Tomorrow I will try to do at least one kindness for someone else that I probably would not have done if I had not pondered this scripture.

This morning we read from the Kitab Mormon and are now in the Isaiah sections of 2nd Nephi. At first we thought to skip them but we decided to give them another try and see how we do. We made it through 2 or 3 chapters and for the most part we came close to the English. We will just keep praying for the gift of tongues and read on.

I noticed in the Liahona that the painting of Christ on the front of the magazine is one from Karl Bloch. In looking at other painting of the Savior by Bloch I see that while he keeps the same basic features he makes each view a little different to match what the Savior is doing in the picture. It is a wonderful talent to capture these subtle differences and in that way change the image that a person gets when they really study the details. It is rather like pondering the scriptures and not just reading them. To me Bloch – as with all great painters – is like a poet in that he creates a world by his paintings instead of just commenting on an existing one.

I am trying to read the articles in the Liahona and can get most of what is being said, but even with my electric dictionary I can not quite get some of the ideas. Even with this handicap it is wonderful to read and feel the testimonies of the Latter-day Prophets about the Savior.

I called Elder Rowberry and found that they were cancelling the district meeting due to all the work they need to get ready for the visit by Elder Garns. There is a lot statistics that need to be available for the meetings with the District Presidencies. Then I talked to Hendra and he said that the new computer was ready to go so we would need to go to the mission home to pick it up.

To make it short, we went to the mission office, got the computer, and took it to the office. We had a really nice taxi driver who waited for us at the mission office. He had a great smile and I learned he was from Solo, had been in Jakarta for 20 years, was married and had three children. As I have said before, the Indonesian people are among the most friendly I have met.

Sam joined us long enough at the office to help get the computer up and running. It worked perfectly and it is great not to have to look down through the table to see the monitor. Elder Barnard is going to be very happy to get the old computer so he can use it in the Family History office. After I answered some e-mail and Mary worked on some English project, we caught another Taxi home.

In the evening we went home teaching to Tingnoi Chantanakome and her daughter Irdi. We gave her President Eyring’s message and emphasized his points of daily scripture study and prayer so we can have the spirit with us. She told us an experience she had on her mission at Temple Square – an experience that touched her deeply. Hopefully the experiences of her mission will keep her strong and she will be able to pass this on to her daughter and someday perhaps her husband. It is a great blessing to be able to home teach in English so we can communicate and understand one another. While we were there I took some pictures of the two of them.

As I re-read President Eyrings message, I came across the point he makes about studying and really pondering even one verse of scripture can be more important that reading a chapter and more without thinking about it. This is one of the problems with our reading the Kitab Mormon. We do only read and do not ponder the words unless it is to try and figure out what is actually being said. As I read the same Isaiah chapters in English and try to work out their meaning in my mind, I find that many of them hold powerful messages.

 

The first picture is the Tangerang District – from left to right – Elder Prause – he has been in Indonesia for 8 days – Elder Manullang – from Manado and one of the best English speaking Elders we have met – Elder Cheney – from Hawaii and who is always smiling and positive – Elder Abu Yamin – who is from Solo and is as I write heading for Medan on Sumatra – and Elder Worwood – who has really become comfortable with the language and has a great desire to serve. The Motorcycle load picture is of very neatly stacked magazines – notice the pile stacked on the handle bars and held in place by the drivers chest. The last picture is the three young men from the Tangerang branch that make a special effort to come to Mary’s class so they can improve their English. They are the future of the Church in Indonesia.

21 February 2008 – Thursday

Bad night but a great day so thing balance out. No gym this morning – I needed the sleep. We read from the Kitab Mormon – Jacob teaching in 2 Nephi 9 and 10.

At the office we meet with a young woman who just got in from Hong Kong and is looking for a job. She seems very bright, articulate, has good English and is not bashful. We believe she will soon have a job. Mary created a resume for her and gave her 5 copies. I gave her the latest help wanted newspaper and some member that might have a job opening and she went away happy. It is great to be able to help someone and feel that they will use our advice.

I wrote a number of e-mails to further arrange things for next week’s visit to Central Java. I got an SMS from the Bennetts saying that they had 7 out of 8 students to their first HS English class – I wrote back that it was great news. I look forward to seeing them in action on next Saturday.

After getting some English lessons together, we head off for the mission office so Mary can teach a lesson to the staff. Hopefully this is helping them more than is apparent in talking to them. We wish they would use English more around the office – that is the best way to improve their language skills. While Mary teaches I have lunch from off the street and catch a short nap.

Hendra continues to try and solve the problem with the computer. Hopefully he will have it ready tomorrow when we go there for our other District Meeting.

On our way to our meetings at Tangerang, we stop at the mall so Mary can buy some more things she needs for making the teacher’s kits for the HS English classes. It is costing much more than we expected and is going to stretch the budget. But at least when we are done, keeping the work up should be easy.

When we got to the chapel I realized I had not brought the things we needed for the ERS meeting. Agus and Lukito were kind and we managed to have a good meeting without an agenda or any of the materials. We discussed a number of problems and I learned a lot from them. I learned why Jakarta does so well on getting their reports in and the rest do not. Hopefully after our trip to Central Java, that district will also begin to be better. I certainly hope so for the new couple’s sake. We set the time for the next meeting.

After that meeting we joined the in-process Tangerang District Meeting. We had a good discussion and lesson. We met the other new missionary – Elder Prause from Washington state. He seems to already have a pretty good grasp of the language. I was able to add a few thoughts about how saying we are not successful because of some fault in our investigators. I told them my LeGrand Richards story about us only being able to solve problems that we make our own. I think I need to tell that story regularly because I need to remember it myself.

After District Meeting I went down to greet the English students. By 6:00, when we are supposed to start, no one was there. But two young men showed up for Mary’s class so I took them, Sam and Anne up and started the meeting. Right after the opening prayer Agus and his four children showed up. They are a great family and we will miss them when we leave. I hope we can come back and visit them sometime in the future. Soon after that another family came – a sister and three children. So we ended up with a nice class. I reviewed prepositions – they had forgotten some over the last 6 weeks. Then we read Hop on Pop and went through the vowel sounds. I gave each family a copy of the words to take home along with another book so they could practice during the week. Hopefully they will.

On our way back to the apartment we took Elder Abu Yamin to the mission home. He is being transferred to Medan tomorrow. He is a wonderful elder with an ear to ear smile. He has been out about 3 months – maybe a little longer – and this was his first transfer. The President decided to put another pair of elders in Medan so that they could have more togetherness. Hopefully they will also have more success there. Parts of Sumatra have more Christians than Java so they have more people to talk to.

At the mission home we have the chance to say goodbye to Elder Stewart who heads home tomorrow. He has a good spirit and will be missed. We also talked to President and Sister Marchant about their quick trip to Eastern Java. They seem to have had a good trip and enjoyed the beauty – at least the little they had time to see – of Malang.

We received the latest Lianona today with it’s beautiful picture of Christ on the front. I like it because it gives a view of the Savior that is seldom shown. This is not a smiling, soft looking Savior but one who, to me at least, seems firm and focused on the task His Father has set for Him. His to me are set and firm and speaks of all the thoughts He has about the world and what He must do to set an example for all of us. Also I see a firmness that I would expect to see in the Lord as he knows what He faces in Gethsemane. I imagine many of the covers will be used as pictures on the walls of member’s homes.

Before I turned off the lights I read President Hinckley’s message about Christ. It is fitting that the last message that members throughout the world will have by the Prophet is his testimony of Him who leads this church. He starts his testimony by saying, “I know that I am not the head of this Church. Jesus Christ is its head.”

When I looked at the e-mail this evening there was an answer from Sister Barnes who is serving in Africa as area coordinators for PEF. In reading about the dangers of their mission, I was struck by how different each mission is and how what might concern one is not even considered by another.

It was a long but spiritually up-lifting day. We have a special opportunity to see and talk to so many full-time and senior missionaries. Also to visit with President and Sister Marchant, Elder Subandriyo, and others in the office who are the heart and soul of the mission and the Church in Indonesia. Often times when I am tired and perhaps a little discouraged, we will meet with the missionaries and feel their joy of teaching the Gospel. We hear their testimonies and see the smiles they have as they talk about their missionary experiences. We get to teach, counsel and learn with and from them.

This is how they sell flowers at the traditional market in Bali. The color and variety makes for a wonderful experience. The flower seller stretch for about 50 yards.

This will be a real P-day because we do not have a car so we are spending the day at home. Getting back into exercising is always a challenge. I have sore muscles in a number of places but I went to the gym and went through a little longer workout. Hopefully in a week or two I will be back to where I was before.

I love being able to post on the blog from the apartment again. Today it let me post my journal but balked at the pictures so I went back later to post them. After the gym and breakfast we read 5 pages from the Kitab Mormon. We are getting to the Isaiah chapters in 2nd Nephi. Perhaps the reason the Lord put Nephi’s Psalm just before these sections is to remind us that we should not question the Lord’s choices – like why he had Jacob to read those passages of Isaiah and felt that Mormon should include them in the Kitab Mormon. OK so the term ‘Oh ye of little faith’ comes to mind and we will try once more to read and translate these chapters and pray to God that He will give us the ‘Gifts of Tongues.’

I have misplaced an important paper and this morning I prayed that He would help me find. I said I would diligently go through each piece of paper – and there are thousands of them it seems – and trust in Him to help me find it. So far I have not found the actual list I was thinking about but I found another list that I needed. I never did find the list I was looking for – it may be at the office – but I did get a lot of papers cleaned up and I might actually find things in the future.

The morning went by very slowly but the afternoon and evening whizzed by. Mary worked on the HS English class books that she is trying to assemble for all the couples and wrote some of the rules for some of the games that need explaining. My only contribution was to move a fw things around and punch some holes in some of the pages.

We read together two more times from the Kitab Mormon. I read and pondered some of 2nd Nephi’s Isaiah chapters in English. Some of them are very interesting and gave me some things to think about. But some just do not give up much without knowing the meaning of the imagery that the Prophet uses. Obviously Jacob knew what they meant and felt them important to those who were of house of Jacob.

We made arrangements for our trip to Central Java next week. We will be gone five days and will visit three cities. I am going to try to meet with the branch Employment Specialists from each branch to thank them for their work and to give them some training. I am hoping that it will improve the reports from the branches. Right now there is very little being reported and we are relying on the couples for information about people getting jobs.

As we drove to the office in a taxi on the 19th we had to go through a small flooded area. This area floods if there is any significant rain but today it was deeper and larger than usual. Our driver had some things on his license that I had not seen before. The writing says that he has been a driver for 8 years and the star means he has received an award. I wish I had enough Indonesian so I could have found out more, but I could tell by the smile on his face that he was proud of his record and that I noticed it.

19 February 2008 – Tuesday
Prologue: As we read the Kitab Mormon before going to bed, I was struck again by 2 Nephi 4:15-35 – sometimes called Nephi’s Psalm. In 15 he says that he ‘writes the things of my soul.’ Soon after that he says that he ‘pondereth continually on the things I have seen and heard.’ As I read this I realized that I spend very little time ‘pondering’ the blessings of the Lord. I am too busy doing and thinking about things that seem important to me at the time but in reflection have little Eternal value. I guess it is never too late to change perspective and prove by my action I truly believe in Eternal Life.

I woke a little early this morning and used the time to read a Oct 2005 conference talk by President Faust about following our leaders. When I went to go to the gym it was raining and the attendant is usually late when that happens. Today was not an exception so I walked and jogged some where it was dry until he came. Then I did a light workout for about a half an hour. I will increase it some each day until I get back into the swing of things.

After breakfast we read from the Kitab Mormon and I watched a program on BYUTV about an LDS pilot during WW II who named his bomber ‘Utahman.’ He flew over 35 missions during the war. It was quite a story and I had not heard it before.

We are really happy that Shauna and Kelli have started a blog. We now have all our family except Bob and Brian with blogs where we can read and see what is going on in their lives. The hard part is for them to post regularly. We can also see Teresa’s blog so we get some idea of what the girls are doing. Come on Bob and Lisa get with the program. <g>

We got a letter from Ed confirming that he is coming to Jakarta next week and will be in Indonesia for the best part of a month. Unfortunately we will be gone for much of the time he is here next week, but we will be free when he comes back to Jakarta in March. We are excited to see him – or first and probably only visitor from the family.

Today is our first day without a car so we took a taxi to the office. On the way we had to go through a flooded area – it was not all that deep but it certainly caused a traffic jam. Out driver was brave – or foolish – and drove right through it. I took a couple of pictures that make it look bigger than it was.

I chose today to install our new computer and everything went perfectly until we tried to install the printer software and the computer just froze up due to some incompatibility. Sam was helping – actually doing most of the work – and we tried everything we could and finally gave up, put everything back in the box so we could take it back to the mission office. Wisely I made sure the old computer was still working before I did anything with the new one.

Mary worked on English all morning and until we had to leave so she could teach her English class to the office staff. Of course we had to take a taxi and load everything into the trunk. It is a good thing that taxis are cheap here.

While Mary taught her class, I read the latest Church News and talked to Elder Subandriyo about our upcoming trip to Central Java for the English class and other things that he would like us to accomplish before we leave. Elder Subandriyo has a great love for the members in Indonesia and his mind is always busy on finding ways that will help families and individual members break the bands of poverty. He thought trying the class in Bogor would be a good idea so I will contact the Kanes and see what we can do before the next Intensive English class starts.

I also had a nice talk with President Marchant about the Couples Conference and gave him a suggestion for the next one – which we will miss. We talked about his concern for the PH leaders and the time they need to spend away from their home and family to fulfill their callings. This is something that he has felt since he arrived here. He still has not heard about the couple who will replace us. We really hope that they get here so we over lap at least one or two weeks so we can bring them up to speed on the English classes they will teach and over-see.

We caught another taxi home – total cost for three taxi rides totaling about 90 minutes $7 including tip. Car rentals in Jakarta are higher than ones in the US – they want from $35 to $50 a day. I have arranged to borrow the President’s car on Thursday – the one day we need to go a lot of places. He is going to Eastern Java for some interviews.

At home we watched the DVD of “Testimony’ which we had for a long time but had not seen. It was a nice story and was well done. Then we read from the Kitab Mormon for an hour. Now I am listening to a BYUTV presentation of a music concert. Then I watched a program on Philo Farnsworth and TV. I just found out that I need to read a biography of Karl Maeser.

Our romantic Valentine Day dinner – A young man waiting for luggage at the airport. I loved his hat when the temperature was about 80 degrees and very humid. Another motorcycle load during rainy season. Note the load on the bike between his knees.

18 February 2008 – Monday

Woke about 5 and after reading some of a conference talk in Indonesian and checking out the latest mail while it was available, I went to the gym for the first time in about 6 weeks. I did a very light workout so as not to hurt anything. Stepping on the scales was not a joyful experience. But it felt good to do some sit-ups and ride the bike.

I have just about caught up with my journal. It will be a relief to get my thoughts and memories on paper. Right now I am waiting for the November 2005 conference report to load so I can get a copy of then Elder Eyring’s talk on spiritual preparation.

We read from the Kitab Mormon but only 3 pages as neither of us seemed to be fully with it. Sometimes that is just the way it is. I went on and read President Eyring’s talk in Indonesian. There are still too many missing words to be able to read it well but I can certainly get enough to clearly understand what he is writing about.

Before going to the office we stopped – that sounds much easier than it is in Jakarta – at Carrefour to get 8 reams of paper for the copier. I had the paper and was at the check-out line in a couple of minutes. But as usual it became the longest line in the store. To make it short, every customer in front of me and myself had a problem so a 5 minute stop took about 15 minutes. It is a good thing that I am learning to be patient.

At the office I started cleaning up from the last English class. Mary worked on things she needs for her class tomorrow and some other English activities. We are slowly recovering our office. I answered a lot of e-mail. The best thing was that we were able to get a call through to Tom using the phone card. Unfortunately it had a terrible delay and it broke up often. However just hearing a few words and sharing some thoughts made the day better. I do not think the family knows how much we miss them and how much their letters, blogs and calls mean to us.

Sam went and got a lot of things done. We need to get the car repaired before the insurance runs out. He had to go to the police station to make a report and to the insurance company to get an OK to get it done. When he got back he called the repair station and found that it would take 10 days to get it repaired because they are going to paint the whole car.

When we found that it would take 10 days we decided that we could use cabs for many of the days and President Marchant said we could use his car on Thursday so we can go to Tangerang. We then decided to go to Central Java next week to check up on the English classes.

Speaking of that, Elder Subandriyo wrote to tell us that yesterday he was in Semarang and the class will start there this week. So we will end up visiting three cities on our trip. Hopefully Ed will not be coming at the same time. We will probably take 4 or 5 days to do this. Hopefully when we get back the car will be finished.

When we came back to the apartment we read again from the Kitab Mormon and then I got my journal ready to send to post or send to Jim so our blog will be caught up. I also have a lot of pictures that I need to post. So I imagine I will spend much of tomorrow at the office doing this.
I watched a couple of programs on BYUTV – actually I fell asleep during the second one about a poet that was a convert to the church and teaches/taught at BYU Provo. Mary kept busy all night getting packets ready for the HS English class. She had to figure out in what order to put everything together. I am not much help because she kind of makes it up as she goes. She still needs to write instruction for all of the games that she made card for.

As I was working on the computer, I decided that just for the fun of it I would see if I could post on our blog. I have not been able to do this for over 6 weeks and during that time I have fallen way behind in posting from the office. To may amazement, the first post went right through without a hitch – in fact it was very fast. So I ended up catching up the journal part of the blog and then posted a lot of pictures. It is a lot easier to do it from here because I can just use the Word Perfect files – if I take them to the office I must change them to Richtext files. Hopefully the site will not shut me out again.

As I sit here there is lots of thunder and lightening going on outside. The rain has been heavy for about an hour. The rainy season should be winding down soon.

Before turning off the light, I read the Church News of Feb 9th about President Hinckley’s funeral and the new First Presidency. Then I picked up the November 2005 conference talk by President Eyring where he outlines “four settings in which to practice quick and steady obedience.” One of these is the command to feast upon the word of God and talks about his our experience of reading the Book of Mormon as President Hinckely challenged the Saints to do. He says that he was already planning to read it again.

I made the same plans for reading the Book of Mormon during our mission. In the MTC it was pointed out that if we read 5 pages a day we can finish the book in about four months. I thought that was a good goal to set. I am happy to say that we have managed to average about 7 pages a day with each page being read 3 times. It is a good way to start and finish a day.

One of the blessings of the mission is getting together about every 6 weeks with all the missionaries in the Zone to get instruction and to share their great spirit. This one was on January 31st. The first is of course all the Zone. The second show the Kanes and Walkers discussing the finer points of eating off paper plates without the help of a table. The Kanes and Walkers are on Humanitarian Missions and are doing some great things for the Indonesian people. Especially with clean water projects and wheelchairs. The last one is of an elder who decided the best way to enjoy the conference was too stretch out on one of the benches. Actually he had terrible headaches for a few day that really left him weak.

We stayed at Kuta beach which is where the terrible double bomb attack happened. The first shot is the memorial that commemorates the tragedy. On Monday night we all went out to dinner at a restaurant that featured some Balinese dancing. This was us with them.  The main feature of the trip was the actual Senior Couples Conference – 13 hours of instruction and sharing. The picture shows the Hashes and the Barnards – two of the 10 great couples that are serving in Indonesia.