Elders Rigby and Erickson – Our latest lobby floral arrangement.

13 August 2007 – Monday

I woke at 3:00 and could not go back to sleep but I managed to doze until 5:00. I decided that I really needed to get up and exercise if I ever hope to lose some weight. Once I get going it is not hard to continue – I am still not really stretching myself at running. I worked on my vocabulary. I am not sure it is doing any good but I am making the effort which is what counts. I may not ‘obey exactly’ but I am giving it a good shot.

Other activities for the morning included reading from the A&P for personal study and the Kitab Mormon with Mary for companion study. Since we are out of Isaiah we were able to read almost 4 pages. Between us we know almost all the words – Mary still knows more than I but I do contribute a needed word now and then. Our problem is still getting the right person doing the right thing at the right time. Most of the time it is right there in front of us but we skip over the word that would make it clear for us. As I wrote that I remembered that the part we read today included a comment by Nephi that he was writing ‘clearly’ so the reader would not ‘make a mistake.’ I guess he should have also warned us to read carefully – ‘menyelidiki.’

We went into the office and it was not long until a non-member young woman showed up with her member brother, looking for work. As I talked to her I found out that an agent for obtaining work abroad had her passport and would not give it back until she paid $100. I told her that she should never give up her passport and that I knew someone in the American Embassy that might be able to help her. We also tried to register her on Jobsdb but two attempts failed. We will try again later. If I can get her back her passport she can once again go to Taiwan and work for about $500 a month.

Her brother came in about a month ago and we registered him with Jobsdb. I told him to send in 10 resumes a day but I find that he says it is too hard. He has been trying to work as a job printer but is having little success. My guess is that he does not put much effort into it – it is probably too hard.

I had an interesting discussion with Sister Yoshie who volunteers in the Family History Library and also owns a successful business. We talked about hiring members and their attitude. They think that because they are members and their employer is a member that they should be able to take off when they feel like it, come in late, and not work too hard. I told her that seemed to be one of the problems with Indonesian workers in general. They tend to be less productive than other Asian countries.

After office hours we went to SoGo to get some things for tonight’s dinner and some goodies from BreadTalk. Then we had to hurry home because we thought our cleaning lady was coming. She never came so we ended up doing a semi-good cleaning so the place looks OK.

I saw that the Christensens were in their office so I sent them a Skype chat and we had a nice conversation. We are going to try it again tomorrow and have another couple join us. I think we need to get all of us together once in a while and share good ideas and solutions to common problems. I have been suggesting that we have some place to share idea since we got here and I guess that at least something like it may start happening. I am going to suggest we have a regular time each week to meet and whoever wants to join in can do so. If we keep it to about an hour it should not be a burden for anyone.

Mary spent much of the afternoon getting dinner ready while I cleaned up the apartment. We thought that the cleaning lady would come but she didn’t. I think we have confused her by changing the days so often. I think she expects to come on Thursday. I like tile floors but I am not a fan of white tile floors – they show everything. I think a pattern like the one in our kitchen at home would be great here.

The Guttormsen arrived about 45 minutes late, but the food held up OK. We had a delightful dinner, talked a lot about our English students – especially Vita. They told about a Vietnamese young woman who they sponsored to go to BYU Hawaii – it cost about $1000 a year. They are hoping she falls in love and marries. We introduced them to Category Five. By the time they left and we cleaned up all the dishes, it was time for bed. I did take the time to study from the A&P.

12 August 2007 – Sunday

A quiet morning and we got going so late that we did not make time to read the Kitab Mormon before we had to leave for church. We called Oregon and talked to Kelli to let her know we were thinking about her on the day she was baptized. Unfortunately we woke her up and I am not sure how much you understood. But I hope she realized that we were happy for her today.

Today it was Jakarta Raya so Sam takes us and we will catch a taxi home. We arrive early and we stand in line with the elders to meet and greet the members as they come in. Two of the new elders – Andreson and Ercikson – are now here with Rigby and Louhannapessy. They are both excited about being out doing missionary work and when I talked to them about their first night in the field they both said they slept well without air-conditioning. They seem to have some progressive investigators and there may even be a baptism coming up.

Sacrament meeting was on being humble – President Kencana was kind enough to translate for us. Johan Salim spoke but the highlight was president Anthony speaking about the teachings of President Faust. He brought a strong spirit to the subject and recounted that Elder Subandriyo suggested that we study his teachings and talks.

There were three progressive investigators in the Gospel Principles class. One was the young woman we visited with the elders a few months ago. She has moved in with her mother – who was not there. Hopefully she will continue to investigate the church and be baptized. I thought I had a major problem with my stomach but it cleared up and I have had no trouble since.

I forgot to mention that Sam has managed to catch a cold and if things run true to the past I will get it sooner or later. Which reminds me that I should start taking lots of vitamin C.

PH was rather unstructured. They started talking about a number of quorum members who were not coming out to church. They assigned one of them to us to visit – I told them we would be happy to look in on as many as five if we could help. After most of the class was done, we started on the lesson about reverence. I am afraid it is one of those subjects we always talk about but can never really master. The saints are just too excited about seeing each other and sharing the love. I think about the 100th Psalm where it says: “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.” I think the ‘noise’ before and after the meeting is ‘joyful.’ What we need to work on is being reverent during the meeting so we can feel the spirit of the speakers and the sacrament.

For the first time we had to wait about 5 minutes for a cab but the driver knew right where to go so it did not take long to get home. Soon after we got home we got a call from our guests and they said that there was a major demonstration going on in and around their complex and perhaps it would be better to postpone our dinner together. We settled for tomorrow night.

We make it through the Isaiah sections of 2nd Nephi with a sigh of relief. Actually the last chapter was not all that bad to translate – at least not until the last two verses. The word that is used for ‘ponder’ is ‘menyelidki’ which literally means ‘study carefully.’ I think that is the only way to read Isaiah – carefully reading and studying with a desire to understand why Jacob and the Lord thought it was important to include these chapters in the Book of Mormon when they were already available in the Bible. I told Mary all of this could have been expressed by saying ‘Because of your wickedness, I the Lord will chasten and almost destroy the House of Israel and the House of Jacob, but a remnant will be saved and will be restored to the lands of their inheritance. See the stick of Jacob for the details.” Before turning off the light, I continue to try to absorb A&P 50 in Indonesian.

 

This is a coffee table made from used teak RR ties. It is gorgeous, weighs a ton, and cost about $100. We saw lots of Batik in Jogja and bought more than we should. The secret with buying – which I did not learn soon enough – is to set a price and walk away. They either will say OK, OK and you get it for what you wanted to pay, or you go to the next booth – and there are a multitude – and start over again. Often as we visited people would ask us about where we were from and why we were here. We would have a chance to tell them about our being on a mission and I gave away a number of pass-along cards.

11 August 2007 – Saturday

I increased my exercise this morning – a couple of extra laps and I ran a little further on some of them. I do not get really tired but the sweat just pours off of me. The important thing is that I feel good afterwards. I have decided that I need to lose about 3 pounds a month for the rest of our mission. I should be able to do that by continuing to exercise and just cutting back some on the sweets.

I forgot to write that President Marchant called us late last night to tell us that President Faust had died. I met him once when he came as a member of the 12 to Torrance North Stake. He was very kind but also very straight spoken. He had a firmness in his voice and manner that gave weight to his words while showing love. I believe he was the authority and taught us that there is nothing that says a man must be in the church a year before he is given the M.P. I wonder who the Lord will call to replace him and if it will happen before the October conference.

We read from the Kitab Mormon. We get most of the words but how Isaiah uses them, many times escapes us – actually I think the poor translator had an impossible task. I can not imagine what an Indonesian who does not ever gets to read the English makes of Isaiah.

We get to the chapel in plenty of time to visit for awhile before the PH and RS meetings start. The highlight of the PH meeting for me was when Elder Subandriyo asked two recently converts and the youngest Deacon to offer their testimonies. The two adults had wonderful stories about how they came into the kingdom. One man came to Jakarta to meet with his estranged son. The meeting did not go well but he met the son’s landlord who was a member of the Church and invited him to hear the missionaries. Both men talked about how they felt the spirit telling them that the Book of Mormon was true. I did not see how the young Deacon could top this but he did. He stood in front of 200 or so older PH holders and shared a clear and meaningful testimony without any help or nervousness. I am sure I could have not done that at 12. But obviously Primary had prepared him to speak before a group.

Talks by the District Presidency and President Marchant filled out the meeting. I am sure all were fine but the translators had a difficult time keeping up with what was being said so much got lost. I felt a strong spirit when President Mak bore his testimony at the end of his talk. All in all it was a good meeting.

After the meeting Mary got a box lunch but I passed. We spent a couple of hours working in the office and talking to the Petersons and Kanes. Elder Kane explained how he was using the 25 Business Rules to teach one of his English classes. The Bennetts also use it for their advance class. I must tell Steve Gibson about how it is doing two things at once here.

We both took naps before starting to clean the house for our guests tomorrow. There is not a lot to do but I did have to attack the porch which has accumulated lots of debris from my gardening efforts. The nice thing about tile everything is that it is easy to clean. Too bad we can not have this in Utah – but after a few winters it would be a mess.

Since we went over to the Mission Residence last night, tonight is our date night. That means Pizza Hut and a movie. We ended the day by reading from the Kitab Mormon – we did much better this evening and I look forward to tomorrow’s reading. I continue to read in the A&P – it is easier but there are still too many words that I have to look up or guess at. What makes it easier than the Kitab Mormon – and especially Isaiah – is the sentence structure is less complex. This means once I have the words I can pretty much figure out how they all fit together for a complete sentence.

Prambanan was a complex of over 240 Hindu temples with a center complex of 6 larger temples. It was built in the 8th and 9th centuries A.D.  The 2006 earthquake made the restored temples unsafe for tourists to enter so all we could do is walk around the outside. Unlike Borobudur, each temple is a individual structure and is easier to get absorb than the huge single temple. The carving techniques seem to be identical – the craftmanship is outstanding. It must have been built by a very prosperous nation.

Borobudur is a huge Buddhist sanctuary that is thought to have been started to be built around 750 AD and finished somewhere between 50 and 150 years later. The carvings are amazing and tell the story of the way from the life of the flesh to perfection.  It is about 400 feet on a side and stood about 150 feet high.  http://www.borobudur.tv/

10 August 2007 – Friday

I think the alarm wants to make sure I wake up. Once again I had trouble finding the switch to turn it off. I tried hard to silence it before it wakes up Mary but I do not seem to able to do that. My morning exercise went well and it seems I am finally starting to remember the vocabulary words. Hopefully it will help. We read from the Kitab Mormon – a humbling experience to say the least. I continue to read from the A&P which is much easier.

As we pulled out of the driveway, I found that I had not brought the keys to the apartment. So we had to turn around – which is not easy in Jakarta because there are not many places to cross from one side to the other. In this case it takes about 10 minutes. Not much happens at the office. I tidy up the e-mail and resumes. I also did some work with prepositions – an area that is so important in learning English.  Sam gets me lunch from the street. Today’s food is not as good as usual – rather limited in variety. Good and filling but not great. Not long after lunch President Marchant calls and invites us to have dinner tonight with them and the 13 new missionaries.

After the office we have time to go back to the apartment for naps and to get ready for dinner. I spend some of my time cataloging and writing captions for all the pictures we took while in Jogja. That is a major task when there are over 300 pictures to go through. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Because of the possibility of bad traffic, we leave early for the mission home. At first it looks like it may be really slow going, but after a while it opens up and we get there in plenty of time. We finally got to say hello to Elder Roper only to find out that he had lost his voice and could hardly be heard. This of course did not stop him from talking – but it did slow him down a little.

It was great to meet all the new missionaries – 12 young men and a sister from Jogja. She is especially impressive with almost perfect English. Sister Tippetts sent us some phrases to use when we met the elders – they were surprised when we used them and wondered how we knew them.

Dinner was Italian and we sat at the table with some of the new missionaries. I enjoyed it more than sitting at the table with the Marchants and Petersons who we get to see all the time. We got to share some thoughts about missionary work, our calls, etc. It was very pleasant. After dinner we had a short testimony meeting – all the new elders and the sister bore their testimony as did sister Marchant. It was a good spiritual experience and we were able to understand most of what was said. Some of the US elders have a pretty good vocabulary and others you can tell are struggling with the language. But they are all strong missionaries and should do well.

It was a very nice way to end another day in the mission.

A traditional instrument – beautiful sounds. The horned owl and a shot of one of the aisles at the bird market in Jogja

09 August 2007 – Thursday

It was good to get back to doing our calling all day.

We must have slept very soundly last night because we did not feel a major earthquake that happened about midnight here. The first thing we knew about it was when we got e-mails from Brian and Tom, quickly followed by a Skype call from Jim asking if we were OK. When Jim asked about the earthquake we knew nothing about it. We checked the newspapers and TV but there was nothing there. Later news from our friends the Kanes up in Bogor said that they woke at 12:08 to house that shook and trembled for over a minute. I guess all of our years in So. Cal. made us insensitive toWe went into the mission office and Elder Subandriyo asked Mary to teach his staff twice a week – Tuesday and Thursday from 1-2. I talked to president Marchant and he said that they would be gone when the senior couple came in on the 22nd and asked us to take care of picking them up and taking care of them until he got back. Since that is the Davises who we have started an e-mail correspondence with, it should be good. We will get to meet the Taylors after they come here on the 15th. I talked to Ari about Bandung and a driver for the Davises. The president mentioned that we already had a house there – one where the sisters live when there are some in Bandung. I do not think the Davises will want to live there but we will look at it with the Davises.

The 13 new elders are all at the mission office and they are in the middle of their orientation. I looked in and saw Elder Roper – he is going to be one of the office elders – and he saw me and waved. He looks great so I guess there is no problems with his hernia. We also visited with the Petersons for a while. Mary wanted to get some information about the staff English classes. Later as Mary and I talked about we discussed breaking the class into two parts so the ones who already have excellent English will not be held back and those who do not have very good English will not be in over their heads.

We then went to the mall to get groceries and BreadTalk. We did not go to our usual mall because I suggested BurgerKing for lunch. I would have eaten at BYU, but Mary would not have been happy so I figured I could eat off the street tomorrow and treat her and Sam to hamburgers today.

In the afternoon we went to district meeting and shared in a lesson on the purpose of our mission. It included reading from D&C 4. As Elder Smith was reading verse 4, I happened to read the 2nd verse. Although we read it almost every week, I am not sure I have actually thought about what it says. It says that once you decide to become a missionary, you need to do it diligently “so you can stand blameless before God in the last days.” I pointed out that means if we do not do our best during our mission we will not be able to do that. It is rather like the couple in the New Testament who decided to hold back part of the money that they got for their home. Once we commit we need to be fully committed to the work.

We had a good turnout for English class. Mainly because they have Seminary in the evening and it ends at 6:00 so most of the students can come to our classes. The only ones I have in my class are Agus and Catherin’s family – but they are great so we get a lot done. I continue to work on prepositions and numbers.

The trip home seemed longer than it actually was. I think I was just tired and there were enough brief traffic jams to make it seem like a long time. All in all it was a good day.

We were asleep when the earthquake hit and never knew anything about it until we saw the e-mail checking up on us. As far as we can tell from the TV, there was no damage done in the city. It occurred about 60 miles away and deep in the sea bed. We do not know if some of the country closer to the center of the quake was damaged. This is the second earthquake in the last week withing 60 miles of the city. There was a 5.5 quake up in the mountains on Saturday.

Thanks for checking up on us and letting us know there was an earthquake.

 

Only in Indonesia – The man is pushing his cart loaded with a door frame that must have been 7′ x 11′ down a main road in Jakarta. Behind was two more carts with what looked like parts to go with it. There is no telling how far he ended up pushing this load but it did not seem to matter. I liked the load of boxes because they were all shape and sizes. Big loads tend to be rather uniform. The delivery motorcycle is not really unique in size, but the colors are unusual.

04 August 2007 – Saturday

Well it turned out to be a very unusual Saturday for us. But it started normally with me going out and walking the track for about 45 minutes. I could not run because I managed to get a blister on my heel and every time I tried to run it hurt too much. I still managed to work up a nice sweat. Mary had been awake during the night so she got to sleep in a little. We read from the Kitab Mormon and then hurried to get ready to go to the chapel for a service project.

A couple in the US bought 6 pallets of school books and shipped them to Indonesia so they could be distributed to needy schools. They were supposed to be delivered at 8:30 so all the elders and sisters in the district came down to help out. Also a good number of members of the English branch showed up. Of course in usual Indonesian fashion, the books were not even released from customs by 8:30 so Elder Subandriyo had to go down and get things moving.

The books arrived at about 10:00 and we formed a line to get them from the truck, into the church, up the stairs and into the cultural hall. I stood on the stairs between two elders and hustled boxes of books weighing on an average of 40 pounds. I figure there was probably about 240-250 boxes of books. I – and all the elders – were really sweating by the time we were done. I felt pretty good to keep up my part. After all I am about 20 years older than the two elders combined.

The easy part was dividing the books into grades. Once that was done, we had to figure out what to do with them. Elder Subandriyo decided to make them into sets of 10. After a false start, I figured out how to do this best and for the rest of the day, I was the lead person. I headed up the crew that divided up the books into stacks. I had Mary make an inventory sheet – Elder Subandriyo asked for this – so we could put one in each set so people would know what was there. I had some of the elders counting the books in each section and putting post-it notes on the stack. Then when we got to that grade, Mary would make a list of the books in the section and I would decide how many of each book went in each stack – this was not hard since there were 10 stacks but it took a while before the elders caught on. Once the stacks were made, a crew led by president Marchant and elders Kane and Peterson, came along and boxed them up. We got pretty good at doing this and we were basically done by 3:30. I was very, very tired by then but happy to see that things got done in an orderly manner.

After that we went down to the office and Mary entered our figures for the monthly reports. There were only two problems – first I managed to close one of the completed report without saving it so Mary had to re-enter the information. I apologized many times for that. And then I could not get the completed reports sent to Hong Kong because the file is so big. They really should let us send raw data and they can enter it all there. They obviously have a better internet speed than we do.

Then it was time to come home. Mary had selected a good number of books so Sam had to make a couple of trips to get them all in the apartment. Add to that I forgot my book bag so he had to go back to the church for it and I figured that he deserved a bonus. So I gave him 150,000 R – about $15 and made his day.
I was sore and tired – it is a good tired – but did not try to take a nap. Instead I went down and picked up the dry cleaning and got my hair cut. Now I am about to go take a long, hot shower and try to stay awake long enough to read from the Kitab Mormon.

We did our reading from the Kitab Mormon and I continue to try to read the A&P. I found that studying words in the morning while exercising makes the time go more quickly but does not mean that I learn the words. The Indonesian words pretty much stick, but the English meaning seems to scurry away. But I will continue to exercise and learn – some part of my body should benefit.

 

The first picture is my favorite 50 cent lunch – rice, tempe, veggies, potatoes, and crispy soybean crackers. This is pretty much a typical main meal for the average Indonesian worker. The political rallies that tied up the streets today were mainly motorcycle rallies. This family of four are all decked out in their party colors. I took the other picture because he looked like an Indonesian version of the German SS.

03 August 2007 – Friday

Somehow I set my alarm for 4:30 instead of 5 but I was going out the door to exercise before I noticed this. I put about 45 minutes into walking and jogging around the track. I used the time to learn words – or at least to try to increase my vocabulary. I am not sure the words will stick but it does make the time go by faster. I see no one except an occasional security man during this time. I guess everyone comes out later. But it is the coolest time of the day to exercise outside so I will stick to it. Hopefully Bob will show up sometime.

I spent part of the morning catching up this journal and part of it reading from the D&C. Cindy’s blog was a gold mind. After over 2 weeks of nothing, today it was filled with pictures of our yard and all the weeds that they worked on. What a chore to try and weed when they get that high. It is bad enough when I do it regularly and so they are small and not well rooted. My big thanks to Cindy and those who helped.

We read from the Kitab Mormon – confusing are the words of Isaiah. It is not that we do not understand most of the words, it is the combination of them that is so hard to work out. This morning I realized that when we read the Indonesian, we are reading words that were written in old Hebrew, translated to Greek, translated to old English, translated to newer English, and then translated to Indonesian. It is rather amazing that it even exists for us to read. So we move on and enjoy what we can from it.

We went into the office and did some work on different things. I can not say it was very productive for me. Mary got some things done on the Area book. I contacted a couple of clients to see how they were doing with getting jobs. We got part of the July report from Agus and Lukito but not very much information. It seems that the specialists have a difficult time understanding the need for so much information.

We went to the mission office for district meeting. There had been a zone leaders conference so there were lots of missionaries at our meeting. Elder Decker kept it all under control and did not try to get information from every pair of missionaries. Elder Thomas – who is heading to Yojakarta to finish out his mission – gave a good lesson on the Book of Mormon which I contributed to by telling the story of the first time I read King Benjamin’s discourse.

The trip back to the apartment was a mess because the candidates for governor held big rallies throughout the city that tied up traffic. We were lucky to catch just the edges and Sam found ways around some of it. But I imagine some people were stuck in it for hours. Hopefully we will avoid the worse part of it for the next two weeks.

A normal Friday evening – the president says we can have date night – was pizza and watching ‘A beautiful year.’ It was a fun little movie but very predictable and at times very slow. There was one nice twist – at least how it came about if not the twist itself. I went back and looked more carefully at Cindy’s pictures and became worried about one part of the yard that looks like it is not getting enough water.

We read from the Kitab Mormon and later I read some from the A&P. But once again I was tired and so was asleep before Mary ever came to bed. I am glad that there was a district meeting because I needed Elder’s Thomas’ lesson to give me a spiritual boost in a day that did not have a lot of spirit.