We spent a couple of days this week trying to find a new place for the Elders in Beksaki to move too. They have been living in a real rattrap and that is no exaggeration. We went one afternoon and looked with four elders at several different places then we took them for pizza. Those guys acted like they were staved too death. I don't think we could have brought enough pizzas to fill them up, but we didn't even try. They were so grateful. We went back the next day with Pres Marchant and the elders to see the places we thought would be OK. They all decided on one it is not real great, but it is 10 times better than what they have been living in.

We went to Zone Conference on Thursday. We had a good conference. It is mostly just instructions for the elders. When we came out of the conference at 3:30 our driver, John was asleep in the car we had a really hard time waking him up. He said he was sick and asked Ralph to give him a blessing. Elder Davis and Ralph gave him a blessing. Another driver said that he had thrown up about 10 times. President Marchant told us to get him right to a dr. He sent his driver with us and he drove his car home. They run a lot of tests on him and finally about 7:00 they came out and said, he had acute appendicitis and we needed to get him right to the hospital. We called Elder Subandriyo to find out where we needed to take him. We picked his wife up on the way to the hospital. We got to this "hospital" not real high tech and they could not read the ultra sound that had been done at the clinic so they had to do X-rays. Finally they came and said after all of this that they didn't have any beds. Boy!!! So we went to find another hospital meanwhile after having the IV that he had been given at the clinic he started to really perk up and he begged us not to take him to the hospital. His wife doesn't speak English and she couldn't understand the danger that he was in. When we got to the hospital he would not sign the paper to give them permission to treat them. We tried to talk to them and we not getting anywhere. Finally Ralph just got mad at him and said he was no longer our driver and that we were just leaving. We went out and Ari the other driver followed us. John grabbed all of the papers of the tests and he followed us out. Ralph turned around and told him that he would just have to find another way home and tried to tell him again that if he went home there was a good possibility that he would die. He finally turned around and went back into the hospital. Wow!!! He had the surgery the next morning. We got home at 12:30 am. He is doing OK now, but we may end up paying for the whole experience because he is our employee. I hope not, but we will have to do whatever. We are without a driver now for a while so I don't know what we will do. The President said that maybe Elder Walker would have to start driving. I believe that is when I will stay home for sure. This traffic is not fun.
On Friday a zone activity to the beach had been planned. They always use the mission couples cars to drive. They assigned one of the Indonesian Elders to drive our car. I was a little nervous at first, but he did a good job.

Anyway, We do have a lot of things to do and we are keeping busy with the humanitarian work, but we have had some distractions. We are trying to still get the wheelchairs off the dock. Which is proving to be quite the thing. The government here really know how to work things in order to get more money. We also have 2 water projects that we are working on getting approval and that is becoming a challenge also. But Dad just keeps plugging away at it. I have been working on this scrapbook this week. I just put 4 pictures on the page with a short paragraph about the project and the amount of money spent. It is not that hard. It is just finding the right pictures and information.

We just learned that the Welfare Service Missionaries in Bogor, who will be going home and end of May, will not be replaced. There are several projects they are currently managing which will fall upon our shoulders to do. This will increase our time traveling by car to clean water projects and to manage other projects as well. They will expect us to keep up with all our other work as well. I don't know how we are going to do it. We are going to be very busy.

The work of the Family Enrichment Program is going forward, we have an organization to finance the seminar in July and the booklet is translated and printed in Bahasa Indonesia. We are preparing to film the family home evening presentation, using a local Indonesian family. We have had some road blocks but the Lord opens another road and we just keep going. We see the hand of the Lord is his work everyday.

Last week we had the opportunity to visit a new place in Central Java. We live in West Java, then there is Central Java and then East Java. We went to Jojakarta. The mission couple the Taylor's met us at the airport they took us right to the church where they were teaching an English class. It is like the one that we help teach only it is for the Jr and Senior High school students there in Jojakarta. They have class 3 times a week, but on Fri night they have American night and Sister Taylor fixes them an American dinner. She had fixed spaghetti with meatballs and they sang On Top of Spaghetti all covered with cheese. It was really fun. We stayed with them at their house.


We got up early on Sat so we could go see Kaliuran a working volcano, but you couldn't see the top of the mountain because it was cloudy and rainy. We hiked up to a waterfall there and there were monkeys everywhere. We had brought bananas and fed the monkeys on the way up and then we brought some peanuts to feed them again. I had a package in my hand. I had thought I need to keep these secure so I had them cupped tightly in my hands up against my chest. Well a monkey jumped up at me grabbed the bag and was gone before I could even blink my eyes. He spilled them all over in the process though so they all came running to get the peanuts. I think I will give up on monkeys. They are just too sneaky.

We then went to the Pramabanan Temple. It had about 30 little temples all around it, which were destroyed when there was an earthquake in 2006. They are trying to put some of them back together, but it seems like an endless task to me. We were able to see the Volcano though in the distance. It was very interesting. Wish they could visit some of our temples and see what a real temple looks like. We then went and did a little shopping, and we saw a lady actually making some batik fabric. What a process! It is really interesting. We went to church with the Taylor's the next morning. They have a really good branch that they are working with. These people in the church everywhere we go are really strong in the gospel. They treated us so good. After church we took them to the Golf course for another wheelchair ceremony. It makes me feel really out of place to be there on Sunday, but the Muslins big day for church is on Friday.

We had a lunch at the pres house, which was for all the employees of the service center this week before they all had some days off. It was an Indonesian Dinner and I quite enjoyed most of the food. I think my tongue has been fried so many times it doesn't taste or feel it anymore. The celebration this week was for the Accession of Christ. Don't ask me who makes up all these holidays.

The whole district had a 3-day camp out of all of the Youth. At first I thought it was a ward campout, because I saw some babies there, but it was just Mothers who went to help with the food preparation. It had been raining and it was wet and muddy, but they didn't seem to care. They would run around in their flip-flops and then they would run through a stream of water and clean them off and away they would go. The President talked to them. He had them read in their scriptures and the strength of youth booklet and they all had them. Even with it raining and wet and they were having a great time. It was a faith building experience for me to see how these youth were just having a great experience despite all the obstacles that they had in front of them.

So here we are to Easter. The President is gone to Central Java for a zone conference so I thought I better have the Elders over for an Easter Dinner. The AP to the Pres both were leaving in the afternoon, but they said they would delay their flight as late as possible so they could have dinner with us. Sat I fixed yummy potatoes, Jell-O, carrots and made a cake for some strawberry short cake. We also had some ham so it was a nice Easter Dinner. We had Elder and Sister Pier come for dinner too. We really don't have a lot of room to feed everybody, but they don't seem to mind as long as there is enough to eat. Elder Bastain the other day said I don't care what we have for dinner as long as you cook it. I love the food that you fix. That was quite the compliment. I don't have them over to eat that often either. Elder Teng asked the other day when we were coming to inspect the apt. And I said maybe it will be a surprise inspection. He said, I don't care, but I hope it is soon we need some cookies.

We went to these places in Jojakarta. This is a temple built by the hindu. It had several smaller temples around it which were destroyed two years ago in an earth quake. In the background you can see an active valcano. We went up to a waterfall there by the valcano. It was all very interesting. It was raining most of the time we were there, but it is always warm so you don't pay to much attention to the rain unless it really rains like it does sometimes.

We have had a busy week. The time goes fast when it is busy, but it seems like we have had two weeks in one because we have had to do so much. The Baldwins who are the missionary couple that we report from Hong Kong came in last Saturday. We went to church up in Bogor where he met with the Branch Pres. We met with Brother and Sister Kane

They spent Monday with us and went through things in our office and asked lots of questions. We spent all day with them until 8 pm. We had to be in Bogor at 8 am so it was an early morning. We visited the toilet project on the way. Then we went up into the mountains to a water project which is two miles away. All of the men hiked up into the mountain to see the head of the spring. Sister Baldwin did not have hiking shoes so the women stayed back, but we went into the village which was a good mile up into there. We had fun visiting some of the village people. I forgot my candy and the kids were very scared of us. Dad slipped off the trail and fell into a rice field. He was all muddy when he came back.

We left early again the next day and went to Chimpanek where there is another toilet project planned to begin really soon. Then we went to the Safari. We all had a good time there. The Kanes met us there. The Baldwins really enjoyed the time there and there was so much more to see and they would have liked to spend more time, but we had so much planned. We had to leave to go see a pathway that LDSC is putting together for some school children. It was a long hike and it had been raining so the pathway was really slick. I was really uncomfortable and was glad when we were all back safe. We went to see another project. We had to hurry home because Elder Baldwin had a meeting scheduled with a district president here in Jakarta at 6:30. I had asked it I needed to be to the meeting and he said no, but Elder Walker has to be there. When we pulled into the driveway Elder and Sister Davis were standing there and the said they were going to Amigo's and asked us to come along. I decided to go with them and left them all standing there in the driveway.
I got very brave this time!

A very pregnant chimp

We met Pres and Sister Marchant, Elder and Sister Taylor and Pier and the restaurant. Sister Marchant and I were sitting together and the server went to put fruit drink on the table and I don't know what happened, but he poured it on both of us. We were all laughing and we told him it was Ok. The owner came over and her apologized and felt so bad. He didn't realize that he had spilled it on me too, which I was glad because they went and brought a blouse for Sister Marchant, which she flatly refused to take, and I was glad I didn't have to deal with that. I told the owner that it was just an accident and to not worry about it. He said, I saw you up in Bandung and I remember your badge and I know that you are good people. We have eaten at Amigos in Bandung. They gave us all chips and salsa, which they charge extra for here and also big fruit plates for dessert. So it was great, but I hope the server didn't lose his job.

The next day we flew to Solo to see another water project. The men again climbed up into the mountain. After we went and saw the area where they had the floods in Dec. These people don't have anything and now they really don't have anything. It really makes me sad, but yet they are so happy. They just take life in their stride and they go on. We flew back and the flight last one hour, but it took us over one and half hours to get back to Senopati.

We had a nice trip up to Medan. We took some time to go and visited a church that someone told us was really nice. It was very interesting. It was built and is run by a Catholic Father, but it has Hindu architect.

Our friend Purba picked us up after our church on Sunday to take us to the wheelchair ceremony. He had a lunch for us. One of those famous Indonesian lunches where they bring all kinds of things in little bowls and put them on the table. After he said to us do you want some tea or coffee? Elder Subandriyo, Pres and Sister Marchant and the two of us were all there. We said, "We don't drink coffee or tea." He said, "That is interesting, because you all have a light in your face and in your eyes. Is it because you don't drink these things?" We all thought that was interesting that he was seeing that. He is not Muslim. He is Christian and before we ate he said a prayer and when we were through eating he had Ralph offer a prayer. The wheelchair ceremony was really special. I watched as different people came in carrying someone in their arms that needed a wheelchair and it was so exciting to see as they placed them in a wheelchair and to watch the look on their faces. One lady came in crawling on her knees. There were several little children also. It is truly a blessing for them. We don't know how blessed we are until we see things like this. We are grateful for the opportunity we have to be apart of this great work. We watched them as they loaded the wheelchair up on a motorcycle that has a cart on the side of it. They would put the person in the cart and the wheelchair on back of the cart and then they would take off. Friday, they had a district Relief Society meeting and also a training meeting for the Branch Presidencies. It was the Hindu New Year so everyone had the day off. I don't know how many more New Years there are going to be. We have had the regular NY and the Chinese NY, the Muslin New Year and now Hindu. I am wondering what is next. Anyway they all spent the whole day at the church. This happens every time they have a holiday they like to spend it together so they have something always going on at the church. I worked with the District RS Pres and got her to help get the yarn and she made some instructions in Indonesian so the ladies can crochet these little preemie beanie hats. There were about 20 ladies and some of them did OK, but it was hard to help them because they could not understand me. But I hope that they catch the spirit and they are able to make a bunch of them. My idea is to teach these Indonesian sisters how to make them so when we leave they can carry on this project. The district Relief Society Pres was helping too, but there were too many too help.