SoGo Mall and Bread Talk – I would have taken more pictures of Bread Talk but a nice lady came up and told me that it was not allowed. I guess they do not want to have people duplicate their store.
A real P-Day – that is we got our shopping done and then came home and did very little.

In the morning we read from the Kitab Mormon and then Mary took a nap while I worked on the blog. I still have not managed to get the pictures exactly correct but I am getting closer. I think I may have figured out how to get things where I want them.

About 10 we left to go to Sogo and our weekly shopping – including a stop at BreadTalk. It turned out to be a longer trip than we had planned. The reason for this was not a traffic jam but the fact that they had not baked any baguettes and I really wanted some. They told me it would be an hour so we went up and walked through the mall to the English bookstore. There Mary and I did a lot of looking before walking out with $30 worth of books. They are very expensive and we were lucky that there were three books on the 50% off shelves that we could buy.

After an hour we went back down to get the bread and I found they had not put it in – I do not think they thought I would stick around. I looked very disappointed and so they started putting some in and said it would be done in 30 minutes. We went over to their food court which offers traditional foods and got some fried corn scones and water. Mary and I sat and read while Sam played with his phone. The scones were so good we got seconds. Total cost for lunch $3.50.

I had to go back twice to get the bread – it was not quite done the first time. But it did not matter because we were enjoying reading. Finally I got my bread – they took it right out of the oven for me – and we headed home.

At home I wrote our weekly report to the president – a little too detailed I think – and then I took a nap. Mary was already asleep. I woke up in time to help clean up the apartment before the cleaning lady came.

I spent part of the evening working on my language. We did an hour more on Kitab Mormon – moving right along. Mary read one of the novels we bought – it almost seemed like we were at home. I can not throw stones – it took all my will power not to just sit and read from the book I bought. It is 855 pages and I am going to limit myself to 20 pages a day or I will not get anything done.

I listened to part of one of the conference talks in Indonesian while reading the text. As I listened I realized one of the problems we have in hearing words and that is that they often shorten the word by not pronouncing all the syllables. Therefore we do not hear what we expect to hear. I need to spend more time listening and trying to speak the language. PMG points out that we should use the language as much as we can – this is something we do not do. Until we do, I am afraid we will never get beyond being able to read well.

Today we were reading in Alma where Ammon speaks of his ‘boasting’ of the Lord. How true that is. The longer we are out the more I realize that if we are going to achieve what He sent us here to do we must work hard and trust in Him to provide the way for us to succeed. It brings to mind the section in Paul Dunn’s book ‘The 10 most wanted men’ that talks about ‘The Man Who Works With God.’ How it is the combination of God and man that gets things done in the world. Ammon reminds his brothers that when they set out on their journey to teach the Gospel to the Lamanites their friends mocked them and told them they were crazy. He recounts all the suffering they went through but how they always trusted in the Lord and he protected and comforted them. Finally he recounts their successes and then gives all the glory to God.

13 May 2007 – Sunday

A very quiet Sunday. The best part of the morning was that we got to have somewhat of a Mother Days visit with Jim and Cindy’s family. Bob called but by the time we got back to him he was off the air – he probably will call tomorrow morning. Mary got a great card from Cindy – it was an e-mail card which seems to be a great way to go. Especially when you are 12,000 miles away from home.

Sam dropped us off at Jakarta Raya and headed for his own branch. This is a new thing for us and we will have to see how it works. The Jakarta Raya folks arrive in waves – just before sacrament meeting opened it looked like no one was coming but 10 minutes later when the sacrament is passed the back of the chapel is filled.

We were very encouraged today. We are able to hear more and more words and can understand some of them. Not enough to really know what is going on but enough to at least let us know the basic subject. They need to have the youth speak more – in fact I do not think they have had a youth speaker since we have been here. I think I will ask the president about that. May it is not their custom to have youth speakers. Brother Leo’s – the priesthood quorm leader – son Rob gave a report of his mission to Malaysia.

Later I talked to him about his mission and he said that the church is growing – they have about as many members there as they do here – but that the missionaries can not wear their name tags. Indonesian missionaries must make a run to Singapore every 30 days – Americans every 90 – because they are there on visitor visas. However they can tract – which they can not do here in Indonesia. Rob speaks excellent English – he should since he went to the best schools in Singapore and received his AA from LDS Business College before his mission and plans to go to BYU Provo in August. Hopefully he will return to Indonesia and become a leader. He is certainly the kind of leaders they need to move the next generation forward.

We went to the Gospel Principles class and Elder Basuki gave a good lesson on Honesty. We were asked to give a definition of ‘honest’ and we found that it was hard to do that. I came up with ‘always be truthful.’ The lesson basically tells what you do not do if you are ‘honest.’ I need to look up the definition in Websters. Elder Basuiki had the class read the lesson but also added lots of his own comments and used the board well.

Priesthood was on Chapter 9 from the Teachings of president Kimball – forgiveness. I did not really get a lot of what was being said – but I could follow in the English version. Elder Rigby seemed to only be there some of the time – often when I asked him what was being said he did not know and had to start listening. I am know that this is something I often did in class so I can not criticize him. There was some lively discussions with the men sharing their own experiences of needing to forgive. I mentioned that President Faust made this the message of one of his recent conference talks – how the Amish community forgave the man who killed five of their young women. I asked if we would be able to do that if someone walked in and killed five of our YW.

Jemmy Morgan gave me his lovely Batik tie – I guess he was saying thank you for helping him with his business. He then went out with us to help us catch a cab and tell the driver how to get us home. We got a really good driver and he made the trip in record time without taking us out of the way at all. I gave him a good tip. It seems that this is going to work – at least to Jakarta Raya. How it will work for Tangerang is something else again.

The rest of the day included a tuna sandwich lunch, a nice nap, and lots of time on the computer writing e-mails and posting my journal. I still have not completely learned how to post pictures but I am getting closer I think.

We were reading from the Kitab Mormon when the phone rang and it was Jim calling us through Skype. They have a special Mother’s Day promotion that allows you to call anywhere in the world for free. Hopefully some of the other children will take advantage of this tomorrow morning. After that we finished reading – I am actually beginning to really enjoy this. Not only because it is a good way to learn Indonesian but because I am learning more and more about the Book of Mormon. I have certainly never read it this closely – that is where I must examine and think about each word. We also have to work at figuring out just who is speaking and how it ties into the different stories that are being told. This is especially true of Alma where several story lines are tied together.

Mary at Taman Mini with her friends – A typical Motorcycle load – the Jakarta Beach with Mary and Sam

For some reason it would not let me add text to the pictures, but they pretty much speak for themselves. The men all carried swords – you never know when bandits may come in and try to steal the food.

12 May 2007 – Saturday This should be an interesting day for us. We will see the first LDS wedding and go to the reception. It is convenient that it will be at the chapel where we have our office. This means we can go to the wedding at 10 and then go back to the office to do some work before going to the reception at noon. We are going to take a taxi both ways because Sam is playing for the choir and will want to enjoy the whole reception. The weather is beautiful – there has been clear skies most of the last week. Some clouds move in during the day and there is an occasional period of rain on some days, but nothing like it is during the rainy season. We read about 2 ½ pages from the Kitab Mormon this morning. I am getting to know a few more words but it is still Mary’s knowledge that allows us to get through that many pages. It is great to see how well she is retaining vocabulary – now if she could just translate that into being able to speak, it would be even ‘lebih baik’ – that is better. Yesterday I managed to put two pictures into the blog – one of the famous BYU restaurant and one of the ‘mall’ where Mary found all of her yarn. I had not noticed that the BYU picture included the two assistants to the president. We catch a taxi to the office and spend the first 45 minutes doing some work. Then we go up to the chapel. The wedding is about the same as one at home. The branch president talks longer than they usually do in the states but it is a really good talk – one of the elders translated for us. After he had finished the marriage ceremony he forgot about the rings and had to call the couple back to exchange rings. It seems that they put them on their left hand instead of their right – but we need to check this. After this a representative from each family gave a short talk of appreciation and some words to the couple. It is one of their traditions. While the newly weds and their families had a luncheon we went back and did some more work. I cleaned up the templates for some reports I hope to get each month from the couples. I will send them to each couple via e-mail. Mary worked on her English class – she is really diligent about preparing her lessons. About noon we went back up to the cultural hall where they had set up for the reception. There is no real way to explain everything so it is a good thing there are pictures. The couple and the rest of the party were in traditional dress. The men even had swords at the back of their outfits. It was really stunning. The couple and their parents were seated on the stage under what I took to be a traditional arch. They sat there through the whole luncheon – which included some short talks but family. One of the speakers was Agus – the country ER specialist that we work with – who was an uncle to the bride. There was tons of very good food. We just had to be careful of some of the hotter dishes. They had some beans that were delicious and I do not think we had them before. The only problem is learning to eat standing up – it is impossible to do this with a plate and a drink. So you eat your food and then drink. Jemmy Mongan was there and said he could not get the NYTimes article about golf in Indonesia so I went down to the office and printed him a copy. I will try to help him contact the man who wrote the article so he can let them know that his company does arrange golf tours for Indonesia. After we had eaten, I went out to go to the ATM – it was closed – and to get some bananas. It was raining very lightly and this meant that the humidity was very high so I ended up very damp both on the outside of my clothes and the inside. It is hard to understand how the young elders and sisters manage to survive in this kind of weather – unless of course they come from Florida or somewhere else in the South. I only walked about three blocks and I was dripping sweat. By the time I got back, the party was breaking up – and of course some people were still coming. They probably had to come a long way and the traffic held them up. I took a few more pictures and then we packed up and left for home. We were really lucky and almost immediately caught a taxi and he happened to be a good driver and got us home in record time. It helped that the traffic was very light. The rest of the day was quite peaceful. I edited the pictures of the wedding, we watched some TV, read from the Kitab Mormon, and answered some e-mail. I gave Mary her Mothers Day present – a can of cookies. Since we hardly ever go shopping without the other along, it is not easy to get any present that is a surprise. I got the cookies while getting her bananas. It was a good day – the reading of the Kitab Mormon reminded me of how a single servant of God can change a country. We need to believe that we do make a difference when we do what the Lord has sent us here to do. I think back to the MTC and how we were called to serve in the TRC. This eventually led to our being an important part of changing the way languages are taught at the MTC. Of course we were just tools in the Lord’s hand, but tools that were able to enjoy the spirit and to be inspired to know what to do. When it comes to this Intensive English class, I feel like Nephi when the Lord told him to build a boat. Nephi realized that he could not build the ship without the Lord’s help and so the scriptures say that he went often to the Lord for help. We are certainly going to need to do that each day. We are also going to need to have help – again I think of Nephi and the difficulty he had getting Laman, Lemuel and others to help. Hopefully we will not have that much trouble but I imagine we are going to have to go out and find those to help us. But like Nephi, I know that this is the Lord’s work and He has prepared a way for us to achieve the things He has inspired us to do. Therefore it is time to ‘thrust in’ our sickle and get on with the harvest.

On the right is the Indonesian Mall where Mary bought lots of yarn for making an afgan. On the left is the famous BYU eating establish. The finest of it’s kind in Indonesia. Well at least Jakarta. It has nourished missions from the office for at least 8 years and probably before that. It has the cleanest flies in the area – at least the most friendly.

11 May 2007 – Friday

The weather is turning clearer and hotter. The dry season is certainly setting in. However it seems to be that way in Provo also – temperatures in the high 80’s. The plants must be doing well – if they are being watered that is.

We read our hour of the Kitab Mormon and made it through 3 pages. We came across a couple of things that surprised us – a word used much differently than we thought it should be used. We also came across a puzzle – the use of a word that does not seem to be needed but is. When Mary checked with the professionals at the mission office they told her that it was necessary for it to be good Indonesian but could not tell any way to know when to use it and when not to. You just know when to use it…or not. Easy to say – hard to do.

We went to district meeting. Since Jakarta Raya only has two missionaries it is no longer a district by itself so it has been put in with the mission home elders and the sisters. Elder Decker and Elder Thomas are now in the office. We have known Thomas since we first got here and have worked with Decker for the last three months. District meeting went well – other than Rigby and Basuki, they do not seem to have any progressive investigators. The sisters are excited because they are teaching a family. It would certainly be good if they could help to bring them unto Christ.

After the district meeting we tried to go eat at a Chinese place but we were too late. It is a small restaurant and fills up quickly. So instead we went shopping – or maybe it would be better to say Mary went shopping and Sam and I went along. She bought some material for a blouse and then we walked through a real traditional Indonesian market to find some yard for her to crotchet. Think of large space crammed with small stalls and each stall having home made shelves mixed with display cases. Now think of aisles that were so small two people could sometimes not pass. Add Indonesian heat and humidity and lots of people – now you have the mall.

But by asking every third booth we found a place that actually sold yarn at a reasonable rate. Mary went ape and ended up getting $40 worth. At least this should give her something to do when we are at home and driving for hours. I am sure it was the big sale of the day for the shop because most things they sold were around 10 to 25cents.

On the way back to the car we stopped at what I thought would be an inexpensive Chinese food place. By the time we were done ordering it came to $15 which is really ridiculous for Indonesia. And I really did not think the food was all that good. I would have been much happier with my 50 cent traditional Indonesian lunch.

By the time we were done eating there was just enough time to get to the University for Mary’s English class. Even her class is down to two – but they are good students and she enjoys teaching them and Sam. I spent the time editing pictures on the laptop and adding captions. This will be a major job of playing catch up – but at least once we are done we will remember what the pictures are about.

When we got home I continued to work on pictures and re-sized some that can be uploaded to the blog. I would like to put a picture a day on the blog but doubt if that will happen.

We had date night – just like at home – well almost. Instead of going out to dinner we ordered pizza and instead of going out to the movies we watched a DVD of Spiderman 3. The pizza was good but the movie was much too long and too complicated. They used material for at least two movies and perhaps three in one. But hey what do I know – the crazy movie made almost $400 million throughout the world in it’s first weekend.

After the movie we read the Kitab Mormon – now that is something we never did on any date night at home – for a little over an hour. We covered about 3 ½ easy pages. Which makes about 6 pages for the day. Not bad at all. At that rate we could read the Kitab Mormon in about 100 days or 3 plus times a year.

While I am finishing this day’s journal, Mary is busy with her first square of crocheting.

I just thought about what I said to the missionaries today at district meeting. The lesson was on what it means to be an effective missionary. PMG points out that success is ‘measured primarily by your commitment to find, teach, etc.’ It goes on to say that a missionary should avoid comparing themselves with others.

I mentioned that when were teaching at the MTC I would say that if when you write in your journal at night or if in your prayers you could honestly say to the Lord that you had done your best, than there was no missionary in the world that had done more that day. As I write this journal I am not sure that on most days I can honestly say that. Although my calling is not to teach, etc., there are things that I am called to do. I am sure that I can do more. But I am not going to become discouraged – I just need to try to be a little better tomorrow than I was today. To be a little more committed, to study a little harder, to look for missionary opportunity more often, and to of course be patient. That I may always have His Spirit to be with me.

This is the bell choir from the School of the Blind joyfully playing Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Man.’

 10 May 2007 – Thursday.
There was some kind of trouble with the electrical service this morning. I did not notice it until Mary mentioned that the fountain outside our window had gone off and had not come back on for a while. Also the printer cycled and printed a test sheet – something it does when it comes on. I slept through most of this but while I was showering the lights went off and then came back on a few seconds later. These apartments soak up a lot of electricity – as our bills tell us – and I imagine that it takes a lot of juice to get all the motors started at once.

As we read from Kitab Mormon this morning about Ammon and king Lamoni, I once again wondered about Abish and her story that is never told. I wondered who her father was and what was his vision that so changed his life, Abish’s life and in the Lord’s own way the lives of so many of the Lamanites. How she stayed close to the Lord while living among people who hated the things she believed in. It brings to mind the comment from conference where a young woman when asked what was the hardest thing about being the only LDS student in a school and she answered “Believing that something is right when everyone else thinks it is wrong, and believing something is wrong when everyone else thinks it is right.” Abish must have often felt that way.

And what happens to Abish? After fulfilling her role in the great drama of the conversion of a nation, she disappears from the pages of the Book of Mormon. There is no ‘And she lived happily ever after.’ I have often thought of writing a book that fills in the blanks – that tells about her and her father – maybe her mother dies early in her life and her father raises her. How did she become a servant in King Lamoni’s household. Was she a captive from a raid in the land of Zarahemla? After the Lamanites join the Nephites is she re-united with her father and get married?

After reading we get ready to go to the birthday celebration of the school for blind children that LDS Charities have helped in the past. We had no idea what to expect and so everything was a surprise. It turned out to be a good celebration. All of the students got to participate. The wonderful band – they live for their music – played for all the songs and like most Indonesian celebration there was lots of singing. I think the highlight for me was to hear the band and a group of bell ringers play the main theme from Beethoven’s ‘Ode to man.’ They started out slow and it took me a couple of seconds to realize what they were playing but it was soon evident. They kept picking up the pace of the work until it was rocking along to a steady beat that I am not sure Beethoven would have expected. But I think he would have smiled if he could have heard it.

We were kind of honored guests and the man in charge sat next to me and kept me informed of what was going on. They run the school on about $8000 a month. This is a lot of money in Indonesia but when you consider they help over 35 students with a staff of about 15, with many of the students living there, the cost is really quite low. Much of their money comes from parents who can afford to pay and the rest must come from donations.

After the celebration we headed out to Tangerang to look for some place to eat. We were disappointed in finding that the seafood place that Sam knew about was closed and the mall nearby did not have the advertised food court. In fact the mall was almost empty. I can not see how anyone there will survive the lack of customers. I would guess that it has been open for a couple of years and other than the large market – which had almost no customers – and the KFC, there does not seem to be any substantial businesses. Some people must be losing their shirts each month. But there are many places like this in Jakarta – they think if they build it they will come. Where in America they would first try to sign up some anchor stores before breaking ground. Now maybe this mall thought Food Giant and KFC were enough but obviously they needed more market research before investing what must be millions of dollars.

The district meeting for Tangerang went well. Elder Wight is a very good district leader and I think he will continue to keep things moving in the right direction. As he was doing some role playing situations, I mentioned that it is important to have the spirit even when practicing teaching the gospel. That we are only gospel salesmen unless we bring in the spirit. The mission will have success when the missionaries are able to have the investigators feel and recognize the spirit. I could feel the spirit as I counseled with the missionaries – it is a theme that I keep coming back to again and again. It is something learned while teaching in the MTC.

The missionaries are still not getting any referrals from the members. I think this is another area that really needs to be worked on. Once the members start to become involved with missionary work, the success rate will greatly improve.

The English class went well – unfortunately one of the families did not show up and I missed them. I am happy that they are doing so well in learning the Articles of Faith. They know the first and second one very well. My game where I printed them, cut them into section and then had the children solve the puzzle of putting them back together again was a big hit. The two older boys put them together very quickly because they each took one and quickly exchanged pieces that did not work for them. They still have trouble remembering on, under, etc. – at least the younger ones do – but they are getting better. President Paul’s daughter if a delight to have in class. She is always smiling.

By the time we get home we are of course exhausted. We watch the end of ‘Without a Trace’ and head for bed. It was a good day.

This is a picture from the flood – it is not a river but a road that was near a river. Two or three days later people were out drying out their bedding, etc. They are so used to flooding that while I am sure they do not like to have their homes flooded, they take it as part of living. As I wrote earlier, there was an article about a family who had lived for three generations in a home that flooded two to three times a year. It would be hard to imagine this happening in the US.

09 May 2007 – Wednesday

I decided that I would not do any catch up until I had the current day at least started. Slept very well last night. For the first time since we got back from the conference I slept past 5 a.m. It feels good. I mentioned to Mary that it was strange that even though we do not do that much physical work each day, I am still tired in the afternoons. I decided to blame it on the heat…after all they take siestas after lunch in most hot countries – that seems very civilized to me.

I am back to reading from Book of Mormon Stories. It is interesting to see what words that I still do not recognize. Sometimes it is just because I am lazy and do not look for the root word – but most of the time it is just because I do not remember the word from the last time I read it.

I think that the mission is helping me to be in the world but not part of the world. Today I was following a story on the web that was more sensational than anything meaningful and I stopped and thought ‘how useless is this’ and closed up the site. It was not that there was anything wrong with what I was reading – it was just useless. The Kitab Mormon says that such things are ‘hal-hal manusia yang sia-sia’ or ‘tidak berguna’ – that is they are “things of the world that are ‘useless’ or without value. I am not bragging about this – I am sure it is the influence of the spirit because I am on a mission that is prompting me. I should have learned this 40 or 50 years ago – how much time have I wasted on such things – and of course how much will I waste in the future.

We read about 2 ½ pages in the Kitab Mormon this morning. I really thought we were humming our way through but it just seems to take about the same amount of time so an hour translates into 2 – 3 pages. We do spend more time now trying to really understand why something is translated the way it is. We still miss tenses – mainly because there is often none there – and who is doing the action. But mainly we come quite close to what it says in the Book of Mormon – unless of course the Indonesian translation is not close. I like reading from 7:30 to 8:30 because we can then relax some before we leave for the office.

Indonesia has lots of water – but it has very little naturally clean water. This means that you either buy bottled water – which is what we do. Or boil your drinking water – which is what most of the poorer people do. Hardly anyone drinks water directly from taps or other sources. The Indonesians may be able to handle bad water a little more than we can, but they also know that they can get really, really sick if they are not careful about their water. I do not know how many people die in Indonesia each year from waterborne disease but I imagine there are 1000s. What is interesting is that the papers hardly ever mention deaths here – not traffic deaths, etc. Only if there is a major disaster associated with the deaths is it likely to make the news. I guess there is just so many people dying, that it is not considered news here.

Back to normal at the office. We spend some time getting our monthly reports into Hong Kong and I did some things for my Thursday English class. But mostly it is busy work that needs to be done but is not very exciting. Since paperwork has never been my strength it is interesting that the Lord has given me a chance to improve in this area. As we were leaving for the day I realized that I did not do one thing that I could have done today – but it will still be there when we get back on Thursday or Friday.
We can not go home teaching at Salims because it turns out he is on Sumatra helping his brother with his business. I think we will go out and try to home teach his wife before the month is over. I do not want to miss him two months in a row. We also need to call and go see Rudy – just to say hello and to see how he is doing.

On the way home we go by the Ambassador Mall to try and find the things Mary needs to start crocheting. She has decided that is something she can do while we are in the car. We find a place that sells yarn and the other things she needs but the yarn is 4 times as much at it would be at home. Since this is a little shop in a mall that is obviously catering to natives, the prices should be right – but Mary does not think she wants to pay that much for yarn. We are thinking about asking Cindy to pack a small box full of yarn and send it to us. Yarn is light and she should be able to get a lot in a small package. But before we do that we will look for other places that sell yarn.

Once we are home, it is great to take off the tie and settle down for another night at home. I take a nice nap and then work at the computer until it is time for dinner. Mary fixed a big meal of spaghetti – the only thing that is mission if garlic bread. I eat a rye roll with dinner – Mary thinks rye with spaghetti does not sound good. I found that it was fine.

I continue to read in the Indonesian version of Book of Mormon Stories. I find that I can go through a number of panels without help but then will hit some that have a number of words I do not remember. We later read from the Kitab Mormon and in a hour make it through 3 ½ pages of fairly easy reading. Ammon is in King Lamoni’s court and has started to teach him about God. This lesson is used as an example of how missionaries can introduce the Christian concept of God to Buddists and Hindus – or anyone else for that matter.

I have been reading about a four hour program on TV that discussed the Mormons. From what I have read it seems the program was fair to the church but that there was also some things that were not doctrine and that polygamy – especially Jeff’s ideas about it – was given too much time. It would be interesting to see what was broadcast – I wonder if Tom happened to record it on TIVO.  One thing for sure it stirred up a lot of comments on different religious blogs.

I would guess that in the long run it will be of more help than harm – that some people will wonder what there is about the LDS church that makes them news and start investigating or asking questions. I doubt if they are planning a 4 hour program on the Catholics or the Methodists.