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.

Hari Jum’at – Jum-ought – Friday – hari jum’at ketigabelas – Friday the 13th

27 April 2007 – Friday

I slept well and woke up feeling better than I expected. I am sure the blessing and a lot of vitamin C help make it so. Normal morning with our hour of reading the Kitab Mormon. I spent part of my personal study time working my way through an article about Yeltsin and tennis. I did not know that he is considered the father of modern Russian tennis. That he was an avid fan and set up the program that has produced all the now famous – and some cases rich – Russian tennis stars. The article quoted Maria Sharapova on the importance of Yeltsin and also gave her as an example the success of his programs.

I was not going to go into the office at all but felt good enough to give it at least a try. One of the first things I did was to list all the different areas we are responsible for and some actions we needed to do for each. I sent out a number of e-mails to couples, president Weaver and brother Tandiman about different things. I think I will buy another Whiteboard just for this kind of planning. In that way things will not get lost – or at least it will be harder to lose track of some of the projects.

Mary worked on the English cd that we are going to give to the couples at the conference. Then she switched over to working on getting the last CW into the computer. She had some problems getting what we wanted printed. At one point she thought she had lost all the work she had done, but it turned out that the program just changed the order.

I had Sam buy me lunch from the street. It was good but I was surprised that I ate it all. They put a lot of rice into each meal. Just as I was finishing up I bit into an extremely hot piece of pepper. I am glad I did not do it earlier or I would have not enjoyed the meal.

After eating I did a little more work and then had Sam drive me home so I could take a nap before the English class. Mary decided to stay and do more work on the English stuff. I had a great nap and did not wake until she started to open the door.

I went to the University for English class – still no students for my class but Mary had her faithful three. They get along well together and that makes the class enjoyable for her. I spent the time reading from Kitab Mormon. I read things we have already read together. I can usually pick out the important things but there are still plenty of words that I do not know or do not remember.

This is a test to see if I can upload an image in this post. Hopefully, it is below.

 

It worked!! Dad, we’ve got to talk so I can show you how to do this. –Jim

Hari Kamis – Kah-mees – Thursday

26 April 2007 – Thursday

Slept OK but work up with a sore throat and coughing. The cold continues to progress. We read from the Kitab Mormon but I do not think my heart was in it at all.

At the office I spent part of my time working on tonight’s English class and then switched to the Couples’ Conference presentation. I am trying to develop some report forms that they can fill out and send to via e-mail. To do that I need to learn how to make templates in Word. Luckily I found a set of instruction for making templates – hopefully it is a good one. I also sent out some e-mails to some people.

We left the office soon after noon and came home to rest. I had a good nap and felt much better. I really did not feel like going to teach English but decided I would at least go along and see how I felt when we got there.

Sam picked us up at about 3:15 and we went to the mission office to get the mail for the Tangerang elders. I spoke to Elder Subandriyo about the mushroom idea and he said they had tried this once before and failed. In listening to him, I guessed that they tried it in the wrong place and without any real research. I told him I would look at the project in Bogor and see how it is being done there and if we can send people to be trained. Later I talked to Elder Kane and he said that the woman would be happy to help. I would not be opposed to paying her to run a franchise that our members could join.

After the mission home we headed for Tangerang and my good feelings quickly disappeared. The traffic was terrible and Sam decided to take an alternate route which proved to be much longer and probably slower than if we had just fought our way through the regular way. One thing about Sam is he is determined and so he just kept moving along. Mary had to remind me to be patient – but with my cold that was not easy.

Anyway after touring some places we had not seen before we arrived only about 5 minutes late. When we walked into the class they all sang Happy Birthday to me. I was touched – if I was not feeling so bad I would have been more touched. The English class went OK. Agus and Katherine had sick children so they could not come. This means I have 3 real students and babysit two more. With the Elder’s help I got through it.

After the meeting I asked elder Wight and elder Smith to give me a blessing for my cold. I am not sure that elder Smith had ever anointed before and elder Wight gave my blessing in Indonesian so I really did not catch much. But I was sure the Lord told me what I needed.

The trip home was much easier but by the time we got back here I was very tired so we went to bed without reading Kitab Mormon.

For feeling as poorly as I did, the day went well. My talk with Elder Subandriyo gave me encouragement to move ahead in looking into the mushroom business. It is another case of too many things coming together at one time to not be directed by the Lord. Now it is up to us on the ground to find out what needs to be done and how to do it.