3 May 2007 – Thursday

We managed to read the Kitab Mormon for almost a full hour this morning. We have not been getting our two hours in because there is too many activities early in the morning. At least that is our excuse. All the couples had breakfast together. It was a pretty good breakfast but not as good as the ones at Novotel. The Roberts agreed with us.  It was nice to sit and talk to our friends in the Gospel. There is a bond of love and friendship that seem to be very special as we share the experiences of serving a mission for our Lord. The Bennetts invited us to go with up to see the Kanes – they have a 42 foot motor home with two slide outs. It must be like a mansion inside. I imagine we will make some friends here that are unlike any others. Because no one will be able to really know what we feel when we talk about our service here.

After breakfast we met to have the last two presentations. Ours came first and I think we did quite well. Mary and Sam’s short movie – pretty much a slide show with effects and music – went well. A number of people commented about our garden. Mary did an excellent job of telling about our family and interests. She also covered English classes. I then told about how they could help us with ERS and how important it was. I really did not have enough time to go into too much detail and hope that the handout will let them know what we need.

The Roberts were the final couple and they just talked from their heart. After our more business like presentation, it was the perfect way to finish the presentations. President Jensen then spoke some about how he and sister Jensen felt. He played a DVD that they made to send to the Indonesian missionary reunion at April conference. That wrapped up the conference.

At 1:00, most of us went off to take a tour of the city. President Jensen and Elders Kane, Van Dongen, and Noorda went to play golf. The tour was mainly a bust.  About a half of the tour was what we saw yesterday. There was a tour of a section of town that is a cooperative that makes Tempe. This is a soybean product that is not bad tasting and very nutritious. Pretty much the whole town is involved with small back rooms and areas used to process the soybeans, make them into sheets and dry them. None of this would pass the health department in America – or for that matter most 1st or 2nd world countries – but it works here. What was fun was to have the children tag along. I am not sure if there were so many because it was a holiday or because their families can not afford to send them to school. Either was we grew a big crowd of smiling children who love to have their picture taken. As always they were for the most part clean and neatly dressed – I did notice that there were not a lot of shoes.

The best part of the tour was when we told the driver we did not want to see another temple and could he show us a pottery factory. After one poor choice he finally got us to a fun little shop where there was a lot of very inexpensive but nice looking pottery. My guess it was all seconds but since we are probably going to leave most of it behind when we leave the $7 we spent was not a big thing. Nearby there was a pottery shop where we saw them hand-painting pots to be fired. It was too bad that we were flying home and so there was no way to get a big pot home. We are going to look for something like that around here. Maybe in Bogor.

We got back to the hotel in time to have high tea – without tea of course. This was an everyday thing and we found it the first day. There were lots of Indonesian treats – most of them sweets of some kind. The Bennetts joined us and then sister Kane. After we had our treats, sister Kane whipped out her dice and we taught the Bennetts a new game that we just learned the day before. It is a lot of fun and there is both luck and skill involved. We played two games and the Bennetts each won one…now they are hooked.

It was a relaxing evening. We went down to the restaurant and found almost all the couples already there. The golfers were still not back and the Hashs had gone back to their house. Since they live in Malang they did not see any reason to take the tour. Everyone sat around talking about the conference, the work, their families, etc. When the golfers arrived the party started to break up. Everyone was rather tired and there were a lot of us traveling tomorrow so bed sounded very good.

2 May 2007 – Wednesday

We woke about 5:15 and I was surprised that the sun was streaming in the window – the sun comes up earlier here because we are so far East. Normal morning except we only had 30 minutes to read the Kitab Mormon instead of an hour – we will need to make up for that this evening. We called the Kanes and suggested we have breakfast together. It was an interesting and delicious breakfast but it cost $10 a piece while we could have eaten at McDonalds for $2 each. That is what we will do on Friday morning.

After breakfast we took a tour of the hotel. It is an amazing place. It is huge – about a full city block – and full of antiques. I am surprised it makes any money. About the time we were through with the tour, the other couples from Jakarta arrived and so everyone started talking to everyone. We finally met Elder Noorda – sister Noorda did not appear until we started lunch. Lunch was exotic but to me not worth the effort. I would have been as happy – if not happier with a 50 cent dinner off the street.

The Couple’s meeting is interesting. Each couple takes about 30 minutes to talk about their family and what they are doing on their mission. To me the proselyting missions have the best callings. They work closely with their branches and leadership. Especially the ones who have only one branch to work with. The Bennetts in Semarang, the Hatchs in Malang, and the VanDongens in Bandung all are in that situation. The Van Dongens have completely changed their branch – doubled their attendance, started a choir, etc. I have written about them before.

In just two months the Bennetts have raised attendance from 65 to as high as 120. Give them 6 months and they will have to divide the branch. The Hashs are working closely with their small branch – they have the most difficult task but they are humble and hard working so it will just take some time.

But of course I also know we are where we are supposed to be. If or better when the Intensive English classes get going, many things will change here. When we are able to provide jobs for the older men, women and less educated but dedicated priesthood leaders, lives will be changed. And when we have developed resources for good schools and education we will be able to guide PEF applicants to meaningful and well paying careers. Finally when we are able to get out and meet the less actives, clean up the branch records, etc. we will help the branches become stronger and help those who are missing the blessings of activity to realize them.

We had a one hour break – it was really needed – and then a two hour dinner. I enjoyed the dinner. Not so much because it was great food – it was OK – but because we were able to sit and talk with other couples as we waited for the next course. After dinner there was a band and I even danced with Mary. She really deserves for me to learn how to actually dance – some of the couples were really good. We then had two more reports before we headed off.

I almost forgot. They had a language activity to test our knowledge of Bahasa and Mary won with 56 out of 62. I was second with 53. She got a large ceramic piggy bank for a prize. We thought that was funny because earlier in the day we had seen them for sale but could not figure out how to get it home. Luckily it was the small pig – the big one would have been a real problem.

2 May 2007 – Wednesday

We woke about 5:15 and I was surprised that the sun was streaming in the window – the sun comes up earlier here because we are so far East. Normal morning except we only had 30 minutes to read the Kitab Mormon instead of an hour – we will need to make up for that this evening. We called the Kanes and suggested we have breakfast together. It was an interesting and delicious breakfast but it cost $10 a piece while we could have eaten at McDonalds for $2 each. That is what we will do on Friday morning.

After breakfast we took a tour of the hotel. It is an amazing place. It is huge – about a full city block – and full of antiques. I am surprised it makes any money. About the time we were through with the tour, the other couples from Jakarta arrived and so everyone started talking to everyone. We finally met Elder Noorda – sister Noorda did not appear until we started lunch. Lunch was exotic but to me not worth the effort. I would have been as happy – if not happier with a 50 cent dinner off the street.

The Couple’s meeting is interesting. Each couple takes about 30 minutes to talk about their family and what they are doing on their mission. To me the proselyting missions have the best callings. They work closely with their branches and leadership. Especially the ones who have only one branch to work with. The Bennetts in Semarang, the Hatchs in Malang, and the VanDongens in Bandung all are in that situation. The Van Dongens have completely changed their branch – doubled their attendance, started a choir, etc. I have written about them before.

In just two months the Bennetts have raised attendance from 65 to as high as 120. Give them 6 months and they will have to divide the branch. The Hashs are working closely with their small branch – they have the most difficult task but they are humble and hard working so it will just take some time.

But of course I also know we are where we are supposed to be. If or better when the Intensive English classes get going, many things will change here. When we are able to provide jobs for the older men, women and less educated but dedicated priesthood leaders, lives will be changed. And when we have developed resources for good schools and education we will be able to guide PEF applicants to meaningful and well paying careers. Finally when we are able to get out and meet the less actives, clean up the branch records, etc. we will help the branches become stronger and help those who are missing the blessings of activity to realize them.

We had a one hour break – it was really needed – and then a two hour dinner. I enjoyed the dinner. Not so much because it was great food – it was OK – but because we were able to sit and talk with other couples as we waited for the next course. After dinner there was a band and I even danced with Mary. She really deserves for me to learn how to actually dance – some of the couples were really good. We then had two more reports before we headed off.

I almost forgot. They had a language activity to test our knowledge of Bahasa and Mary won with 56 out of 62. I was second with 53. She got a large ceramic piggy bank for a prize. We thought that was funny because earlier in the day we had seen them for sale but could not figure out how to get it home. Luckily it was the small pig – the big one would have been a real problem.

1 May 2007 – Tuesday

A long but delightful day. Up at the regular time and after getting ready for the day we started packing for our trip to Malang and the Couple’s Conference.  We decided to check one piece of luggage so we took one of our large suitcases. This allowed us to pack lots of clothes and other things and keep our carry-on light. When we were finished with that we read from the Kitab Mormon until 9 and the morning passed quickly – at least until then. The hour from 9 to 10 went on forever. We had everything packed up, cleaned up, etc. so there was nothing really to do but wait.

The trip to the airport was perfect – the possible mess from some demonstrations that were supposed to take place did not materialize – and so we were there over 2 hours before our flight was due to leave. Luckily for us the Kanes also had no trouble coming in and so they arrived just about 10 minutes after we did. We were able to check in together, good to a bookstore together, and then sit and just talk for the rest of the time. I do not know what Mary and Sister Kane talked about, but Elder Kane and I spent most of the time talking about the Cosmology of the Universe. No light chit-chat for us.

The flight left 30 minutes late but other than that went well. I sat next to a nice Muslim woman who turned out to be the headmistress of a school near where we live. We exchanged cards and hopefully we can visit her at some time. I wrote some in my paper journal and did a little studying of the language.

The Malang airport is tiny – it is actually part of a large military base – and the luggage pick-up area is about the size of our living room. I forgot to mention that the airplane we were on – 73-200 was configured so that there was no room in the over-heads for normal carry-on luggage. So we had to check both pieces – and so did just about everyone else. This means that everyone of the plane is gathered in this small area waiting for their bags to come off a conveyor belt that must have been about 10 feet long. The smallest pieces come off first so of course the Kanes and our bags were among the last off. But that was OK because it cleared out many of the other passengers and it was easy to get our bags and pull them out.

The Hash’s – they are the couple in Malang – picked us up at the airport and took us to the hotel. It is a lovely place and everyone was expecting us. They knew our names and when we got to our room there was a flower arrangement with a printed card that had our name on it welcoming us to the hotel. At first we thought that it was a very expensive place – we thought the price they were quoting was per person and not per room – but it turned out to be only moderate.

We unpacked and then went with the Kanes to have ‘high tea’ but with cold water instead of hot tea. It was interesting to try all the different sweets – none of them except the chocolate cake were very sweets – but they did not have little cucumber sandwiches so we were disappointed.

Ari – the Hash’s driver – drove us to their house. It is not in the greatest area – Elder Hash said that they had to put the barbed wire around the fence because it was considered a high crime area – but the house is wonderful. There is a huge, high ceiling living room – dining room. Two large bedrooms and a nice sized kitchen. But the best part of the place were the three small but lovely gardens – one with a fish pond and orchids. How great it would be to be able to sit out there and just listen to the splashing of the water. That would be possible in Malang because it is about 1700 feet above sea-level and so it is 10 -15 degrees cooler than Jakarta. It is also much cleaner and the sky is clear and blue. I was very jealous but know that this was where the Hash’s needed to be. They could not have afforded Jakarta.

They then took us on a quick tour of a couple of sights of the city. An old 14th century Buddist temple – we could not get in but we were able to take some pictures and a modern Chinese temple. The Chinese temple was beautiful and we started to take pictures and tour it. However as I started to go in, I realized that it was truly a place where the Chinese people came to pray and remember their ancestors. It did not feel right to be a tourist here. I could feel the faith of the people who were worshiping and so I decided to step back outside. I would not want tourists going through the Provo Temple while it was in use. Mary and sister Kane assured me that someone inside indicated that it was OK but it still did not feel right to me.

The Hash’s then drove us to our hotel and dropped us off. They will be staying here tomorrow night as part of the conference. We started to go in but decided instead to go for a walk to see if we could find a restaurant – we felt that the hotel would be too expensive. The area around the hotel is above average for Jakarta and so the walking was nice and the temperature was just warm. At times we were the hit of the night – people like to talk to white folks and so many said hello. We were just about to give up on finding a restaurant when we came across a nice open Chinese place. It was clean and well lighted so we decided to eat there.

We found the menu was extensive and some of it was even in English. The prices were very cheap – as we have found whenever we went to local restaurants. When the orders came we found the portions were quite small but beautifully presented. This was fine with me because I did not want to eat a heavy meal but the rest bought a ‘mixed salad’ for dessert. They expected a mixed green salad but what they got was a mixed fruit salad on a couple of lettuce leaves. It turned out to be very tasty so they were pleased. When the check came the four us had eaten for a total of under $8. We may go back on Thursday night to try some more things.

We then had a nice walk back to the hotel where we sat down and started to play a dice game that the Kanes have learned to enjoy. It is much different from anything we have seen before and it is going to take some time to learn the rules. But it is fun and there is some skill involved. As we were playing up walk the Barnards and Roberts from Solo. They had taken a travel – basically a van – up to Malang. It was a 6 ½ hour trip and they decided that they really did not want to leave at 3 a.m. tomorrow to get here in time for our opening meeting.

Elder Roberts told us that they tried to call me but I had accidently left my phone in the room so of course they could not reach me. The rest of the evening was spent talking. At first I spent some time talking to Sister Roberts while the rest of the men gathered in one area and the women in another. Sister Roberts told me all about their experiences of the last month and how things were going. They have a house and hopefully will soon have a car. However she is having some kind of problem with either the food or water or both and has been sick a number of times. When we first met them when they arrived in Jakarta, she was worried about this. She seems to have a sensitive stomach and anything new bothers her. She is such a cheerful person it is rather sad to hear that she is having these problems. Hopefully she will adjust because they are going to do a great job in Solo.

At about 9:30 everyone agreed that it was getting late and so we broke up until tomorrow. Some of them are going to go walking in the morning but I did not bring anything that might be counted as walking clothes. I will need to go down to a clothing store we saw last night and get at least one casual shirt so I will not feel completely strange out walking with them. I only brought white shirts and other missionary attire because I thought we should always look like missionaries and did not think of going out for a walk in the morning.

Like many of the hotels in Indonesia, the electricity only comes on when you insert your room key into a special slot. Of course this means the air-conditioning does not work while you are out of the room and so the room was a little warm when we got here. But it quickly cooled off so we were comfortable.

I tried to read some from the Kitab Mormon and then from one of the novels we bought at the airport – the airport is the best place in the city to buy English novels. None of them are current best sellers but there is a good selection and they are about ½ the price as they are in the SoGo mall store.

30 April 2007 – Monday

Happy Birthday to me…and it was a great one. I heard from almost all of the children and grandchildren and got to see some of them. Too bad our connection is not better so we could see and hear better, but at least we have some opportunities to see them.

The winner of the best present award goes to Jim and Kristy – the announcement of the future arrival of our 13th grandchild. We are just sorry that we will not be able to hold him/her/them until we get home. The winner of the best birthday card and the best letter goes to Shane. His card was cool and his letter was really long and told us all about what was going on in his life. I think he should consider a career in journalism – he seems to have a talent for writing. Mary gave me a large apple sculpture-she says there is another present but I do not get it until we get back from couple’s conference.

We spent a very quiet day. The cleaning lady came while we were reading the Kitab Mormon. Hopefully she could understand some of our poor Indonesian as we read out loud. I do not think we can count this as giving a lesson but at least it exposes her to some of the doctrine of the church. We were in Alma where Alma the younger is preaching about repentance and the atonement. We ended up reading three times during the day for about an hour each. This caught up some of the time we did not do when we were sick.

The rest of the time we watched TV, slept, and ate. About the only ‘exciting’ thing we did – besides getting on Skype – was to go downstairs and eat at the little restaurant. Nothing wild but it did give Sam a full day off. Something he has not had for a while. He will also get Thursday off…but Friday it is back to work for him.

Musing a little about being 69. It is hard to think of myself as being old. If it was not for the glasses, the wrinkles, and age spots that I see when I look in a mirror, I do not seem to myself to be old at all. I still seem to like the same things I did 45-50 years ago. Well the music I prefer has changed quite a lot but I still like music. I still enjoy reading. The gospel is still exciting to me – I realize I do not know much more about it than when I first joined the church. I still have many imperfections – I have managed to get rid of some of them but I had a lot to start with. I still love Mary with all my heart. I find it hard to think that I have a son that will be 47 this year and a grand daughter that is driving and going to junior proms.

I have had some wonderful experiences in serving in the Church. From being a Scout Master and assistant Scout Master – to now serving on a mission with my eternal soul mate. The 8 years of being bishop are among the best of my life. However I was surprised to be just as sad – if not sadder – to be released as assistant Scout Master many years later. Being a bishop is like no other calling in the church – other than of course branch president – because you get to become part of all the members of the wards lives and they part of yours. Some day I need to sit down and write all that I can remember about that time. Maybe that is something I can do while on this mission – it would be a better use of my time than watching TV.

My three times as executive secretary – I actually was serving as Ward Home Teaching Supervisor when that calling was turned into the original Executive Secretary position. For over a year no one knew what we were supposed to do as ES so we kind of did whatever the bishop wanted done – well sometimes I did what I wanted to do and then asked the bishop if that was OK. I was blessed to have two bishops and a stake president who knew how to use an executive secretary and I think I did a good job there.

Our experience of working at the MTC is another wonderful part of my full life. How we came to be serving there, the way we were called to be full time missionaries, and the experience of helping to start a program for helping the young missionaries learn their languages that is still going on today was and is a great time of our lives. I hope that the Intensive English Class that we are going to have a chance to try next month will be as successful. There is nothing like working with missionaries – the spirit at the MTC is so special that it you can only really discuss it well with someone who has also served there.

I have had the opportunity to be a guide at the Los Angeles Temple Visitor’s Center for a number of years. The fact that I can not remember either the number of years or the actual dates frustrated me but I must remember that time is only measured by man and move on. To spend an afternoon explaining the gospel plan to visitors was an important part of my growth in the Kingdom. I also had the opportunity to serve for a number of years in the LA Temple baptismal fount – that period will take a few pages. The feeling of having a line of spirits waiting their turn to have this sacred ordinance done for them was amazing. I got to feel this again when I toomk at turn at the Provo Temple to confirm some proxies.

Of course being an ordinance worker in the Provo temple has been a great blessing. The work is wonderful and the spirit great. Again it is something a person has to experience to really understand. But as much as the spirit is there, for me working with the missionaries at the MTC is the most powerful. I think it is because the young missionaries are so full of enthusiasm and so vibrant that the spirit just crackles there. The best of both worlds is to be working in the temple when a session is filled with missionaries from the MTC. The temple is so new to them and it still holds their attention as they try to absorb all the new things that they learn each time they come.

The problem with trying to do this is that there are just too many memories to even start to write about them here. But unlike the brass and other plates, there is lots of room in this computer and so just maybe while we are on this mission I will start putting more of them down for my children and grandchildren and their children to read long after I have gone to see God.

OK so we are getting closer to being about to put in pictures – Now I just need to know how to also put in text. So lets try another.

In case anyone noticed I have not been posting here. That is because we have been away for most of the week and so as usual I am behind. We had a wonderful time at the Couple’s Conference in Malang. We got to see all the couples and share a few days with them. We also got a spiritual boast by hearing what they are doing, their struggles, and their successes. I will catch up the blog over the next week. Hopefully I will figure out how to post pictures so you can share in some of the wonderful things we see each day.

Minggu – Senin – Selasa – Rabu – Kamis – Jum’at – Sabtu – The whole week.

29 April 2007 – Sunday

I did not have a really good night, but at least woke up feeling very good. Whatever Elder Wight said in his blessing really helped the vitamin C. I still have some rawness in my throat and my nose is a little stopped up but for the most part this was the easiest cold I can ever remember having.

We had to move rather quickly because we were out of the house by 7:15. The trip to Tangerang is so easy on Sunday morning. The trip that took about 2 hours on Thursday took about 30 today. I am going to miss Elder Roper more than I thought. He was a perfect translator for us in T2 – he made the time go by very quickly.

In T1, president Mak announced the Intensive English Class. I am not sure that was because we were there in the audience of if it is being announced through out the district today. I do not think it was announced in T2. I was slightly disappointed in the amount of words I could make out this week. I think it has a lot to do with the sound system in the Tangerang building. But someday I need to get my hearing checked.

Speaking of getting things checked. In Sunday School class, Elder Wight told the story of when he went to get his driver’s license he found out that he needed glasses. He thought his vision was fine, but when he put his glasses in for the first time he found out that there were things to see that he had been missing. The moral being that we often think we see spiritual things clearly when we really need spiritual glasses to correct our vision.

Anyway we sat through two sacrament meetings only catching a little of what was said. Normally that does not bother me, but today a couple of the speakers seemed to be giving really good talks and I am sorry that I missed hearing what they had to say. One thing did come to me as I sat there. I thought that except for the language, I could have been in a sacrament meeting in Utah.

After the T1 sacrament I mentioned to President Paul that it would be good if he had the elders give their report at the first of the Branch Council meeting so they could leave. I am not sure he understood but hopefully the system will change.

After the T2 sacrament meeting I asked President Djarot if he could give me the names of the three best computer schools in Indonesia. He is in higher management in a very successful software company that is always looking for good programmers. He almost immediately sent a note to his friend with my request. We must do this for almost every career choice available. Once we have the first three will try to go a little deeper and find the best value universities.

Elder Weedodo taught the Gospel Principles class and did not have the class read much of the lesson. We were proud of him but I do think we could have read a little more. Sometimes the lesson has some quotes and stories that are important. Elder Smith told me what was going on.

Since it was the 5th Sunday the branch all met together for the last meeting. If we had known that they were going to discuss the Emergency Plan for any problem at the building – mainly in case of fire – we would not have stayed. But they seemed to have fun discussing the plan – especially when they got to the part about how to use the fire-hoses. These are on every level – it seems the fire department is not big on getting to fires. They must have a fire department but only Mary has seen one – and that was parked in a parking lot of a big shopping area. Maybe it belongs to them?  I will have to do some research into this.

We came home to the apartment and had lunch and a nap. Then it was over to the office so Mary could finish up with her English CDs. The ones that Sam bought worked fine. It took about 90 minutes and then we came back home. The rest of the day moved between studying Indonesian and watching TV. There was a pretty good ‘B’ movie on called ‘Timebomb.’ The only mystery was who were the bombers and how would they catch them.

Hari Sabtu – Saab-two- Saturday

28 April 2007 – Saturday

I slept well and woke feeling better. Mary says she feels fine and only sounds terrible. I think she will be glad when she has finished all of her medicine. A glass full of orange juice helps the medicine go down…but not a lot.

We had to shorten our morning because we needed to be at the office by 8:30 to set up for the Career Workshop. It turned out we did not need to hurry as no one came to the workshop. This was not surprising because there was absolutely no announcement of there being one today. I think that Agus and Lukito have become so use to the couple taking care of making sure people knew about the workshops that they do not feel they need to do anything. After waiting 90 minutes, Lukito headed home.

We spent the day working on our presentation for Couple’s conference. I got lucky and Elder Allred came in to wait for an appointment and worked on setting up my template for the reports I hope the couples will provide about the resources in their areas. I doubt if I will get a report each week from each couple but if I get one a month from each of them, we will have a lot more than we have now. After the reports were done, we took them over to be copied. All the copies only cost $1 to do but the quality proved to be quite poor. I may do them again at the apartment where we get good copies.

Since we thought we would have lunch with the CW attendees, Mary did not make us a lunch. I gave her a choice between food off the street or sending Sam to KFC for the lunch we would have had. She quickly choice KFC.

While I was doing some other things – like answering e-mail – Mary worked on our family presentation.  Sam and her came up with a two part movie that we will be able to show through the projector. It worked great on the computer but when she tried to burn it to a cd, none of the computers would recognize it. Before we left for the day, she had the wisdom to save it to a memory stick. When we got home she put it on the computer and got it run with Real Player but the music did not sound right. I tried it with Media Player and it is fine. So once we get an English CD burned we will be ready for the confernece. It was nice to be able to erase some things off the ‘to do’ board.

In the evening we read from the Kitab Mormon – it seems our days have been so structured that we only get one hour a day in on reading instead of the planned two. We could have read longer tonight but an hour is about all my mind can take.

Mary pointed out that I managed to ruin another white shirt…that is #5.  I think I will start a lottery on how many shirts I will go through on this mission. Anyone can enter – the prize is a collection of all of the shirts.