So here is my teaching picture that seems to have not made it before.  The picture of the sheep and the goats are for Olivia to show we have petting zoos here, only the animals are not in pens.
04 July 2007 – Wednesday

Happy 4th of July at least here in Jakarta…no fireworks however. It started well for me – I slept in until after 5. I guess I just need to stay up until close to 11. Mary did not sleep well – she took her turn of waking at 3 and not being able to go back to sleep. Finally working at reading Harry Potter in Indonesian wore her out enough to let her drop off.

I spent the first hour studying Indonesian vocabulary – only about 15 words but I am going to stick with them until I get them implanted in my mind. Then I switched to the D&C for the next hour and while drinking breakfast. Reading out loud really slows things down and that is good.

D&C 3 came alive for me this time. It is interesting that the second record revelation is basically about God rebuking Joseph for letting the world govern his actions instead of Him. As I read 3:4 I thought how this applied to me – how often have I rationalized my actions.

What really hit me as I read was D&C 5. It got me really thinking about faith and how it is a function of our relationship with God. The closer our relationship, the stronger our faith and the more we are likely to seek His counsel in ‘all our doings.’ It allows us to step into the darkness and not just hope that He will provide the light we need to guide us but ‘know’ that He will even if there is no evidence other than the prompting of the spirit. As we gain a closer relationship with God and Christ by becoming more Christ like, we will draw closer to the spirit and as the scriptures promises we will become one with them.

As we do that our relationship with others, such as spouse, children, and those around us, will become stronger as we do that which Christ would do. We stop arguing because we listen more than we speak and when we do speak it is to draw us closer, not to win a point. This is something I really need to work at.

***An hour later I read an article in the paper by Marshall Goldsmith that counseled that many leaders do not know when to shut up. To learn that it is as important to know what not to say as it is to know what to say. I am going to look for the book that this article came out of – I think I really need to know more about learning to be quiet. As I was writing this, I thought of Elder Holland’s talk on the misery the tongue causes to our spouses and our children. Perhaps I need to spend more time listening and less time talking. To encourage and not to discourage others and their ideas. Maybe there should be a book called ‘The wisdom of silence.’

Mary’s time at the office was spent cleaning up and organizing the paperwork from the English class. I spent most of my time creating review sentences for the vocabulary. I also started organizing our trip to Semarang to learn what the Bennetts are doing and to talk to the students and their parents about preparing for the future. We hope to go for three days sometime this month. Unfortunately no one came in to office for help. But we did get quite a lot accomplished.

I forgot to mention that yesterday Sam gave me a new cell phone that brother Park donated. He said it as a used one but I think it was brand new. Anyway Sam spent most of his time putting in all the numbers and learning how to use the phone so he could teach me. I have decided that somewhere deep down inside I have a aversion to cell phones and PDAs that will not allow me to learn to use them properly. It is like the veil that keeps us from remembering our pre-mortal life. I am hoping that there is no need for electronic devices when we get to the other side. But the new phone is neat. It includes a camera and lots of fun functions.

After we had finished at the office we decided to do our shopping at SoGo.  Mary wanted to buy a book for Jin-young and look at a new BreadTalk knock-off that she had read about. The traffic was a little heavy but it did not take an hour like it did last week.

Once we were through there and back home, we settled into our usual evening routine of reading and answering e-mail, looking at Cindy and Olivia’s blogs, writing in my journal, watching TV, etc. Later we read another hour from the Kitab Mormon and I read a little from the D&C before turning off the lights.

03 July 2007 – Tuesday

The Lord seems to think that I need to study Indonesian at 3 a.m. – at least that how it has been for the last couple of nights. I must say that it is a good time to study – there is not much else I can do at that time except sleep and that is not in the cards. I usually managed to study for about an hour before becoming tired enough to drop back to sleep. Today I woke for the second time before 6. I then did my morning Indonesian study.

We did not need to be at the office until 10 so we had 90 extra minutes to use this morning. I used my time studying Indonesian by trying to translate conference talks and learn the vocabulary words I had yesterday. Elder Kane said he found that he could absorb only so much vocabulary at a time. We kidded that it seemed that every time we got remembered one word, we forgot two. Sometimes it really seems that way. We read from the Kitab Mormon – we made it to 4th Nephi so the end is definitely in sight. Reading went quite fast this morning – Isaiah is behind us.

There was a letter from Tom saying that Kelli had an assignment to tell about her earliest LDS ancestor. That is who was the first to join the church. Mary checked and thought it was Joseph Young – Tom wrote later and had found it was Joseph and Brigham’s father.

Sam and Mary dropped me at the office and headed off to Carrefore to buy a wireless phone and some things for the office. While they were gone I wrote a number of e-mails and things like that. Later Mary cleaned up the remaining class material and now we at least have it all in categories. As usual no one came in but we did have one person call to tell us they could not get into their Jobsdb resume – I checked and got in fine. It turned out he had a really slow connection – it is hard to believe any connection is slower than ours – and was not patient enough.

We have not quite adjusted to the fact that there is no classes to worry about. We tried to make an appointment to go see Rudy but we could not find his phone number. So we just came home after office hours. I spent much of the time studying Indonesian – I am trying to catch up for my being lazy over the last few months on learning new vocabulary. Mary bought the first Harry Potter book in Indonesian and started to read it. I continued with conference talks and flash cards. And of course we both took naps. I always sleep longer than Mary, so she kept busy by writing her monthly letter to friends and family. She wrote mainly about our English class.

Dinner was rice and veggies for me. I continue to enjoy rice and almost anything. I can see why they say a meal is not a meal unless there is rice. Mary is not interested in rice unless it has stroganoff over it – she prefers beans. I also really like pasta as a base for just about anything or alone.

We read for usual hour in Kitab Mormon – we read all of 4th Nephi. Now it is on to Mormon and Ether with all those wars, immorality, and death. After that we tried to find something on TV but it there was nothing interesting. Mary went to bed and I stayed up to read the D&C again. This time I am reading it out loud so I do not skim over parts that do not seem interesting. I decided that I was probably missing some important things and there was no rush to get through it. Time is one thing we seem to have.
As I started to read the D&C I asked the Lord to help me find what I needed to learn. Right from the first I found that parts of D&C 1 that did not really strike when I read it about a month ago, stood out this time. I especially was interested in verses 17-23 which tells why the Lord restored His church at that particular time – this included ‘that my everlasting covenant might be established. But the first reason given is ‘knowing the calamity which should come upon the inhabitants of the earth.’ I found it interesting that He did not say ‘calamities’ but calamity.

Reading the scriptures seems to focus my mind on what is important in my life. It is much too easy to get caught up in the pleasing but unimportant activities that I do, instead of looking for the joyful and important activities the Lord would have me do so I could be blessed. It is not that I am doing anything particularly wrong as much as I am wasting the precious time He has given me to make a difference in world and in my life – to do things for which I will be blessed.

02 July 2007

Hello Everyone – Greetings from Indonesia

We have just finished our Pilot Intensive English Class which was held during the month of June. Our students were six returned missionaries and one 16 year old Korean girl from the English branch here in Jakarta. They entrusted their lives and well-being to us for one month and we hope that it has been a worthwhile endeavor for them.

Our students arrived on May 31 and moved into rooms which our driver, Sam, found for them within a 15-20 minutes walking distance from the Church. The rent for these rooms was paid for by a fund set up under Elder Subandriyo’s control which is for the benefit of returned missionaries. They were given 15,000 rupiahs per day – that is equal to about $1.75 – to pay for their food (also from this fund).

We started our classes promptly at 9:00 a.m. on June 1. The regular class schedule was 9-12, 2-5, and 6-8:30 every day. The students had Thursday afternoon and evening off to do laundry, etc. We started off by giving them a test which is a practice TOEFL test. (Teaching Of English as a Foreign Language) This test is a standard test which is given worldwide to test students readiness for admission to English speaking universities. This gave us some idea of where their abilities were and what we needed to teach them.

During the four weeks the students had homework most nights, focusing on reading from newspapers, church magazines, and short stories and then giving oral reports on them the next day in class. We also had grammar books which they could work in at their own pace, vocabulary lists which we worked on in class together, and reading comprehension activities and tests. The students were encouraged to keep a journal (in English) every day. They also reported each day on how much English or Indonesian they spoke each day both in class and out of class.

We were assisted in the teaching of these classes by Joel and Judy Guttormsen, Elder and Sister Peterson, Brother and Sister Moore, and Sister Mary from Tangerang. The Page and Willis families and Branch President Smith from the English Branch hosted the students several times for Family Home Evening and for dinner and activities in their homes. Brother Guttormsen was especially helpful having them over in the evenings three nights a week, teaching them through activities and games. Without this help we would have been basket-cases by the end of the month.

Two of our students were Anna and Vita, two young women from Yogyakarta. Anna’s family joined the church in 1984 after her father met Yusman Tandiman on the street in Yogyakarta. Anna’s most recent job has been working in a travel agency. Vita was our most outstanding student. She says that she wasted most of her high school years because her father told her that they had no money to send her to college so she did not bother to try to get good grades. She was like a sponge sopping up knowledge and we feel that she could do very well in college.

Eko is a young man who just last month was released as a missionary. Before he served his mission he finished his schooling as a veterinarian, but now finds that there are few jobs available in that field. We will need to work with him encouraging him to be creative in his looking. At times he seemed like his English was very poor, but them he would surprise me with great understanding. I feel that with just a little more work he could make great improvement.

Agus is from Semarang. He is a driver for Elder and Sister Bennett there and they gave him the whole month off to attend our class. He also is married and has an eight-month old daughter who learned to crawl while he was away taking our class. The Bennetts report that his confidence has gone way up and he is eager to share what he has learned.

Toni Mongan is from Bogor, which is just an hour away from Jakarta. At first Toni was not putting very much effort into the class, but after Elder Pier talked to him he was able to change his attitude and worked much harder.

Jin-young is our Korean girl. She wanted to take the class because after being in the English branch for two years, she still could not understand the lessons given each Sunday and wanted help preparing herself to take her graduation tests next year. She hopes to be able to attend BYU Hawaii. Jin-young was really out of her element at first. This was the first time she had been away from home and it really was a culture shock for her–living in a room with no hot water, sleeping on a sleeping pad on the floor, only being able to afford Indonesian Food, and being away from her family. At first she complained a lot (not to us) but she stuck it out and when her mother cried and wanted her to return home she refused and stayed the whole time. Her mother became very popular with the other students because after the first week she brought lunch to them twice a week–home cooked!

Jin-young was one of the students who showed the most progress. At first when she made a presentation it was almost impossible to hear her, she talked so softly. By the end of the four weeks she had gained great confidence and spoke quite well. Jin-young plays the piano and she accepted the assignment to choose our Opening Hymn for each morning and play the piano for us to sing. This was a great help.

The last student was Sam, our driver. Sam did not quite get the full benefit of the class because we frequently had to pull him out of class to interpret for us with someone who came into our office, to run errands for the class, or to drive us home when someone else was teaching the class. But he also made progress and we will continue to work with him in the coming weeks.

During the four weeks we spent lots of time on basic grammar–especially verb tenses, which are not used in Indonesian, vocabulary, reading skills, pronunciation, oral reports, and ONLY SPEAKING ENGLISH. The students read lots of newspaper articles, short stories and church magazine articles.

We tested the students each week on their reading skills and each week their scores went up, but the most improvement was seen in their confidence levels as they used their English skills. The reports we got back from others as they returned to their homes were very encouraging.

We will try to have another class like this again in October. We have learned a lot and will make some changes in how we approach the class, but the basic format will remain the same. This time I think we will be able to plan ahead a little farther and give better assignments to our assistants. There was a lot of trial and error in this class. (Mostly trial, very little error.) I feel however, that the most important element is just getting them to speak English all the time. They all have studied English in high school but had never had a need to use it regularly, so they had not progressed a lot.

Let me just say here that this is not what I thought I was coming to Indonesia for. I felt that it was important to learn to speak Indonesian because I did not want to be the ugly American who insists that everyone speak his language and do things his way. Well, I am still learning Indonesian, but every employer we talk to stresses the need for their employees to be able to speak English. To get good jobs they really need to be able to speak good English. It can make a real difference in their lives. We talked to the head of a school in Bogor who trains students for jobs in the textile industry. They learn both production and marketing. Their first three months at the school are spent learning English before they learn anything about the textile industry! And this is a school run by Germans!

So here we are, teaching English.

We miss all of you and love to hear from you. Any advice you have on teaching English would be greatly appreciated. We are definitely not trained teachers, but managed to muddle through this month without doing too much damage to our students. We really enjoyed it, but we sure came home tired every night. We are thankful we are here and we know it is where we should be right now. I’m sorry for the length of this letter, but I had a lot to say. You may have to read it one paragraph a day!

Enjoy the Fourth of July and light a sparkler for us! Love, Elder and Sister Pier

Another of the beautiful floral displays we get to see each morning in our lobby – taken this morning. This picture shows that I actually did some teaching for the English class.
2 July 2007 – Senin

Today is a big day for the Jakarta, Indonesia mission. President and sister Marchant will be arriving in about 5 hours to take over from the Jensens. Sister Jensen mentioned that they would be sleeping in the guest room tonight while the Marchants slept in ‘their’ – that is the Jensen’s – bed.

I woke myself up at about 2 a.m. to escape from some dream I was having. I really need to stop doing that. When I found that I was not going to go back to sleep I studied Indonesian by reading from President Hinckley’s talk. (As I was writing this I realized I had written President Kimball in my entry for yesterday and so I quickly edited the blog post.) It really was not much easier the second time through but I figure if I keep at it long enough the words may sink into my head.

I finally got back to sleep and managed to stay asleep until almost 7. I got up and really felt good. I felt so good that I washed all the dishes that have accumulated over the last few days – we are not good about washing dishes each day. After breakfast we read from the Kitab Mormon – three plus pages. I managed to even contribute a new word to the translation – kenyang means to be full of food. Penuh means to be full of anything else – such as penuhi Roh Kudus or filled with the Holy Ghost.

We did not get any calls from our children today. We are always disappointed when at least one of them is not available to talk to. I guess they are all busy on Sunday evening doing church work. We can not fault them for that but it still would be nice to hear from some of them more often. (I wrote the above in the morning before we left for the day and am happy to say that it was proved incorrect. We had nice letters from Tom and Shauna.  Yeah!)

We went to visit the Jakarta Raya elders’ house. I called them to tell them we were coming so they had time to get everything cleaned up. They had done a great job and so other than patting them on the back and asking if there was anything they needed it was an easy visit.

Our next stop was the mission office to drop off our request for reimbursement for expenses, to say goodbye for the last time to the Jensens, to tell the brother in charge of buildings about the need for a larger water pump at the elder’s house, to get new branch lists so we can start visiting less actives, and to have lunch from BYU. While we were there I talked to Elder Subandriyo about the next English class – he says we should open it to young people who are not returned missionaries. We are all for this – I think once we get going we can do it with only a month between classes. I am going to suggest that they call two couples from the English branch to be in charge but part of me does not want to give up the class for a while.

After lunch – yum – we headed off to buy some yarn for Mary so she can finish her Afgan. The area was packed – it is the traditional mall that I showed in a picture a couple of months ago – and hot. I was really glad to get out of there. On the way out I stopped and bought a large plastic pot so I can re-pot one of my plants. While I was doing that Mary moved a short ways away and I did not notice. So Sam and I left her behind and it took a while to realize this and then find her. I do not think she was very happy with me, but I really did think she was right behind me all the time.

Our last stop was a small mall where we bought a new phone to replace the one I broke in the office. We got a good Panasonic speaker phone – it turns out we have the only one in the district so everyone uses it any time they need to have a conference call. Luckily this is not very often. We tried to get a cordless phone for the apartment but they only had really cheap ones so we will get one at Carrefore the next time we are there.

The trip home was fairly quick and painless. I tried to study my Indonesian flashcards while in the car but it does not work well. Besides my mind does not seem to be working very well today and so nothing stuck. The same problem persisted once we got home. When we got home Sam changed out the water bottle and then the three of us changed a couple of light bulbs – really. We had no ladder so we had to use the dining room pedestal table. So while Sam stood on the table, Mary and I had to support opposite edges so it would tip or break. So you see it takes three missionaries to change a light bulb.

We have spent the time since then writing letters and reports to a variety of people. I also did some studying in Indonesian. As mentioned above it was not greatly successful. But I will keep praying for Kerunia Lidah – the gift of tongues – and doing what I can to improve.

One of the thing we could not judge was how much they improved. We were so close to them that it was hard to see any change from day to day. To get an outsiders opinion we asked the Bennetts to tell us if they saw or felt any change in their driver Agus. They sent back this letter, which I think answers a lot of our questions.

Good morning Piers,
Boy was it good to see Agus yesterday at church and how thankful we are to have him back. Sam didn’t wake up yesterday morning, so 15 min before church was suppose to start, he called and said he just woke up. I said, the Elder Bennett would have to drive, so off we went. Elder Bennett did very well and we even made it before Sac. started. (They were a little late, but usually start right on time.) Everyone just smiled when they saw us hug Agus! As we were sitting there trying to understand what they were saying, Agus came up and sat behind us and did a wonderful job of translating for us. He has never translated for us in church and usually gets very confused. He had such confidence. Then I bore my testimony and he did the translating for me and did very well. I always go into his Primary class and have encouraged him to use some English words, but yesterday, after each key word he wrote, he wrote the English word after it.  It was a wonderful lesson on the things they have to do to get ready for a mission. We made them little nametags just like ours and they all looked so cute leaving the class with their missionary name tags on. He came this AM all excited with all his books and things to show Sam so we can use some of the things in our weekly classes. Yesterday in RS the teacher (counselor) giving the lesson did the same as Agus with writing the main word in Indonesian and then English. They are all so excited to learn English and we are so thankful for your efforts with Agus. We will continue to help him daily.

We did not think about how the class might increase their confidence in their abilities. We think that the experience of talking in the English branch and having so many experiences with different teachers really helped them feel like they can participate and help. Since three of the students came from Central Java, hopefully they will help the leaders there learn English. Central Java is where the first stake in Indonesia will be formed and the leaders need to learn English so they can communicate with Hong Kong and Church Headquarters.

Our evening included fixing steamed veggies for dinner and reading from the Kitab Mormon. Mary spent time doing cross stitching – she is doing something with monkeys. I figure that is why she watched part of a documentary on ‘Gorillas in the Midst.’ Before heading for bed we watched ‘Without a Trace.’

Although we did little in the way of missionary work – it was our P-day (I did laundry and two load of dishes – and do not forget helping to change a lightbulb) – I still felt it was a very good and spiritual day. As I studied President Hinckley’s article on the war between good and evil,  worked on my Indonesian, and especially when I read about Agus’s progress in English, I felt that I was doing the Lord’s work.

Dad’s garden – for some reason the bougainvillia is not blooming. That is not quite true – it has one flower. The picture of us and the Van Dongans was taken on June 26 at the mission home. The occasion was the farewell dinner with the Jensen’s.
1 July 2007 – Sunday

I slept in until almost 6 – a rare thing indeed and Mary was already up. I finished reading the D&C and then we read 3 pages from the Kitab Mormon. ‘Great are the words of Isaiah’ – so great that it takes three times as long to read a chapter of his writings than any other chapter. But we did somewhat better this time.

The only thing that was different at Jakarta Raya is that I was asked to give a talk in two weeks on the apostasy and restoration. We continue to hear a little more each week but we are still far from understanding most of the words and almost none of context.

We caught a cab back to the apartment. We took the first nice looking one that came along. It was not a BlueBird but it was a nice cab and got us there quickly for $4 including tip.

The rest of the day just went by. About the only thing worth writing about was that we read from the Kitab Mormon and are now well under 100 pages from the end. We should be finished by the 15th at the latest.

I started to study Indonesian again – that is to read and to learn vocabulary that is not in the Kitab Mormon. I am reading the June message from President Hinckley. I had to kind of chuckle when I came across ‘perang’ so often. It is a very popular word in the Kitab Mormon because it means ‘War’ and that is something that seems to be on every other page. It is not a word that comes up very often in talks by the general authorities of the church and certainly not as often as it is in this talk.

I decided to make flash cards of some of the new words – something I told the students of our English class they should do. As I have mentioned, Mary had been making a list of words we do not know in the Kitab Mormon – it is now up to going on 4 pages and there are about 60 words per page. I am thankful that the Lord is giving me this opportunity to study a new language. Something I never thought I would do again in this life. I feel that it is as much a test of my willingness to ‘obey exactly’ as it is to be able to read, speak and hopefully understand Indonesian. However I am sure that if we can learn to communicate with the people our usefulness to the Lord’s work will greatly increase. So that as the scriptures say, we can ‘be tools in the hands of the Lord.’ Isn’t that a great goal to set for oneself – to in someway help the Lord in His work to bring to pass the Immortality and Eternal Life of His children. And of course while doing this we hopefully receive the same blessing.

30 June 2007 – Saturday

No more English class – what will we do with our days?

Woke at the regular time but it felt like it was much earlier. I really wanted to go back to sleep but it was no use. So instead I got up and posted my journal and some pictures.  As I was reading in the D&C I got to the section – 134 I think but I am too lazy to get up and look – about the relationship between government and the church. I was struck at how powerful the thoughts were and how strong a country would be that had the type of government that was outlined there. They could certainly use it here in Indonesia.

We read 3 pages from the Kitab Mormon, but the last 3/4 of a page caused us lots of problems. When we read the passage from the Book of Mormon we understood why. It did not make a lot of sense there either. It reasonable that that something that was written in whatever language the original plates were written in, and then abridged into whatever language Mormon used, and then translated into early 19th century English and then translated into Indonesian – might lose something in translation.

We had a busy morning and a very quiet afternoon and evening. Sam picked us up at 9 – it was good to have him back – and took us to the office. We worked on cleaning up the piles of paper that we accumulated over the last 30 days. Mainly things we used in our lessons. While Mary worked on that I spent most of my time making review sentences for the vocabulary lessons.

As we worked people started to arrive for the big missionary reunion-goodbye party for the Jensens. The Kanes arrived and they had the books we asked for. They are really nice and I think the couples will find them useful in teaching English. I gave him Steve’s book and asked him to have 10 copies made so that I can give them to different people. I am going to have it translated into Indonesian so the District specialists can share the information with those who have or are thinking of opening a small business.

They had a nice – if a little long – program featuring Indonesian saints that gave tribute and then a video production that alternated between leaders he worked with here and his family back home. Since much of it was in Indonesian – which I could not follow – and the rest in English – which most of the Indonesians could not follow, some parts of the audience were always in the dark.

After the program there was food and talking. We told the Jensen’s goodbye for what may have been the last time and had Sam drive us home. The rest of the day and night was spent napping, eating, and watching some TV. A visit to Cindy’s blog turned up an interesting post that led to another blog that told about an experience that Tyler had at ALA involving famous authors.

At 8 we read from the Kitab Mormon for an hour – we hit Jesus quoting Isaiah and as usual this slowed us way down. Great may be the words of Isaiah but they are darn hard to translate into Indonesian and then back into English. After that it was time to head for bed and some of the D&C before turning off the lights.

The before and after pictures from the hare-lip repair project the Church financed. What a difference this will make to this child as he or she grows up.
29 June 2007 – Friday

I did not wake until almost 5 – I was sure it was more like 3 – and so I felt very good. As I ate my breakfast, I continued my reading from the D&C this morning. But first I wrote some comments about some of what I read. The verse that really hit me was D&C 124:15 which was written to Hyrum Smith as he was called to be Patriarch of the Church. The Lord says “For I the Lord, love him because of the integrity of his heart, and because he loveth that which is right before me.” How wonderful it the Lord could say that about me and all of my family. “He loveth that which is right before me.” It reminds me of the passage from the Book of Mormon where the Lord gives Nephi unlimited power to do what he would because the Lord knows he will do nothing that is not right before Him.

We read three pages from the Kitab Mormon. Jesus has finished His sermon at the temple and is about to leave when he notices that the multitude does not want Him to go. He is touched and heals the sick and blesses the little children. He is so touched by the faith of the people that He weeps. No wonder it says that it could not be written. How do you write about something like that. Joseph has the same problem writing about the First Vision…no words can express the feeling. How do you explain the taste of salt to someone who has never tasted salt?

Agus picked us up and we had not problems making it to the chapel. A little later I walked into the classroom and saw the four empty seats sitting there, I got a lump in my throat. It reminded me that there were only four left and that by the end of the day those would be gone.

Mary taught all the morning. I did paper work and cleaned up. I made a number of visits to class and listen to them talk and learn. I did not teach at all. Mary let them out early for lunch – she had run out of things to teach. Jin-young and Anna went to the mall to try and find someplace new to eat but ended back at KFC…which is about all Jin-young has eaten for the month.

Since they came back at 1:30 instead of 2:00, Mary taught them until the Peterson’s came. While she was teaching I got a strange call from the Christensen’s in Hong Kong telling me that a branch president would be calling me about a problem he had. Later he called and the short of it is that there is a couple in Hong Kong that wants to come to Indonesia, they have no money and no skills and he wanted to know if I could find them a job – and to top it off the young man in not LDS and does not speak Indoneisan.. I told him straight out the chances of finding them jobs were very slim and even if we could it would not be enough to live on. Lucky for us it really is a problem for the English Branch president because the only language they seem to share is English.

The traffic was terrible and Agus showed up an hour late and Lukito almost two hours late. We started our meeting with Agus and had covered most of it when it was time for the English class to end. We went in and gave them a last minute pep-talked and said goodbye. It was not as hard as I thought but I think it will catch up with me tomorrow. We then went back and finished our meeting. The students left to go to president Smith’s house for their last activity in Jakarta.

We quickly wrapped up the meeting and we went out to catch a taxi. Since there did not seem to be any coming down our side of the street, we crossed over to the other side. This was the first time we have walked across 6 to 8 lanes of traffic. But the Lord blessed us and there were two nice clear spaces for us to walk across. We had no sooner got there when a taxi pulled up and took us home. It was almost too easy.

Once we were home we settled in to our Friday date night mode. Pizza and a movie. Of course in the middle of the movie the lights went out again. That is at least once a day for the last three days. We have no idea of why and management has not sent anything around to tell us. The movie is one about a young man who is plucked out of obscurity and becomes a professional English football player.

I received a nice letter from Steve Gibson giving me permission to copy his 25 rules book. He and Betty are going to Hawaii to teach at BYUH – I miss joking with him. I will make copies for all the couples to use to help their members. Also during the day we got the Kane’s weekly update. There were ‘after’ pictures of some of the hare-lip children. What an amazing difference. They can now grow up with a more normal life.

We read four pages from the Kitab Mormon – easy stuff but still it is great to read that many. After that it was time to read from the D&C for a short time before turning off the lights.

The Van Dongans went home today. They are a wonderful couple who completely changes a branch in the time they were here. They doubled the sacrament meeting attendance by going out and bringing in the less active. They created a branch choir that included almost every member of the branch. They beautified the chapel grounds and taught the members to have pride in them. Yet at one time they sent a letter to the president saying that they did not think they were doing any good in the branch and their mission.  The other picture is the Indonesian version of a stretch limo…this is the only one I have seen here.
28 June 2007 – Thursday

P-Day – or something like it. I woke fairly early and studied Indonesian for about an hour. There is just so much to learn – hopefully whatever years I have left will be used in learning more. I just wish I had spent more time studying the Gospel when I was younger. Of course teaching Gospel Doctrine for 20 years or so caused me to do a lot of reading and some pondering, but here I feel I am getting into the scriptures in a different way.

We read from the Kitab Mormon before heading off to the church. It had been raining all morning and so we got to go through some really big stretches of water. This of course slows everything down – something that is hardly needed in Jakarta. Because of the rain I had Agus drop us off and then go pick up the rest of the students. Even then they were late because Anna slept in and had not showered.

We had some really good classes today. Mary had them doing work from the black book and I had them work on vocabulary. As usual Vita was way ahead of everyone else. She is the only one who gets through all the exercises and at most she misses two words. Agus is doing better. Jin-young does not do well at first but she must study at night or in the morning because she seems to remember many of the earlier words.

The time went by quickly – of course there was only about 3 hours of class because it is their P-day. After the last exercise, I gave Vita a big hug – not really allowed by mission rules but I decided that with Mary and the rest of the class there it was OK – and said goodbye. Hopefully we will see her again and she will decide to continue her education. We decided to ask her to take the Michigan test so we can see how she does after her training. It will give us some idea as to what we need to teach. It turns out that Anna took the Michigan test a couple of times but never scored above 540. It will be interesting to see how Vita does. We sent her home with a stack of vocabulary exercises – she will probably have them done before the train gets back to Yoja.

We locked up the church and Agus, Anna, and the two of us headed off to SoGo for some shopping. The traffic was terrible – the rain and lots of cars makes for a big mess. It took us an hour to make a trip that usually takes 20 – 25 minutes. But we had a good chance to talk to Agus and Anna along the way. They told us that Jin-young’s mother wanted her to quit – in fact she went home at one point to take a shower and have some food. But Jin-young said that she wanted to stick it out. According to the other students her mother did a lot of crying because of the conditions she was living. But I think Jin-young has learned something more than just English. She has become close friends with some Indonesians and sees how some of them live.

We finally made it to SoGo and quickly got our shopping done. Mary found beef stroganof mix and quickly bought every package they had. We have found that some things you just buy when you can and put it away until you need it because when you need it, it will not be available. We of course also filled up with BreadTalk.

The drive home was a little longer than usual but it was certainly faster than it was going. Agus dropped us off and then took Anna home. Later he is going to take Vita to the train station and Eko to buy his ticket home. The rest of them will be going home either Saturday or Sunday. It will be rather sad to come on Tuesday and not have any class to teach. Hopefully Jin-young will take us up on coming in for one-on-one tutoring.

We got home in time to put away the groceries and clean up the apartment before the cleaning lady came. We both ended up taking naps while she was here. She is so quiet that we never even know she is here. If she did not knock to get in and ask for her pay when she goes, she could be a ghost.

We read the Kitab Mormon for another hour – 3 pages this time. Then we had some tomato soup and fresh bread for dinner. I mentioned to Mary that we were eating an American brand of tomato soup, that is made in Malaysia, in an apartment in Jakarta. And I must say that if the can did not say where it was made, I would not have known it was not from the US.

After dinner Mary is doing cross-stitching while I catch up this journal. We could not find anything to watch on TV – at least nothing I wanted to watch. Mary ended up watching something called ‘Racing Stripes’ – and talking animal movie.

We got a nice letter from President Gordon Creer to give us his new e-mail address. He is about to leave for Northern Ireland for three years. He and Janice will do a wonderful job there. Maybe we will join them after we have some time at home. If we wait 6 months to go again, We would be released about the same time. I wrote him back and wished him well.

I had written to President Smith of the English branch about the possibilities of getting contacts at the US embassy. Later I got a letter from brother Miller – one of his counselors suggesting preparing a form that ex-pats could fill out that would give resources and other information about their companies and who to contact. I would like to meet with the HR directors from the different companies and see what kind of workers they are looking for.

We also got an e-mail from Cindy saying they all got home safely and that they had a good time in Washington and the librarians convention.

That about wraps up the day. The power just went off and then came back on. This has become a regular problem here. The management has not sent any information of about why. Anyway I am going to bed and read from the D&C before turning off the lights.

Everyone should get a kick from this one. Even the Baptists know the Book of Mormon is true. Actually I was an ‘inactive’ Baptist when I took the lessons 50 years ago.
27 June 2007 – Wednesday

Not much to write about today. We did not get going this morning so we did not read from the Kitab Mormon before Agus picked us up to go to the church. This was our first day with a reduced class. Mary taught most of the time – infact I only taught for a few minutes. However I was not just sitting around. I spent most of my time developing vocabulary word exercises. I also looked for work opportunities for Eko – he does not seem too excited about getting a job in his field. He acts like there are no jobs but it seems that there are if you have enough experience.

I think all of the students are ready for this to end. I mean they are getting trunky. Not that they are not trying but it is not the same as it was a week ago. Vita continues to shine, but she is even not as excited to do too much.

When the afternoon class ended, Agus drove us home and then took the class to Joel’s for their last night of fun. Vita will go home tomorrow, and the rest will go home sometime Saturday or Sunday – we will have a little problem with where they will sleep on Saturday and Sunday night.

We did not read from the Kitab Mormon at all today. This was the first time that has happened in months. We will need to read a lot on Thursday to make up. I did read a few sections of the D&C. I am up to the dedication of the Kirtland temple.

This is just to show that I did some of the teaching.  Vita our prize student and the certificate Mary made for the students
26 June 2007 – Tuesday

I woke much too early today – I can not keep from thinking about the English class and other things. Even some thoughts about home crept in – something that I try to avoid. I just have to leave it up to those who are there to take care of things and trust that the Lord will guide them to do that which is right.

We read from the Kitab Mormon this morning. Continuing in 3 Nephi. We were surprised at how hard it was to translate the Sermon on the Mount section – we thought it would be easy but it was not. Some mornings it seems that we have not made any progress in learning the language. I know I could be doing more.

It was a busy day for us. We had morning and afternoon classes. Mary taught most of the time but I came in for vocabulary hour. The next time we do this we will start vocabulary on the first day and it will continue for everyday thereafter.

At about 3:30 we left for the mission office to have dinner and say goodbye to the Jensens and the Van Dongans. We got there early enough that I had some time to talk to Elder Subandriyo about the class. I asked him if he could remember why he told me the story about the senior missionary teaching the young man to pass the Michigan test. He not only could not tell me why, he could not even remember telling me the story. Isn’t it interesting how often the Lord works that way. It reminded me of how we ‘accidently’ got called to be full time at the TRC. Or how we even ended up here in Jakarta at all – president Jensen changed his mind at least twice as to where we should serve.

We had a short talk with the president Jensen. He asked about the English program and about the students. I had written him that one of the students did not seem to be working at it very hard. When we told him who, he was not surprised. He said that he had been that way while on his mission. Up and down in his effectiveness. He gave us some guidance about what we could do in working with the branches to strengthen them. We are determined not to spend so much time in the office.

We had a good meal of Mexican food with lots of good discussion. There were a husband and wife who were NGOs from Bogor. They came with the Kanes but knew the Jensens. Also the Petersons, the Van Dongans, and us. After the meal we sat and talked for a short time and then Sister Peterson gave the Jensen’s a nice book of rememberance that included pictures and statements from all of the couples who are presently serving. They in return gave us all a photo and a nice letter that basically said goodbye.

We had to leave early so we could get to our graduation ceremony. The Van Dongans hitched a ride with us and that was good because they were 2 or only 4 outsiders who were there. Mary conducted, each of the students gave a short talk, I gave a short talk, we handed out the certificates and then ate. Sister Park – she and her husband were the other guests – fixed food for them. Sam was in 7th heaven because she fixed her great sushi.

After eating Sam took us home and then the Van Dongans to the Harris Hotel before going back and making sure everything was cleaned up and locked up. We will miss him for the next three days, but we do have Agus to drive us.

By the time we got home we were beat, so we watched an hour of TV and headed off to bed. It was a good day with a number of very spiritual moments.

I forgot to mention we had a little scare today. While I was teaching, Mary started to feel very tired so she went and laid down on the couch in the foyer. As she was on the couch she got a terrible cramp in her stomach and thought at first she had food poisoning. However it went away and she was fine the rest of the day. When the president heard this he said that he had some stomach problems over the last few days. I told him that hopefully he would not be taking a serious illness home with him.