10 February 2008 – Sunday

We went to the Tangerang branches today. We went to the T2 sacrament meeting – it was good to see so many members that have become our friends over the last year. After the meeting we waited to greet the T1 members. They have a very small branch but it has a good spirit. Unfortunately we did not have much in the way of translators so I did not get a lot of what was being said, but I could feel the spirit as they spoke. T2 had one of their speakers not show up and not call in advance – that is the first time we have seen this happen – so we got to hear from President Jgarot.

The best meeting of the day for me was Priesthood at T1. They only had about 7 PH members in attendance but I had a great interpreter and the instructor got everyone involved. He would make a comment or have a scripture read and then have the class talk about it. This is completely different from what we had just experienced in SS where the teacher talked for 90% of the time.

After the meetings we came home and started packing. We decided to take two big suitcases and an extra carry-on so we had room for souvenirs that we knew we would buy. It turned out to be a good thing.

At about 8, we started reading the Kitab Mormon for the fourth time since we started our mission. This time we are just going to read it in Indonesian and translate it into English. We will not read the English version except where we feel we did not do a good job of translating. We are thinking that we will should be able to read it in 75 days or so.

9 February 2008 – Saturday

I must confess that I am writing this about a week after the fact. I did not realize I had missed writing on both Saturday and Sunday.

We finished reading the Kitab Mormon for the third time at 8:30 this morning. Once again it took about 100 days to make it through. I would think we would get faster but it does not seem to work that way. The important thing is that we read it – we still need to read it slowly so we can ponder and feel what is being said.

Saturday was a long day at the office. Mary had to get things ready for her afternoon class and gather up whatever else she felt we needed for the conference. I worked on English – I am making more reading inference exercises – sent in our report, and caught up the e-mail. After lunch Mary taught her class while I continued working in the office.

We then went home to rest up before coming back so Mary could play for choir practice. About an hour before we were to go back, we got a call cancelling choir practice so we called Sam and had him pick us up so we could do some more things at the office.

08 February 2008 – Friday

Up at about 6 after a good night’s sleep. I have still not started back at the gym, but my weight keeps falling so that is good. I read some from the Conference talks in the Liahona. It is much easier to read the talks of non-native English speakers because they do not use many difficult words or phrases. I must go back and try to read one of Elder Maxwell’s talks – I can not imagine how they translated his play on words, etc. They must lose a lot in the process – not in basic thought but in construction.

We stopped at the chapel long enough to get Daisy going and to do a few things before heading for the mission office and District Meeting. It was the first district meeting that we had been to in over a month. It turned out to be a very small affair because the office and the Jakarta Raya missionaries were not there. Also the Walkers were gone so it was just us, the sisters, and the AP’s.  It ran a little long for the content but it was good to hear how they were doing and share their spirit. We had a short lesson on Patience and Humility. Both of course Christ like attributes I have been working on for the last year.

After the meeting we stopped for some lunch at a small mall. We tried some 50 cent Quesadillas which were a little short on taste but still not bad, a hamburger and some A&W root beer. Then we went back to the chapel where Mary had a couple of things to do before going back to the apartment.

Daisy came with us and cleaned the apartment – which really needed it. While she was doing that we read some from the Kitab Mormon and then I started watching some talks on BYUTV. While I was watching them I feel asleep and managed to catch a nice nap.

By the time we had read from the Kitab Mormon for the third time we were only 5 pages from the end and so we should finish sometime on Saturday. We are not sure we are going to start right back in on the KM – we are thinking about switching to conference talks which are harder to translate and then starting the KM again on March 1. This will give us 3 months to finish it for the 4th time – 12th actually – before we arrive home.

Before going to sleep I read from the conference issue of the Liahona and worked on vocabulary. It may take 5 years but I am going to learn Indonesian – with the Lord’s help of course.

07 February 2008 – Thursday

Today was the Chinese New Year and a holiday here in Indonesia. Sam had the day off so he could go with the young adults of his branch to a museum. So we basically took the day off. At least I took much of the day off while Mary worked on getting the set of materials ready for the HS English class.

We read three times from the Kitab Mormon – we should finish it by Sunday – and we listened or watched some programs on BYUTV. We managed to see one special on President Hinckley that we had not seen before. But other than that and some reading from the Liahona, the day just passed by.

06 February 2008 – Wednesday

Mary woke too early and could not go back to sleep. Hopefully she can get a nap sometime during the day. I slept OK but not great so it should be an interesting day. In keeping with that theme, the internet completely down. It seems to be a regular occurrence lately and it does no good calling the company because they just do not seem to care. The one bright spot of the morning is that we read from the Kitab Mormon.

This was the last day of our IEC. In the morning we gave five of them the Michigan Test – Hani and Titan could not take it because they had taken it just before they came to our class. Hopefully they can take it in a month or so. I do not think any of those who took it today will get above 70 but we can always hope. I think they could function in a US college but doubt if they could do well. While Mary was giving the test I read from The Wizard of Oz with the two young men. We had a pretty good time and carefully went through the vocabulary – hopefully they will continue to work at reading and vocabulary.

After the class, we stayed in the office. Mary worked on things for the HS class and I started downloading and saving a very good English Grammar book that is on the web and can be used for free. It not only has excellent, but difficult, lessons, it also has exercises and the answers for each chapter. My guess is that there are 600 plus pages in the book. I am amazed anyone would do that much work and then give it away. I am going to write her and tell her how it is being used in Indonesia.

We came back to the apartment for a few hours to rest up for the Graduation program tonight. Mary needed to make the certificates and wrote some nice cards for the students. She is very thoughtful in this way.

The Graduation program ran much longer than we expected. There were terrible traffic jams over all the city and the Walkers were a half hour late getting there and this held up our starting because Hani’s father is the Walkers driver. Once we got started things went well and we were happily surprised when the Venturas came in. This was the first time someone from the English branch came to our graduation program. Also President and Sister Marchant and Elder and Sister Subandriyo came.

Everyone had a part in the program – Mary and I gave very short remarks. President Marchant and Elder Subandriyo gave some remarks and then the President gave out the certificates of graduation. After we closed it was time for lots of pictures, ice cream and final hugs and goodbyes. We will always remember this class – and all of the classes – and hope that their time was well spent and that they will keep studying and learning English.

By the time we got home we were quite tired but we read again from the Kitab Mormon before going to bed.

05 February 2008 – Wednesday

Woke at 5:00 and read the Indonesian translation of Elder Ballard’s conference talk about service. I found it more difficult than other talks because it uses phrases and words that were not familiar.

After that Mary and I watched the press conference where the new First Presidency was introduced. It was wonderful to see President Monson, President Eyring and President Uchtdorf walk in. President Uchtdorf said in his remarks that it was obvious that his call must have come from God because no man would have chosen him. As they spoke, I felt the spirit confirming that they were called of God.

It is a shame we did not thing about watching KBYUTV earlier in our mission. It would have been a great way to spend some of our time at the apartment. What is really great is that we can go back a couple of weeks and watch just what we want with fairly good video and audio.

After breakfast we read one page from the Kitab Mormon. That does not sound like much but since time was short it is all we had time for. It takes 15 to 20 minutes for us to read a page out loud in Indonesian, do our best to translate it into English and then read the English version. So reading 6 to 10 pages a day takes anywhere from 1 ½ to 3 hours. But it is a great blessing for us for we learn Indonesian and get to know the Book of Mormon better. Now if I could just remember all that we read it would even be better.

Today was our last regular one for our IEC-3. Tomorrow we will give the young ladies and Sam the Michigan test and then in the evening we will have the graduation. It is the best of times and it is the worst of times. We divided the teaching for the morning class and then Mary went to the mission office to teach an then to Solo to do our grocery shopping. So that left me teaching the afternoon period.

I must confess that my heart was not completely in it. But one great thing happened. Sesi pointed out that I was teaching them incorrect grammar. We were doing an exercise about ‘I wish’ and I said that a sentence should say – ‘I wish I was  home.’ She very nicely said that she wanted to disagree with me and that it should be ‘I wish I were home.” She then turned to the page in the book that showed me I was wrong and she was correct. I was both embarrassed and happy and I told her so. But I always knew I was not the one to teach English grammar and will always be amazed that the Lord has me doing it.

At the end of the morning class, I gave them my pep talk about how it was up to them as to what they do with what they learned in the class. I gave them the example of an aircraft carrier that launches a plane and then it is up to the pilot of the plane if they fly or crash. I also encouraged them to get an education but to be sure to come back to Indonesia and help the Church grow.

After class we came back to the apartment. We had so many groceries that Titan and Hani had to help Sam and I carry them up.

For the second day in a row, I took a much too long nap. But we managed to read 6 more pages from the Kitab Mormon tonight. I listened to a talk by President Eyring on BYUTV and read the latest Church New. It was dedicated to the life and accomplishments of President Hinckley.

We got an e-mail from Puji, one of the students from our second IEC. She wrote that she was getting married today and she knew that it was the right thing to do. We had heard that she was thinking about getting married to a non-LDS man and members in the area were worried. I wrote back wishing her a happy marriage and told her to keep up her English and stay active in the Church.

04 February 2008 – Monday

I slept well and so did Mary. We read from the Kitab Mormon before going to the chapel. I had to stop and get some money because the cost of getting all the kits ready for the other missionary couples is very expensive. It is a good thing that we have a budget.

The students were really loose today. They worked hard and had done all of their homework, but they were breaking up and out a lot. They have become comfortable with us and that is good. I think they would do whatever we asked.

One thing we did today that impressed me was I gave them a list of about 115 vocabulary words – including 24 that they had not had as official vocabulary words. I gave them about 18 minutes to write as many definitions as they could in that time. Our four best students all got over 105 definitions – I am not sure they were all right because I did not take the time to check that. But we went through those words they did not get and any that they had questions about. I did not ask the other two how they did, but they both worked hard at the exercise.

Mary did most of the morning class and I did most of the afternoon class. This allowed both of us to work in the office for a long stretch. As we were closing up for the day, I mentioned that there were only two days left. Erna said she was sad that it was coming to an end. It was nice to hear that – hopefully they have all gained from this month of classes. They certainly have a wider vocabulary now and hopefully they have more confidence in their language skills. Now if we can just get a couple of them to pass the Michigan test it will be great.

Soon after we got back to the apartment, we started reading the Kitab Mormon. However I was really tired so we cut it short and I took an hour nap. I hope that it was just the fact that I much of the last three hours and that I am not getting ill.

We got another great letter from the Taylors about their High School English class. It is a joy to read about how they are doing with their students. I am adding their letter to the bottom of this page…it is things like this that makes all the effort and time worth while.

I did write back and ask them to evaluate how all the time and effort that goes into this class is affecting their other work. It will be interesting to see their response.

“We’d like to report another super successful week in our Intensive English Program.  Our class is increasing in size.  We now have a non member attending our class and he seems to be enjoying it.  We have several others who have inquired about it so we may end up with quite a large class.

The other day while compiling a list of our students and their birthdays I noticed that we had just missed one of our student’s birthday, so I baked a cake for him (Mega) at our next class and served it with ice cream (a favorite of all Indonesians).  He was asked by our class president to say the closing prayer.  He is our extremely shy young man that has been inactive for a number of years.  He knew no English when we started this class.  He had never said the prayer in English.  When he stood to say the prayer he said, “Before I say the prayer I want to thank Elder and Sister Taylor for my cake,” then he said the prayer.  He said all of that in ENGLISH!!!  We all were so surprised and excited.  The class cheered him.  This and other great experiences make all the preparation time worth it.

Our Relief Society provides the meals on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.  We do the meal on Fridays.  We call it American Friday. We were not to have our class this last Friday because we had to be in Solo for our missionary zone conference so we had our American night on Thursday.  We actually fed them Mexican food, but explained “Tex-Mex”  food.  We had chicken enchiladas, Spanish rice, refried beans, guacamole, and salsa.  These were new flavors for them but they loved it, especially the Spanish rice and the enchiladas.  We sang “This land is your Land , This Land is My Land.”  They had never heard it, of course ,because it is an American song.  We gave them the assignment to rewrite the first two verses to make it an Indonesian song.  It will be fun to see what they have come up with.

Because of President Hinckley’s  funeral we only met long enough to pass out a Book of Mormon in English to each of them and explain  that each class one of them will be assigned to give a scripture in English.  We shared our own experience of reading the Book of Mormon in both languages in our effort to learn Indonesian.  We know they will be blessed if they will do it.

Our driver, Sikta is going to teach our classes while we are in Bali.  We still have to have everything prepared for him but this will be a good experience for him and for the students.  Thank You for letting us be a part of this inspired program.

From Yogakarta,
The Taylors”

03 February 2008 – Sunday

When we found out that we did not record the funeral last night we looked for a re-broadcast. I was about to give up so Mary took over and quickly found one that would start in 15 minutes. Luckily we got connected and were able to watch most of the funeral before we left for church.  Since the first hour was a KSL special on President Hinckley’s life and I was recording it, we decided to read from the Kitab Mormon until the funeral actually started. We are in Ether and they are about to be told to build some boats.

Sam picked us up and took us to Jakarta Raya and then headed to his own branch. We found out that they would be using the last hour of the block and a couple more to watch the funeral. Since it would all be in Indonesia and we had already seem most of it in English we decided to come home after Sunday School.

A number of the members gave testimonies about their meeting President Hinckley. He was here in 2000 and a number of Saints got to see and meet him then. Hendra meet him when he was a translator for conference. And told the story of that and then later meeting him when he came to Jakarta for a visit. The Saints here have tender memories of the Prophet.

Unlike most Sunday afternoons and evenings, this one was rather busy. We had invited the class over for dinner and an activity. So Mary spent much of the afternoon fixing things for dinner – a Creole dish, salad, and biscuits. I was in charge of cleaning the living room and making the fruit salad. Mary also baked a cake for dessert. We even managed to read from the Kitab Mormon for about an hour.

They arrived at about 5:00 and when we were all sitting down while the food finished cooking they gave us presents. This really surprised us because none of the other classes even gave us a thank-you card. Mary got a really nice butterfly necklace and I got a shirt. We were greatly touched.

Dinner was a success – they hardly used the hot sauce I bought especially for the dinner. While we were eating I started ‘The Bee Movie’ and they laughed all the way through it. Another way we found that this group was different was that they washed the dishes before they left. Since that is usually my task, that made it much easier for me.

Once they were gone we started to read from the Kitab Mormon but not too long after we started Mary hit the wall and had to go to bed. She was asleep before 9:00.

02 February 2008 – Saturday

I have repented of my failure to keep up this journal in January and hopefully will write each day.

As the English Class winds down, the days are starting to blur together. Mary seems to not feel too well this morning so we cut short our reading from the Kitab Mormon so she could rest for a few minutes more. Hopefully she will get to feeling better because she has the High School class to teach today. I will try to take most of the morning so perhaps she can get more rest for this afternoon.

I should note that due to the rain, there is flooding in parts of Jakarta. This is not new for Jakarta but it was enough flooding to make the news and to get people talking about it. It is nothing like last year at this time so there was no need to start a public kitchen.

We taught the IEC – both morning and afternoon. We shared the morning and then in the afternoon I taught our class while Mary taught the High School class. We are only getting 2 to 4 to the class. Once we get done with IEC and the couple’s conference, we will try to meet with all the young people and their parents and see if we can get more of them to come regularly. It would be good for them and also for the seminary class that comes after the class.

After the class we came to the apartment and read from the Kitab Mormon – once soon after we got home and once before heading off to bed. During Zone Conference, the Zone Leaders challenged us to each choose 4 or 5 things that we could do one more of each day. One of the things we chose was to read one more page from the Kitab Mormon and we are trying to do that by reading a page or two before we go to bed.

Later in the evening I tried to hook into one of the streams that would broadcast President Hinckley’s funeral. We watched a special program on President Hinckley and I set Total Recorder to kick in when the funeral started. Unfortunately when we woke, we found that the stream had stopped before the funeral started so all we got was noise.

1 February 2008 – Friday

It started raining about 10 last night and it was still going strong this morning. Heavy rains continued to about 1:30 when it finally slowed down and then stopped. It reminded me of last February when the big floods hit on February 1 and 2. Hopefully that will not repeat this year.

We had a normal IEC day. The Walkers could not take the afternoon class – it was rather fortunate because we need the time to catch up with the homework assignments – and so we had them for both class periods. They are a great group – mostly relaxed but also wanting to learn. It is usually a pleasure to teach them. They still need lots of work on grammar but their conversational English is very good. I think for the next class we are going to start earlier work more on pronunciation.  I really think with some work three of the students and maybe four could pass the Michigan or TOEFL test and get accepted to BYUH.  That is our goal.

Mary spent much of the evening working on getting sets of materials for the High School English classes put together. We read from the Kitab Mormon – about 60 pages left for this trip through. In thinking back I am not quite sure what I did as the night just seems to have run by.