Us with Maria Sandra. Elders Erickson, Louhannapessy, with those who would be baptized.

21 October 2007 – Sunday

I slept like a batu until almost 6 – I do not think I even rolled over all night. Normal morning with reading from the Kitab Mormon and then I worked on pictures and this journal.

We arrived at Jakarta Raya in time to meet and greet most of the members. Elders Torrens, Erickson and Louhannapessy were already there. It is a big day for them because they are having two baptisms.

This session of District Conference was a direct broadcast from Hong Kong of talks by Elder Cook – the newest member of the 12, Sister Cook – of the YW presidency, and President Monson. Unfortunately they had a problem getting the sound and so we missed the first part of the program. Hendra ended up getting the back-up receiver to work. Since the program was broadcast in Indonesian and our interpreter forgot to interpret, we did not get a lot out of it. However we are hearing more of the words and know what they mean, we just can not put them together very well. Hopefully the program will be available on a DVD in English.

After the meeting we went down to the foyer and took pictures of Maria Sandra and the other sister who will be baptized. Elder Torrens – who has been out a whole 2 weeks – will baptize sister Maria and elder Erickson will do the other baptism. Elder Louhannapessy is being very nice to the his companions – especially elder Torrens – by letting them have this experience. He only has a couple of weeks left in his mission and will not have another chance to do a baptism. It shows the quality of this fine elder. We have feel in some ways we are a part of this also. We had gone with the missionaries a few times when they taught Maria Sandra. Her and Mary have become close.

While we are waiting for the program to start, president and sister Marchant along with the office elders and the Zls come in. Later president Marchant thanked me for telling him about the baptisms last night. I am sure the Lord prompted me to do this as I was certain that he would already know. It is another tender mercy of the Lord and fits into with President Eyring’s talk about noting when the Lord has touched my life in a simple way but special way.

As we watched the baptism I thought about how simple this ordinance really is. Elder Torrens was able to do it perfectly the first time and that was good. He will certainly remember this day and his first baptism as a missionary. How special it will be to write about it in his journal and in his e-mail home to his family. But the whole thing takes less than a minute – less than 60 seconds to completely change a person’s life for eternity. By small things great changes are made. I certainly hope that Maria Sanders can stay the course and enjoy the peace that the gospel can bring into her life. I feel the spirit saying that she will be blessed by her membership and she will stay active.

After the baptism, we went back to the chapel where we sing songs until those who were baptized can join us. There is a song by the branch choir – which I take capture in a movie and then president Marchant welcomes the new members. A closing song and a prayer and another Sabbath day service is over. It was truly a special time.

Back in the apartment we fixed a light lunch and then took naps. After all it is a day of rest. Later I downloaded my pictures of the day and wrote in this journal. Then we read from the Kitab Mormon for about an hour. We are in the Book of Mormon where Moroni has taken over the task of finishing the writing. I was touched by his writing about being alone. Imagine being so alone and still going on doing what the Lord has asked you to do. What great faith that must take.

The rest of the day is spent doing lots of different things – some of them mundane and some spiritual. I am trying to read PMG in Indonesian. The last time I started it I soon quit because I had to look up about every third word. Now I am usually able to understand what is written and only have to look up about 5 – 10% of the words. It really feels good to see how much my ablility to read Indonesian – at least church related Indonesian – has improved. There is still a long ways to go before I can read talks from church magazines. I hope that by the time we are released I can read newspapers and all subtitles on T.V. I will certainly need lots of help from the Lord as I continue to work on my Indonesian.

We read again from the Kitab Mormon where Moroni is talking about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. The admonishment not to reject it because of mistakes. If there are any he says they are the mistakes of man. We read about 10 pages today – that is our goal for each day.

Now it is late and it is time to go to bed. It has been a wonderful day. I hope Maria Sandra and the other sister is sleeping with peace in their hearts. Knowing that they have entered into the strait gate.

Mary playing for choir at conference. The Missionary Choir led by sister Hinckley. President Marchant being a gracious host – Sam and Elder Louhannapessy.

20 October 2007 – Saturday

The day was so long and so packed that Mary had to remind me about the morning being normal. I continue to get up and go to the gym. We read for a short time in the Kitab Mormon and then headed off to teach English.

We kept the class together for the morning section but divided them into two groups for the second one. Mary was not all the excited about dividing the class but after the class period she said the students in her class – those who are not as advanced as the other half – were excited about being taught separately. I think my part of the class also was OK with the split. I am not so sure they are excited about having more homework than the rest but I think it will help them.

Starting at about 1:00 people started arriving for District Conference – the Lees from Bogor joined us in the office for a while and we caught up with things in their lives. The Kanes will not be at the conference because they were headed for Bali to meet up with one of their daughters and her family. The arrival of all the Indonesian saints causes some problems with our class. It means that they will end up speaking a lot of Indonesian – the temptation is just too great. I kid them about only speaking English, but I know that it is mostly in vain.

Mary got to play the piano for the 1st general session and also for the Missionary Choir. The only problem she runs into is that no one bothers to tell her what the choir was singing until the last minute. The conference is on preparedness and all the talks are very on subject. I especially enjoyed district president Mak’s talk. He always seems to talk from the heart and with sweet directness. He told how his bank offered interest free loans so their employees could buy a car. He did not take up the offer because even an interest free payment would not work in their budget. They waited for a number of years and their children getting older before they purchased their caravan.

Elder Tucksworth is going to spend his last month in Bogor as Zone Leader. I am going to miss him – he has the same sense of humor as me. He is going to be a strong leader in Australia. Elder Whitmore and elder Tucksworth in the MTC together and go home at almost the same time. The quality of these young elders is amazing. What great training a mission can be if the missionary learns to work with God and Jesus Christ. They also learn to handle the frustration and sorrow that comes from seeing people reject the gospel. To work hard and see no tangible results except their own growth. I believe that missionary work is almost as much about proving the missionary as it is getting converts. It is the Lord’s version of a seminary for future leaders. For some it is the Road to Damascus or the Liberty jail. Some unfortunately find it as a huge stumbling block or a something to be endured – a inconvenient rite of passage. But for all it is a great time of probation – the experience that sets the tone for their whole life. Many are called ….

After the session, president Marchant invited us to join the other missionaries for dinner at the mission home. It was a great gathering of missionaries and the only thing I would have changed was where we sat. The Davises sat in the kitchen area with a whole circle of young missionaries while we sat with the other couples and mainly the office elders that we see all the time. The Davises seem to have more fun. We did not stay long after dinner – we really needed to get home.
By the time we got home it was almost 10 – we had been away for almost 14 hours. Strangely enough I was exhausted but not all that tired. At least so it seemed, but as soon as my head hit the pillow I was gone. It was a good day.

 

The Walkers with our class. Friday night at the Steak House. A load of chairs arrived at the building and the men have to carry them up a couple of flights of stairs to the meeting room. They carry from 6 to 8 chairs on their backs and these are not light chairs. They load people about the same way they load motorcycles.

19 October 2007 – Friday

As I woke at about 4:30 today, I realized that I am still waking about the same time as I did when we first got here and it seemed so early. At least now I can sometimes go back to sleep – not today however. Before going to exercise I studied some Indonesian- it would be interesting to know how much time we have spent trying to learn Indonesian since we got our call. It must be close to a month of hours – and some times it seems like years. But it is a great exercise for my mind and I think that is what keeps it alive and well. Maybe not being able to remember much of the past is a good thing – it means I have to live for now and the future.

It was strange this morning to see none of my usual fellow walkers or gym users. It was like I had this huge complex all to myself. When I got done with my morning work-out I was pleased to see that Cindy had posted to her blog. It sounds like she is still not feeling 100%. There were some pictures of Krista with a new hair style. I like it – she reminds me of Cindy back when she was in high school and trying to be her own self. She was continually changing her hair styles so I thought it was funny to read the restrictions she placed on what Krista could do with her hair.

We read from the Kitab Mormon – we are now into the Book of Mormon and should be finished with the Kitab Mormon by the end of the month. Obviously there was still a functioning church at this time because Mormon and his family have not only the knowledge but also the priesthood. Or so it would seem.

We teach the morning classes – mainly a major test and vocabulary – and then wait until the Walkers come before we come back to the apartment to rest. We will go back later and take them all to dinner.

While I was monitoring the test, I read some of the conference talks from the November 2006 Ensign. Once again it struck me how important the counsel that we receive from conference should be read, re-read and then done. Each talk had something that touched me as I read it. Sometimes it was a rebuke for something I need to do more or better and sometimes it was the feeling of the spirit as one of the speakers shared their testimony or a story. The ideas edified me.

We came back to the apartment and I crashed. I did not realize I was so tired but I slept for 90 minutes. I would have slept longer if Mary had not woke me up. It certainly felt good.

We went back to the chapel by taxi and got there just as they were closing with prayer. Sam had told the students they were going to another home for dinner and so they were surprised when we told them we were taking them to Warang Steak House. We invited the Walkers and their driver to join us so we ended up as a party of 12. Everyone had a good time and ate way too much food. I gave half of mine to Sam who ended up with a triple steak. The bill came to under $30 for the 12 of us. I love eating out in Jakarta – at least in non-bulai restaurants.

We continue to read in the Kitab Mormon – Mormon is refusing to lead the Nephites because they will not repent and accept the Lord’s pardon. They feel that they have accomplished the great victory on their own. About a year ago I read a talk that pointed out that we can be mislead by the idea that if we are righteous the Lord steps in when we have done all we can for ourselves. The article points out that when we are righteous the spirit and the blessings of the Lord is always with us and what we accomplish ‘by ourselves’ still depends on that help.

18 October 2007 – Thursday

This is our P-day but we have the IEC to teach in the morning and Mary has a class at the mission office in the afternoon. I pull myself out of bed and get in 40 minutes of exercises. We read from the Kitab Mormon before heading off to the chapel and teaching. The Lord’s tender mercy touches me when for some reason I remember that I need to take the equipment so Lukito can teach a Career Workshop for elders Whitmore and Pagalla who are about to be released.

We found that we are giving the students so much homework that they do not have time to sleep. So we only gave them a small amount today and hopefully they will catch up. At least we know that they are serious. They also did not sleep well because there were lots of mosquitoes that bit them all night. The joys of living in Indonesia.

After our morning class we let the students off until tonight when they will go to president Smith’s for dinner. We headed for the mission office. But we were about 1/3 of the way when I remembered I needed to take some workbooks and we had to turn around and go back to the office. The only reason we got to the office in time was that the traffic was so light.

At the office I had lunch – Mary ate hers in the car while we were traveling. While she taught the class I talked to elder Roper, elder Walker, and elder Subandriyo. Elder Subandriyo showed me pictures of their new house in Bakasi. It is a great house with a nice yard – they will move there when he retires in about 3 years. We were talking about the IEC when Mary joined us and the conversation changed to what his staff needs to study to pass their English test in November. Mary had looked at the sample test and has a good idea of where they need the most help.

After that we came back to the apartment where we cleaned house, took a nap and read from the Kitab Mormon. I still need to do the laundry and we will also read one more hour from the Kitab Mormon. Amazing Race, dinner, another hour of the Kitab Mormon – we are reading about 10 pages a day now because we need to look up only a few words. We find ourselves commenting on what we are reading in Indonesian, which means we understand what is being said as we read it. Now if speaking and hearing went so well things would be great.

The mission has made us more spiritually alive – that is alive to the spirit. The need for the Lord’s help with so much of what we do draws us closer to him. It is one of the great blessings of our mission.

Early this morning I answered a survey from the training department about the MTC training for senior couples. Looking back we did not really learn much about what we would be doing on our mission. What it did do is give us a lot of spiritual experiences  – just being in the MTC with all the young elders and sisters is great. Then there is getting to know the other senior couples in our group and working with some of them for two weeks is also wonderful. But as to the actual training I think it is of minimal value. The MTC is like crossing over a bridge from the everyday world to the world of a mission. It is a needed time of transition and I feel sorry for those who have to wait for an extended period of time between the last day at the MTC and the first day in their mission field. You need to go out fully spiritually charged and that is what happens in the MTC.

Before turning off the lights I read some of a talk in the Liahona. When I do this I am both encouraged and discouraged – I guess it is another way the Lord is helping me with my impatience.

17 October 2007 – Wednesday

I slept in until after 6 so I did not go down and exercise. Mary said she slept much better than the night before. I caught up with my journal posting on the blog and added some pictures. We read a couple of pages from the Kitab Mormon – we hit a chapter from Isaiah in 3 Nephi and that caused us a pause. We both broke out laughing when we hit the first verse in 3 Nephi 23 and the words “karena besarlah kata-kata Yesaya.” That may not so when you are trying to translate the words.

I wrote a few e-mails to different missionary couples including the Petersons who are back in Utah. They tell us they have held a number of firesides and have used some of the motorcycle load pictures I had shared. I also wrote to Mike saying that I was sorry that Cal lost just when they had a chance to be ranked first nationally. I wrote to Kristy about some pictures on her blog. It is good to hear from the family.

The traffic is still really light so the trip to chapel is very quick. This will all change come Monday when everything opens again. We have not missed the traffic jams that adds so much time to any journey.

Mary taught the first half of the morning class and I took the other half. Today I changed the relay race some and I am not sure it was so good. Tomorrow I will try to refine it some. I think they are trying to speak English more – Wawan said that he was dreaming in English and that is really good. I had them read some of Elder Hallstrom’s talk and I was surprised how many of the words that I thought might throw them, they already knew. Only occupy, procrastination, prior and consequences stopped most of them.

Explaining about the meaning of Consequences gave me a chance to expound on their choices about how much Indonesian they speak when they are not in class. I may pound on that a little too much but I know that the less then use Indonesian the easier it will be for them to hear and see when they make a mistake in English.

While waiting for some copies to be printed – or printer is really slow – I read president Hinckley’s talk about anger and had to confess to myself that it is something that I still need to work on each day. I have always felt strongly that General Conference and the thoughts and instruction we receive there is very important. However since we have been on our mission and I have needed the spirit as much as I ever have, this inspired information has become even more important to me.

As I wrote that I thought how much I have missed by not feeling this way no matter what my calling. I have always needed the spirit in my life as much as I do now. I just have not thought about it that way. I imagine I have often felt that I can get by on past knowledge, stored up light, etc. What this means of course is that I have not been able to do my best, to fulfil my calling as well as I could, and have in some way failed to keep the commandments. Hopefully as my children and grandchildren read this, they will learn from my mistake and ponder the conference talks and then follow the instruction that is in them. 15 living prophets spoke to me – how wonderful that is to think about. Not only that I can go back and see, hear and read their talks as often as I want – as often as I should. Only in this last dispensation has so much been available to the saints of the kingdom. There is so much that I foolish take sips of living water instead of drinking my fill again and again.

 

This is a mobile gas station. I do not see many on bikes, but there are lots of them with carts. He is either taking this load to his own station or is taking it around to sell to others for resale.  See the ‘Things go better with Coke” picture to see a typical small gas station.

16 October 2007 – Tuesday

I woke at about 5 and read from the Kitab Mormon before heading down to exercise. It was a very pleasant morning to be on the track. It was drizzling for about the first 3 or 4 minutes and then a nice breeze came up. The combination kept the temperatures down. This is only the second time this has happened since I started using the track. After a normal morning we read a couple of pages from the Kitab Mormon. Christ institutes the sacrament and talks about its importance. We only look up a couple of words today.

At the chapel Mary teaches the first half of the class while I work on getting ahead on the vocabulary. Then we switch places and she comes into the office to catch up on some paper work. The students are working very hard and I think by this time next week they will have a lot of confidence. They are still not working together well so there is not a lot of synergy but I am trying to get that going. As I was writing this I realized I have not felt the spirit very often when I am teaching. I think I need to work more on that. Brigham Young said that nothing should be taught without the spirit.

We spend our lunch hour working on more English stuff. It is amazing how much time we put in on preparation, grading, etc. I can not imagine what it is like being a professional teacher and having to do this day after day for years. I have even more respect for teacher than I had before. Especially those who must teach all day, every day in public schools.

The Walkers taught the afternoon class so we were able to leave and go to Sogo. We did not need a lot so we were not there very long. I need to put in a point about the traffic this week. It seems that the week after Ramadahn is vacation week in Indonesia. All the offices shut down – even the LDS office staff has it off. What this means is that the traffic in Jakarta is amazingly light. Normally if we leave from the office and go to Sogo it will take us about 2 hours. Today it took one!

After we got back to the apartment we read from the Kitab Mormon for an hour. We are now reading about 4 pages an hour because we do not need to look up many words. I am not sure how much of the spirit of the writing we are getting. I guess it is like any time we read from the scriptures. That is if we are open to the spirit we receive the spirit of the writing and if not they tend to be just words. Not too long ago we were reading where Christ tells the Nephites to search the scriptures that were laid out before their eyes. Not to read them but to search them. In the New Testament he reminded the Jews that ‘they are they that testify of Me.’

Which reminds me that as I read through my notes about the latest conference talks, again and again the speakers point out that whatever subject they are talking about is based on the atonement of Christ. Also both Elder Packer and Elder Cook pointed out that the only real qualification that was necessary to be a general authority is an unwavering personal testimony. I thought it was interesting that Elder Packer learned it from the first presidency and Elder Cook learned it from Elder Packer.

We finish our companionship study by reading another hour in the Kitab Mormon.

Mary teaching our class. All of the class – back row – Rudi, Wawan, Ronald – front – Puji, Daisy, Femmy. The motorcycle load is a milkman delivering fresh milk. The orange box is just because we do not see a lot orange delivery boxes.

15 October 2007 – Monday

I was up and exercising by 5:40 this morning. It felt good to walk, jog, do sit-ups, etc. This is the first time since last Thursday. Normal morning except I did some laundry. We continued reading about Christ’s visit to the Nephites – the part about “other sheep.” We enjoyed reading about the Creers week in Ireland. They seem to be living in their van about as much or more than we do. They also talked about the terrible traffic in Dublin. We then had a brief Skype call with Tom’s family. William is really starting to speak. Kelli is growing up quickly. It is good just to hear their voice. We miss them but we know we are doing what we should be doing.

A normal day of classes. I enjoy teaching the youth. One of the young ladies came to me and said that she just could not keep up with the others. I told her not to judge herself against the other. Just do the best she can do and that is all the Lord expects. I talked to Mary about maybe giving her easier work or working on a one to one basis with her for part of the class.

The class really likes my sentence relay game. They usually come in very close together and so it is a lot of fun. It gives them a chance to work alone and also together. At the end of the afternoon class, we come home and they head off to have FHE with president and sister Marchant.

We have macaroni and cheese with Spam for dinner. It has always been one of our favorites and is easy to fix. We read for a couple of hours from the Kitab Mormon. It is a wonderful thing to do together. We not only can share the scriptures but also we are learning the language together.

Before going to bed, I start going through my notes from conference and picking out the one or two things from each talk that I think are most important for me. The things I need to learn and work on more. The purpose of the conference is to hear living prophets give us guidance and to share their wisdom as lead by the Holy Ghost. As I read the notes I was reminded of a number of attributes I need to work on. As I thought about them, I realized that even though I am approaching 70, that I can change habits and values so that each day will be more joyous and valuable for me. You are never too old – or too young – to grow closer to Christ. When you put everything into an Eternal prospective, I am still very, very young. Of course I am not sure that age has any real meaning when discussing Eternity.

14 October 2007 – Sunday

This was a great Sunday. We studied the Kitab Mormon in the morning and then went to the chapel to watch conference. Once again the main part of the audience for the English version were missionaries and our class, but there were a couple of the English branch families there.

Each talk had something for me. I must admit that I could not get into one of the talks and even wrote down that it was boring, but then I remembered another speaker warning us about just this thing and so I quickly repented and soon I heard the one point in his talk that I needed to hear. It reminded me of my battle with pride – the learning of men – and the need to be humble so that I can take advantage of the tender mercies the Lord extends to me.

I will not write about conference at this time because there was too much to absorb. I am going to write up my notes and ponder them. Also we will watch and listen to the talks over the next few weeks. I think we will use some of the talks in our class.

After the conference we came home and read from the Kitab Mormon – we are about 100 pages from the end – and then took naps. It is great to have time to take a nap – something we do not get to do enough when teaching the English class. After that we watched the Priesthood Meeting together. Elder Hallstrom – the one of the Bicardi Rum Cake fame – is the area president and will be at our Zone Conference in a couple of weeks. Again lots of notes to be re-read and typed up. We finished up the day reading once more from the Kitab Mormon – we find reading what is basically the Sermon on the Mount – difficult. We should be able to translate it with ease but it does not work that way for us. Before turning off the light I again read from Elder Holland’s talk about this being the greatest Dispensation from the Liahona.

13 October 2007 – Saturday

It seems that I do not have much desire to write in this journal during an IEC. I am not sure if it is because the class takes so much energy or because there is not much new going on during that time. What ever it is, I do not make time to sit down and write.

This morning I got up and decided I really needed to exercise. But as I started to prepare to go to the gym I realized that due to the holiday, the gym would not be open. For some reason I did not even think of just going down and walk/jog for a half hour. I guess I did not really want to exercise. However I did not go back to bed. I got out the Liahona and started reading an article by Elder Holland. I was rather surprised about how much of it I could read without looking up words. So maybe all the reading and work is starting to pay off. I am still determined that before we leave, I will learn Indonesian to a point where I can read just about anything. Anyway that is what I keep asking the Lord to help me with.

We went to the church and Mary taught the class for an hour before it was time for conference to start. We all went into the English version – they also have Korean and of course Indonesian. The only people there was our class and missionaries – including president and sister Marchant.

After the morning session, we came home and spent the day watching the DVDs of conference and reading from the Kitab Mormon. I took lots of notes from the conference and will put them in some kind of order and put them in this journal.