It is definitely time to let you know that we are still here and doing well in Indonesia. We have had a very interesting week and are learning more and more about the Indonesian people.
 
First, Indonesians celebrate any and every holiday that is available. Thursday, May 17, was Ascension Day, the day Christ ascended into heaven. It was a national holiday. The post office was closed, The Jakarta Post did not publish a newspaper, the schools were closed for the weekend, and except for stores and restaurants, most businesses were closed.
 
On Wednesday we drove up to Bogor which is in the hills south of Jakarta. It was a very easy drive with little traffic and only took about 45 minutes. There we drove further up into the hills with our friends Elder and Sister Kane to visit an orphanage. The Kane’s are Humanitarian missionaries and became involved with this orphanage through a project in which the  Church paid for an autoclave for the orphanage. It is used to sterilize the medium in which mushrooms are grown. When the medium is sterilized the mushroom spores are introduced and then it is kept until the mushrooms are ready to grow. At that point it is sold producing money to run the orphanage. We were interested in observing this project to see if it is something that we can recommend to older women who need employment. Most employers here in Indonesia are looking for employees who are in their twenties. It is very difficult for anyone over 35 or 40 to find a new job.
 
Now back to the orphanage, which is an amazing operation. It is run by a young woman and her husband. They are parents of three children. There are 40 orphans there. Seventeen are true orphans. The other 23 still have at least one parent living, but for one reason or another they are unable to support them. They finance the orphanage through a variety of projects. They rent party supplies and cater parties. They have a sewing business. They run a kindergarten for neighborhood children. They manufacture rough boxes for carrying fruit and now they have the mushroom project. I have attached pictures of children at the school, the owner by the autoclave, and mushrooms growing out of the small plastic bags containing the mushroom-growing medium. This is truly an example of what can be accomplished by one young woman who has a vision and a desire to help others. She has gone out and found a need and learned how to make her dreams a reality.
 
We then visited a Textile School to see if we could recommend it as a good place for PEF Students to study. They have a first class operation. They train their students in manufacturing and merchandising. They finish as qualified line supervisors for garment manufacturers or are  qualified to work in merchandising. Some students never finish school because they are hired away before the end of the course!
 
When we left Bogor we had a very easy drive back to Jakarta but then ran into one of the infamous Jakarta traffic jams. We got off the Jalan Tol (Toll Road) at about 5:15. It should have taken about 15 minutes to get the rest of the way home to our apartment. It took two hours! This was one of the worst we have ever been in. You never really know what the cause of a traffic jam is, but this appeared to be caused by the fact that the next day was a holiday and everyone was just trying to get somewhere else! Usually if there is a traffic jam on the main roads our driver, Sam, is able to turn off onto a small (just barely two cars wide) road which winds through a kampung and avoids the worst part of the jam. This time it was a major mistake. When we got about a block down the side road we came to a dead stop. Everyone else was trying the same thing! We finally got home at 7:15.
 
Last week we attended a birthday celebration for a School for the Blind. It was established 34 years ago. Each student there is blind and has at least one other handicap. Many of them are deaf and some are mentally handicapped. This school is supported by a board of people who raise funds for it by looking for donations. It is supported mainly by Christian churches, but many of the students are Muslim. The parents of the students who can afford to send their children to the school pay some money, but those who have no money are not turned away. One of the students there was found on the streets of Jakarta being used as a beggar by other people. She is an orphan and now lives at the school.
 
The birthday celebration was a delightful experience with several of the students singing and performing. The performance by the band and the bell choir was outstanding. Everyone was very enthusiastic and had a great time. We even learned to sing a few Indonesian songs. We were invited to the celebration because last year Elder and Sister Leishman, whom we replaced in the Employment Office, oversaw two projects where the Church paid for a new larger water tank for the school and a new stove and cupboards for the kitchen, allowing them to be able to feed lunch to all the students each day and to have clean water for everyone.
 
On Thursday we attended a branch outing with the Tangerang 2 Branch. We took buses up to a Tea Plantation near Bogor.  We went on a five kilometer walk through the tea plantation and then had lunch and watched everyone sing and play games. The highlight (or lowlight) of my day was falling down because of a loose rock in a pathway after I had completed the five kilometer walk. Luckily the only damage was a small cut near my eye (no stitches needed but enough blood to worry everyone) a bruise on my chin and a couple scratches on my knee. No other problems at all. While we were there we figured out how to take movies with our camera and we have a fun one of the kids chasing bubbles and a hilarious one of the adults and teenagers playing a game. They are running around flapping their arms and “cheeping” looking for the rest of their bird family. Everyone was very tired on the way home.

As I reflect on these experiences and others, I think about the many problems facing the country of Indonesia and know that somehow they will meet the challenges. There is great poverty here but there are many people trying to fight it. For over 300 years they were treated as second-class citizens in their own country. Now they are forming a new identity. They have been thrust into a new industrial world with its related problems of traffic, over-crowding, trash, etc. with nothing in place to deal with these things. It will be interesting to see the solutions they come up with. One suggestion put out by the government to alleviate part of the traffic problem in Jakarta is to abolish the sale of new cars in Jakarta. That will be really interesting to see what happens if that takes place. Right now during parts of the day on some streets only cars that have three people in them are allowed. As a consequence, you have people standing near those streets waiting to be hired as a passenger.

I have included with this letter a picture of a monkey which lives across the street from us. His owner sells carvings which are not very good. I think the monkey is his principle model.

Well, enough for now. This has taken all day to write. Bill just said that he is sure Gone With The Wind was written in about the same time. We love you all and welcome lots of letters. It’s always good to know that home is still there and all is well. Please let us know what is happening in your families.

Our friend the monkey – lives on a fence in front of a cemetery.
18 May 2007 – Friday

A good morning. Mary slept well and does not have a black eye. The cut is clean and hardly shows but the bruise on her chin is quite evident. Her stomach has also quiet down so all in all she is in good shape.

I spent most of my free time catching up this journal and going through pictures we took over the last two days so I could put some of them in the blog. I am getting better at that and now it does not take as much time to get the pictures posted. We read in the Kitab Mormon and are now waiting for Sam so we can go to District Meeting.

I forgot to mention that yesterday we found our good young friend Elder Roper had developed a hernia and had been sent home to have surgery. His father agreed to pay his way back to Indonesia so instead of spending the rest of his mission in the States, he will come back in a month or so. Mary asked for his e-mail address so we could send him our best wishes and tell him to hurry back. I find it interesting that the Church medical people did not think that either Singapore or Hong Kong had good enough doctors to operate. Either that or they felt that since he will need a month to recover, that it would be better to do it where his parents could watch over him.

The rest of the day was normal with a visit to the mission office for district meeting – on the way there we stopped and Mary took some pictures of the monkey we have seen so often – and lunch followed by a quick trip to SoGo for necessities -mainly from BreadTalk. We found an alternate source for Mary’s Rye bread so it was a great success.

The Peterson’s invited us out for dinner so we came home and rested until it was time for them to pick us up. We had a great time – decent Mexican food and lots of good talking. It was celebrating my birthday. The Petersons are great, down-to-earth people who are always full of the spirit. But that is how we have found all couples we have met here.

We managed to get in our hour of reading before Mary headed off to bed and I sat watching TV until I was tired enough to join her.

On looking back on the last three days, they at first do not seem to have been very productive. However each of them fit in with what we are doing here. Wednesday we gain important information that will help us in the future – especially the mushroom project. We helped the Kanes come up with a program for teaching about the family. Thursday helped cement our relationship with one of the branches we work with. We got to talk to a lot of people and see them outside of church. Friday we learned from the district meeting and I think we also gave the missionaries an idea or two that might help them as they teach. On all those days we studied from the Kitab Mormon and each day improves our ability to read Indonesian. Hopefully it will eventually lead to us being able to communicate in Indonesian.

Tea Pickers – Mary with Band-Aid – A view of the valley above Bogor
17 May 2007 – Thursday

We were up at 3:30 and out the door at 4:15. The trip to the pick-up point was very quick and we were worried that there would be no one there yet. But when we got there, the bus and some of the people were already there – it turned out that the bus would leave at 5:15 and not 5:30. We were in the bus with Agus, Catherin, and their family. Almost everyone around us spoke good English. I managed to sleep about half the way there so the trip went very fast.

The tea plantation was started by the Dutch back at the turn of the century and stretches for what seems like miles in every direction. The day was perfect – at least the morning was. Clean and bright but not too hot because we were so high up in the mountains.

I am not going to write much about the day. The walk through the plantation was about 5K or just over 3 miles. It was up and down over a trail of what was once a paved road but over the years has become a rough trail of rocks. Mary did not have an easy time because she had to be really careful about where she walked so as not to slip. Even though it was much cooler than Jakarta it was still hot and I worked up a very good sweat. We were in the first group to leave but by the time we were finished we were the last couple back. We would have been way behind everyone except a very nice couple kept behind us to make sure we were not lost or hurt. So we took our time and enjoyed the walk – at least I certainly did.

As we got back to the main area, we had a little trouble finding just which way we needed to go. When we finally were close to where the group was gathered for games, disaster almost struck. I was about 10 feet in front of Mary as we walked down the last path to the steps when a rock she was stepping on twisted and she basically fell flat on her face. She hit the rocks, cut her head just above her left eye, twisted her glasses, hit her chin and skinned her left knee. People came from everywhere – especially from our group to help her. All she really wanted to do was catch her breath so she asked them not to try to pick her up. She was really bleeding – she remarked that head wounds always bleed a lot – but a lot of tissue and some water soon cleaned it enough that they could put on a coagulate – they came with a fully prepared first-aid kit and someone who knew how to use it – and a band-aid and the bleeding stopped. After she had caught her breath we got her up – not an easy task because she could not get her knees under herself and walked her back to the meeting room. I gave her a couple of Aleve and she sat and recovered. I think she was more embarassed than anything else.

I found it interesting that the tea pickers expected us to pay for taking their picture. Unfortunately I did not have any small money so I ended up looking like a ugly American. Later I took a couple of pictures of a woman who was gathering up dead branches to either sell or use in her cooking. I found that I had a few coins in my pocket and gave them to her. When you are a survivor you do what you have to, to make a living.

I finally learned how to take movies – something I wish I had learned earlier – so we have a couple of short movies showing the people enjoying themselves. The children had a great time blowing bubbles that they bought from a peddler. He probably had one of best days in a long time selling to our group with a lot of children.

The rest of the time was spent playing games, eating lunch, and then having a discussion of physical, mental and spiritual health. This last part was not very interesting to us because it was all in Indonesian. But I was surprised how the adults all seemed interested in discussing this subject. I can not imagine a group of US LDS having a big ward outing where after fun and games they would sit around and discuss such a meaningful subject.

The trip back to the gathering point was different. Since it was a holiday, there were lots of people up in the mountains so there was a sting of cars, buses and angkats winding their way down the two lane road that runs through small town after small town. We stopped twice so people could buy fresh fruits and vegetables from larger traditional markets. But even with this we made better time than I thought we would in getting back. Once we got to the main road the traffic was light. The only problem was that it had started to rain – the dry season obviously is not all that dry – and by the time we got to the drop-off point it was pouring. Lucky for us we had won a prize – I think it was for the last group in but I am sure they called it something else – the prize was a nice big umbrella. So while Mary tried to keep at least a little dry, our friend Agus and I hailed a cab. He told the driver where we needed to go and away we went. He could have been taking us anywhere because for a half hour we had no idea where we were. He took nothing but surface streets that wound in and out of areas we had never been. Finally we came out on the street that had the big stadium and I knew approximately where we were. Mary had been saying that we had been going in the right general direction – her sense of direction is much better than mine. The end result was that we got home in good time – well before I expected – and the total of the almost one hour taxi ride was $6.50 – I gave the man $9.50 and hoped it made his day.

We were again beat when we got home. Mary said that she did not hurt but was very tired. So we  each found something that was easy to fix for dinner, read from the Kitab Mormon and then Mary went off to bed. I expected Sam to bring the car back so I tried to stay up. But about 9:30 I fell asleep on the couch and at 10 woke up enough to get myself to bed.

I think that the fact that we went with the branch and got to know the members better, to understand their culture better, and to see them as families was very important. I had a nice conversation with the member we thought had gone inactive because he did not get a job in Squaw Valley. He came out and seemed to enjoy himself. I wish either he knew more English – he does quite well – or I knew more Indonesian because I would have enjoyed learning more about him.

I had a nice talk with president Gjarot about education in Indonesia. He pays a lot of money to send his children to good schools. Up to $3000 a year which is a lot of money here. But they will end up being well prepared for life. I also spoke with brother Basuki, one of the attendees at the Solo Career Workshop who now has a great job as a management trainee in a bank. They will spend 9 months training him before sending him to his first real assignment. It is such a good training program that other banks pay to send their people to learn.

At the orphanage – A typical class and Growing Mushrooms
16 May 2007 – Wednesday

We had a good, busy day – and then probably as bad a traffic jam as we have experienced in Indonesia.

In the morning I quickly looked at the US Embassy website to see if I could help a member who called last night and was applying for a job there. What I found was not encouraging for him but I found that there were what is called ‘microscholarships’ available for those who want to become English teachers. Also there was other information that I think could be helpful there. I will spend some of our time on Saturday looking at this more closely.

We left early so we would be sure to get to the Kanes in time. We got there in less than an hour including stopping for fuel. They were not ready but invited us in while they finished up. Elder Kane showed us lot of pictures of their trip to the seashore. They went to the South shore and it is very much like the scenes you see in advertisements for Bali. They are thinking of going there and staying overnight. We hinted that we would like to go with them.

Since their car does not have a back seat they were going to take two cars. We suggested we take our’s. It was a little crowded – especially for Elder Kane – but it worked. I was going to put Elder Kane up in the front but Sam wanted Sadim to ride there so he could instruct him on where to go. So at first Sister and Elder Kane sat in the back and we had a nice conversation during the hour it took to get to the first stop. Along the way they happened to mention that they had been asked to teach a class about the church’s position on the family. I suggested that they use Proclamation About the Family by going through it paragraph by paragraph. They thought that was a great idea and are going to try to get copies for each of the students in Indonesian

The orphanage was a major surprise. First it is tucked away down a small road that then opens up into a very large area. There we met the woman and her husband that run the organization. She is a tiny Muslim woman who according to the Kanes is the force behind all of what they have. Her husband is a fine man who does the work and is happy to participate. To make a long story short, the mushroom project is a real possibility but I want to learn much more before we even attempt to start one. The couple agreed to let us send up a couple of people to learn how to grow mushrooms from front to back.

The mushroom project main purpose is to help defray the expense of running an orphanage for 40 young people aged 5 to college age. Many of them are not true orphans, but are children that single mothers had to give up because they could not take care of them and themselves. At the orphanage they not only take care of them physically but also give them a good education and lots of love. They own a lot of land and the buildings – at least those the orphans are in – are well kept up and clean. The children are like all children we have seen in Indonesia – even those who are begging on the street at 8 or 9 p.m. at night – clean and happy. The Lord has certainly used this fine couple to do His work on the earth. If all men would do as they have, there would be a lot less poverty – especially spiritual poverty – on the earth.

On the way to our next stop – the textile school -we did some sightseeing in an expensive sub-division. It is a huge sub-division with some estates that would be expensive even in the US and other sections that are expensive for Indonesia – $70 – $100K US – but that would be considered inexpensive in the US.

The textile school was certainly worth visiting. It provides a number of programs – the manager was pitching only one – ranging in cost from $350 to $1500. Which is not cheap but since they place 100% of their students it is a great program. The school is run by a German program and it is beautiful. Everything is first class – Indonesian first class. What I found interesting is that for the year program the first 3 months concentrates on teaching English and getting the students use to making presentations to buyers or superiors. Something that the manager said is really not taught in Indonesia. He said that the students at first hate him because he has them speak and then criticizes them in front of the class. Another thing that is not done in Indonesia. This is a school we will certainly recommend to those interested in PEF.

After seeing that school we went for a late lunch at Hartz Chicken – an all you can eat place that had some really good food – including broasted and deep fried chicken. The french fries were good and was most of the other things they serve. We ate and talked for close to an hour – eating much too much of course.

The trip home from Bogor to Jakarta flew by but when we hit the road that takes us to our apartment the traffic came to a complete stop. A trip that on a normal day takes 10 – 15 minutes at the most took close to two hours. This is probably the most frustrating thing about Indonesia – the time you sit in a car going no where. This was the worse one that I have been awake for – Mary told me that the one I slept through was exactly the same way – but it was only an hour or so long. Just when I was about to get out and walk to the apartment – we were across the street from it but going the wrong way, we broke through the jam and just sailed home.

It was a long, exhausting, – but very productive -  day and after we had read from the Kitab Mormon we both collapsed in bed.

15 May 2007 – Tuesday

I woke early and Mary slept in. She said it made up for her tossing and turning all night. She is still not feeling 100% – something to do with her stomach.

I am amazed at how fast the morning goes by. I was up before 5 and the next thing I knew it was time to read the Kitab Mormon – three hours had just zipped past. And other than taking time out to eat some breakfast I was doing useful things. Including trying to learn more vocabulary, studying phrases, writing and posting my journal – it did take much too long for me to get the pictures into the blog – and writing some e-mail.

Our Kitab Mormon reading went well – as always mainly thanks to Mary who remembers so many words. I manage to contribute now and then but not to the extent that Mary does. We have decided to look up words instead of guessing at them. Most of the time our guess is close but other times it misses completely and in that way we miss the real meaning of the verse.

An annoying day at the office. The internet kept coming and going – even when it was on it was terribly slow. Talk about learning patience. Egha – not Edgar as I wrote last week – came in to help but we did not have much for him to do so he became our English lesson guinea pig. We had him take some tests. When we tried to explain the mistakes he made, we quickly learned that we do not know how to teach English because we do not know the rules well enough. It is going to be a real challenge to teach a month long course. As I have been saying – the Lord is going to have to step in here at sometime. We have 5 applications for our class – 3 young men and 2 young women. We will probably go with that combination. I think Elder Subandriyo just wants to see something happen.

I tried to send out e-mails to all the couples with some report templates as attachments. I did not think they were sent but when we got home there was an e-mail from one of the couples saying that they did not know how to open the attachment. I wrote back giving instructions but I am still not sure they are even there. I should have us on the list so we can be sure what we sent is correct.

Mary is still not feeling well. We read early and she then went to bed. I stayed up mindlessly watching something on TV. Not what I would call a productive evening.

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.