JULY

Another month has gone by and we don't know where it has gone. It was full with a lot of activity. Our Family Enrichment Program (FEP) is just beginning as there are two Ministries seeking funds in their budgets for next year to foster the family night concept. One of those is the Ministry of Education which is trying to test the concept in a small segment of their jurisdiction before going nation wide, at which time there will be millions distributed. We are meeting with Soeryo who managed the events of the Seminar, on a weekly basis. We are preparing for a seminar in Medan next week. We told Hong Kong that this project may be closed in about six months financial but otherwise this project will never be closed. Family Home Evenings will be promoted for a long time in Indonesia.

We visited a community center near Sukabumi two weeks ago to help them with some funding for equipment for the center. Mention of the FEP program manual was made and Dr. Zaenab she said that she was there at the Seminar in Jakarta and felt that it would be of great benefit for this village and wanted to present it to the parents of the nursery, however she said that the manual was too complicated for the parents to understand. She added that the parents in the villages of Indonesia don't have more the a 6th or 7th grade education. We were shocked and realized that we were going to have to simplify the manual for the villages. We came back to a meeting with Elder Subandriyo and Soeryo of GNKS and they agreed that the manual had to be simplified for the 75% of the Indonesians who live in the villages. It will be about 25 pages. It will be cheaper to print and less costly to distributed with the DVD throughout Indonesia. It is universally agreed upon that the DVD is the best teacher to teach Indonesians how to have a family home evening, the manual is necessary to help them on subject matter for lessons.

President Marchant will be distributing this manual to all the member families in Indonesia at District conferences in October and missionaries will be using the manual for a way to visit with parents and families prior to being taught. The missionaries can't proselyte in Indonesia so this is a way to meet families and afterwards teach them the gospel. We believe that this will make a big difference in the way Indonesians will perceive the church and maybe help the gospel roll forth. You all may have seen the article in the Church News on "Indonesian Program focuses on family". (Aug 2, 2008) We were blessed to have been inspired to help start this program.

Our clean water seminar with Elder and Sister Frandsen turned out fairly well. They came into Jakarta on Monday morning July 7, and left on Sunday afternoon for Thailand. We had a full program for them every day meeting with water engineers, designers, supervisors of clean water crews and water monitors. We visited three different water systems on the Island of Java. We all learned a lot about clean water systems and needed the training. Looking over these projects that have been constructed over the past four years we can see great improvement in their construction. Pipes are being buried, tanks are being covered and villagers are better prepared to maintain the systems.

Up to the time that we came to the Jakarta there was only one Engineer and contractor working in the Clean Water Systems for LDSC. Now we have expanded this three times. And these two new engineers and designers and contractors are members of the church who are hiring members of the church to do the work in supervising villagers in the construction of the systems. What a blessing this is for many members of the church who find it difficult to find jobs. But also a great blessing comes to the 160,000 who are in the process of receiving clean water for the first time in their lives. We are just completing this month a system in Central Java, near Solo where 18,500 will be receiving the clean water and that contractor will be moving to North Sumatra near Medan to work on another project there. We will be visiting that site about three times before the end of the year.

We have just submitted three more new projects to Hong Kong for approval. We just received word that they likely will be approved. One is for the village center near Sukabumi where we will be furnishing it with three computers, three sewing machines and tables, chairs and desks for the adult education, nursery, and medical clinic which is all in this village center. We will be using family members who need Eagle Scout projects to help collect children books for the English classes. The second project is for chairs-desk combination for a school in the Solo area. Nontin who is the NGO for our water project just finishing in Solo also has a school there and we will be helping her with a 100 chairs desks for her school, and the third project is money to buy material, yarn, and hooks for crocheting baby hats and blankets for babies in hospitals. This project has been very successful in teaching Indonesian sister how to crochet and sew. We have been told that we have used our entire budget for Indonesia this year and we will not be able to submit any other projects. Here we are in August and it looks like we are through for the year. Not quite so. That was for area initiatives. We have Major initiatives which cover wheelchair projects and clean water projects. We have a lot of work to do in major initiatives. So no rest for the wicked??

We have a new couple that just arrived in the mission two weeks ago; they are Elder and Sister Reber. They received their call from Lindon,Utah, but are originally from New Mexico. They are a delightful couple and will be fun to work with. We hope they will be able to help us a bit. We have had five couple missionaries go home and two more in the fall which leaves us with just three couples besides ourselves. That's 10 couples to four. We need the couples for these Branches to help them grow. Word needs to go out for more couple missionaries and they need to volunteer to come to Indonesia. We love the work. We feel great strength spiritually as we serve. We know the gospel is true.

JUNE

The month of June was spent mainly in preparation for the Family Enrichment Seminar which was held on July 4 & 5. It took a lot of time and kept us very busy, yet we still had to keep up with the water projects and cleft palate surgeries.

The seminar was incredible. This is what we have been working on for the last nine months and it turned out very good. We anticipated having 300 in attendance and there were 377 who attended. The following day was to train the participants to train other people how to have a Family Home Evening. We were expecting 100 to come and there were 150. We have received very good reviews especially from the Minister of Social Affairs who would be equivalent to Mike Leavitt in the USA. He was very pleased with the seminar. Now we can say it is like dropping a big boulder in a lake and watching the ripples go out from there. We are now feeling the ripples and many people are asking to have a seminar in their Regions. The first will be in Solo in Central Java where the Minister of Education wants to include this family evening program in packets that will be sent out to millions of Indonesians. We can hardly believe this ripple. Another ripple came from Medan where our friend Palin Purba (a legislator and President of the Lions Club) is setting up a seminar for the Medan Region. He had four ladies here to learn the program so that they could present it in Medan. A ripple is coming from Bengkulu where we helped in the earthquake emergency relief last September right after we arrived in the mission field, and there are others.

This evening as we were evaluating the seminar and the success and areas that could be improved with the Professors and Author who were visiting from BYU, Soeryo who is the chairperson of the Seminar an advocate of the Family Enrichment Program told us about his experience in holding family home evening. He said that in order for him to recommend this to the Minister of Social Affairs he needed to try it out for himself. He said that it was hard at first, but as time went on each week it got easier. By the 3rd week his boys were asking when they were going to have FHE. He has three boys who are 11, 7, and 3 years. His family was enjoying the experience and have felt some very positive effects, but the real effect was when the teacher of one of the boys called to say that their son had changed completely. He had been shy and reserved and now he will stand up in class will sing and answer questions. She wanted to know what had changed in their home to cause such a change in this boy. Their experience in home evening has given their son confidence and self esteem. This family just happens to be Muslim. What a testimony that becomes in such a short time from some one who is leading out in this program.


We could not believe the excitement after the seminar was over with the maneuvering with different groups wanting pictures take with different ones wanting to stand next to us. Many we didn't even know. We think that they have seen us in their offices as we went from one Minister's office to other to promote the program. We have made a lot of friends in high places within the government through this program. We have visited with Ministers of Education, Christian Affairs, Islamic Affairs, and Director of Family Planning, Woman Empowerment and on and on. We also visited with several NGO's who have great interest in the program. Out of this, Latter-day Saint Charities and the Church has gained great respect from many places. Alwi Schihab who is one of our friends made two different references to the Church in his presentation before the audience. President Marchant spoke in Bahasa Indonesian and made reference to Brigham Young University being own and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all before television cameras and news media. We have seen the Lord's hand in all of this with one stumbling block after another overcome which is testimony in of itself that the Lord wanted this program for Indonesia.

Then on Friday we left here at 7:00 am. Registration was to begin at 8:00 am, but there were a lot of people there already to go in. It was just amazing they just kept coming. The program was good and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. The next morning we left early again they were taking the participants by bus to the other location. When we got to the hotel they had to call for another bus, plus they were all the mission cars and many people drove there themselves. I talked to one man there and he had got up at 3:30 to get there in time to ride the bus. We had over 150 there. We thought maybe we would get 100 to come. They all enjoyed the less formal situation and also the group was divided into 3 groups so they were able to have more participation from the groups. It went from 10 to 3:30 and it was hard to get people to leave they wanted more. I would have to say it was a huge success and worth all of the work we have put into it. We had an evaluation meeting after with Subandriyo, Soreyo, the Palmers and the people from BYU. Everyone felt it was great. Sister Sheffield who wrote the book was so helpful and is going to aid us in getting the story about Indonesia into the booklet. She is an incredible lady and her story about how the book came to be is also incredible. This is truly the work of Heavenly Father. We told her about some of the hurdles we have had to go over and she made the statement that you know it is the Lord's work then, because if you don't have any stumbling blocks (which is Satan) in your path you know that he was in there working to stop the program. We saw so many stumbling block especially in the last weeks. The President would not let any of us wear our missionary badges either day. I wished so many times I had it on because people wonder who we were.

May

The month of May has gone so fast. It seems that the pace of the work is picking up. The first part of May we hiked the new water project in the Lembung area of Bandung which is about a two hour drive. Elder and Sister Davis are there as the site manages of the Clean Water Project. The water comes from clean mountain streams and is drinkable. We hike about eight kilometers in total through some of the most beautiful mountain train ever. What a blessing this is for these people to get clean water for the first time in their lives. Most of the water has to be piped in two 4" PVC pipe twelve kilometers before it is distributed to the five different villages. Large cement tank are constructed to distribute the water to surrounding villages. These five villages were not sure we were serious about this project because they have had so many groups come and with the idea that they could do the job, but would soon back away and not proceed.

We went to the opening ceremony for the project. This was quite the celebration. They had some stuffed lions on a couple of platforms with large poles that 4 guys put on their shoulders. Dad and Elder Davis got on the lions and the men pick them up and carried them up a small hill to where the program was being held. There was a band playing music all along with them too. (women are not important here) This was some celebration. After they got all the speeches over with. They had food, music and singing. Then they put the elders on the lions and they did all kinds of trick and things as they were dancing around. I don't know how they were able to carry Dad up there. I had to be very hard on their shoulders and then did are these acrobat things too.

The Cleft Lip and Palate project was scheduled for latter part of July; however the surgeons who have volunteered to perform 50 surgeries decided move the schedule to the first part of June. The Area Presidency has asked us to present a puppet show to teach about good hygiene and addictions. This required us to scramble a bit to get everything ready as the puppet stage and puppets were in a different area of Western Java. We took the puppet show to the Bogar Branch on Sunday and visited with the youth about presenting the show to the patients and parents at the hospital on Thursday afternoon. I was concerned because of the late notice and about their ability to do the job but the Young Woman's President was so positive about it that she had enough volunteers. Today we saw her at a funeral service and she said that the kids were practicing the show that day.

We went to a gong factory and then went to a little place that make these puppets that we see everywhere. There was a man sitting on the ground carving the heads of these puppets by hand. He just sits there all day. Then inside their house they had shelves and shelves of puppets. We picked out a set and it wasn't quite like how we wanted it so they vanish the heads the color we wanted and then they dressed them also. It was so fun to watch as the Father was carving and painting the heads and his wife and daughter were dressing each one of them.

The next week we hiked parts of the Nanggung clean water project with Elder and Sister Kane. This was kind of a hand over ceremony to Elder and Sister Walker since they are leaving. This water project is in the Bogor Region where the Kane's served. This is the same kind of terrain that we experience in Bandung except this is rice growing country where the mountains are terraced for the rice paddies. (see picture) So much of the water in rice country is contaminated with chemicals; this water is not good for drinking. Here we have to go deeper into the mountains to find the spring water.

We also hiked the pathway project we took over from Elder and Sister Kane. This is quite a hike just to get to the pathway and then the pathway is about 600 meters long. They have been taking a long time to complete this project and we gave them just two months complete it or it will get canceled. They understood that we were serious and would organize the villager's workers to get it completed. This pathway of concrete is to help the children get to school and back to there home without getting muddy and wet. It will be used by all villagers as well.

We are getting ready now for the Family Enrichment Program Seminar. We will be having a meeting on June 5th and filming of the Indonesia family home evening we take place on July 7th and 8th. We are excited about what this is going to do for Indonesia and the effect this might have on the growth of the Church here.

We have also submitted a project for a Seminar on Clean Water Project, teaching current and future engineers, designers, and contractors about Clean Water Projects. The projects calls for some specialist from SLC to be the teachers and we will take tours into the current water projects to evaluate what might done to increase the longevity of a clean water system. This project if approved will take place in mid-July.

Time is going by so fast. Half our mission time has gone. It just seems like we just got here. We have a lot of work to do and it looks at this point there will be plenty of work for the next couple who comes to Indonesia. We love the work and the people. They treat us like a King and Queen. We are always ask to set on the front row of Ceremonies and everyone wants to shake our hands, except the little kids who are scared of us. They warm up to us as we spent time with their parents and shake their hands.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

A Birthday Song for Grandma!

April

Wheelchair Deliveries
Our good friend Jemmy Mongan who has helped us so much with the family enrichment program mentioned that he had a good friend who belonged to a Christian Church that needed three wheelchairs for members of his church. After we got the wheelchairs shipped to various destinations like Surabaya, Central Java, Semarang, and Jogjakarta, where our couple missionaries were to distribute these chairs, we took three wheelchairs to his church one Sunday. That was quite the experience. There was a lady there who was 87 years old, who needed a wheelchair. We had taken one for her. Then we took some wheelchairs to a couple of older men who lived close by. As we went to the house of the one man we entered it and there was no furniture in the place that he lived, but in a small dark bedroom there a wooden bed with nothing else on it except a little man. He had a small rag, which looked like a small towel. The men lifted him into the wheelchair and wheeled it out into the sunshine. The preacher of the Christian Church told us that he had not been out of the bed for about 6 months. His little granddaughter jumped right up into his lap. It was so cute. We then took one to another man. Jemmy's friend was there also. We invited us to his place. He owns a little grocery store and he took us to his office and we talked to him about our church and the English classes. He was interested in both. Later Jemmy called and invited him to church next week. He said he would be there, but he wanted us to be there also. We went to church today and he was there and had a lot of questions about the church. He is going to attend District conference next week in Jakarta and bring his family.

We had a wheelchair ceremony on top of a mountain and was quite the sight. These are really poor people. Three people were brought and carried in. One woman who had brought her husband in was sitting there just sobbing. I went over to comfort her and she just hugged and hugged and hugged me. She spoke through an interpreter and said she just couldn't believe that anybody would care about them like that and just give them something that they needed so bad. Now her husband was crying. She showed me the bones that had been taken out of his hip of course that is all they did so he was not able to walk. So this was a gift to her as much as it was to him because now she could help him get around. It was very touching and brought tears to the eyes of us all. Before the ceremony was over there were about 20 men and woman who had a new wheel chair. Their faces were as bright as the sunshine that was all around us.

We went to another wheel chair ceremony. It is gratifying to be apart of being able to give something to someone in need. A family brought a picture of a teenager who had a tumor below her knee. Her leg was as big as a large cantaloupe. Then they showed a picture of her where they had amputated her leg below the knee. We gave them a wheelchair.

Family Enrichment

We now have a partner in the Family Enrichment Program (FEP) who is National Movement of the Social Interest. They will be implementing the FEP. This Non Government Organization (NOG) manages the Indonesian Social Affairs. Their government's mandate is to expand n1. National Health Care, 2. Education 3. Strengthening Families. They where looking for some way to strengthen families and we happened to be at the right place and the right time. We were about ready to give up when Elder Sugandriyo suggested that we talk to your good friend Parlin Purba is the Legislator for the Medan Region. He has handled 500 wheelchairs for LDSC in that Region for us and has been very much a friend. They made an appointment with Parlin Purba and that's all it took. He was able to direct us to National Movement of the Social Interest.

We have a couple here Bertha and Hendro (they are on the LDSC team) who are professional in the recording industries here. They are going to make a family home evening video to go with the Family Enrichment booklet. We spent the morning with them discussing what needed to be on the DVD. The DVD will have government leader's support and financial sponsor's statements. Offering a segment on how to organize family night, a family planning chart, and helpful hints for a "Weekly Family Night", ideas for lessons, and for activities, and clips of several families expressing how "Weekly Family Night" has strengthened their family. Events of this seminar will be televised and special attention will be given to the DVD clip on an Indonesian family ma family home evening which is anticipated to be repeated several times during the week. At the end of each DVD presentation of the family night, explanation will be made as to where a Family Enrichment Program manual can be obtained. It is intended that a copy of the DVD will be distributed with each family enrichment Program manual. The NGO is prepared to obtain sponsors enough to finance 100,000's of these manuals.

Then we went to another meeting and met with a group that are going to sponsor the whole seminar. The Lord really provided a way for his work to be done, because these people are amazing and they are going to pay for the whole thing and make all the arrangments for it. We are just going to have to support them. We are having some people come out from the BYU to speak and be involved in the seminar including the author of the FE booklet. They are impressed I think that we can come up with professional people who will come and be involved like this. Elder Palmer is helping them to also speak in 2 other countries here nearby. It is going to be on the 4th and 5th of July.

Water Projects

We have the clean water project started for Central Java which will carry over to North Sumatra in about four months. We went last week to Central Java for the opening ceremony. It seems that the Indonesian people like to have ceremonies for everything. Opening, then closing and next week we go to Bogor for ceremony for a clean water project which is in process, but just a different stage. At each of these ceremonies they have to have their Indonesian food, now that is something we could do without, especially in the rural areas of Indonesia where we question the way the food has been prepared and cooked. Most of the Indonesia food is cold when you eat it. Sometimes we think it has been around for days before it is eaten.

We just got word yesterday that another clean water project will be approved which will bring the total water project to four projects in process. These water projects are in different Regions of Indonesia whereas in the past they have mainly be in the Bogor Region. With these projects there will be nearly 200,000 people who will have clean water that have never had clean water before at an average cost of about $5.50 per person.

Medical Care

We had an appt with Dr Risma. We had taken some of the little beanie hats to her and she asked if we would come to her hospital and meet again. She took us into the nurseries where all the preemie babies and the babies who were in ICU. They had 4 full nurseries with babies. 1. Very critical care babies 2. Critical care babies 3. Serious care 4. Good. We saw a baby who was born with no skin covering over the stomach area. They had all of the little organs in a plastic bag (just like the way it was with Preston. They were working to increase the cavity so they could put them back into the area where they belonged. They have a lot of good equipment, but they told us they have to improvise a lot. Like the plastic bag they were using in this case. They had a baby that had just been born the day before and he weighed 2 ½ pounds, so tiny, but he was doing Ok. However they said they didn't have any more room there so his twin could not be brought there. So he would problem just die. This is a very poor hospital, however they said that parents can't afford the care that these babies need so they usually just abandon them. So most of these children if they make it are just sent to an orphanage. They said sometimes when the babies are better the parents will show up. There were 3 Drs we met there and they were all women. Very good Drs, but they have a lot of work there. They were caring for about 50 babies. They said that sometime they put 2 babies in one incubator, but they can't do that if they are critical care, but there is such a need and not enough equipment for everybody. They asked if we would be able to buy some baby scales for them. We are going to try and help them with this.

We got approval for 100 more Cleft Lip and Palate surgeries. Dad was really elated and almost jumped for joy. We have worked so hard to convince them that we needed to do these things. We had to prove to them that Smile Foundation were not doing any work here in Indonesia.

Missionary Work

Jemmy's friend who is Brother Weten asked us to come to his house. We drove quite a ways to his house when we got there is a grocery store which the family operates. Brother Weten has another job and his family manages the store. As we visited I explained that in our church we handle the Sacrament Service much different and he needed to come to our church. He said "I will do that".
He has a lovely wife and two daughters; I would guess about 14 and 16. Brother Weten came to church the next Sunday which was General Conference for us and he was overwhelmed with the feeling of the spirit as he entered the chapel. He brought a friend with him who works with Catholic Humanitarian Service. I offered some wheelchairs for him if he had some recipients who were in need. We haven't heard from him yet, but we feel we will hear from him. After Brother Weten and his friend heard about three speakers at General Conference Jemmy took them on a tour of the building telling them about the programs of the church and then we sat in the foyer of the church and told the Joseph Smith story. After we visit and answer many questions, Brother Weten asks, "How does one become a member of your church". The missionaries are now meeting with them; they seem to be very receptive to the message of the restored gospel. He said that he wants to bring his family back to church, he wants them to feel the feeling he felt when he walked into the chapel. Last Sunday he came and brought his family and his father. His mother would have been there but she had a small accident and stayed home. He is intrigued with the idea that the church is organized the same way the church was organized at the time of Christ and continuing revelation with a Prophet and apostles. His wife seems to be very interested as well as the daughters. We believe they will become members of the Church. They each have their own copy of the Book of Mormon.

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We went to Bandung on Thursday afternoon. That evening we went to a movie with the Davis. We went to Rin Tin Tin. It was a really fun movie. When we came out there was a couple behind us and they said we were sitting right behind us guys and notice how much you were laughing and enjoying the movie. They asked if we were Christian and we said yes. They were too. We talked to them for a while and told them about the English class at the church. They said they might come. They wanted to take our picture and got our email address. They have sent a copy of the picture already and said they hope to meet us again. You just never know when you are planting seeds for someone else to come along and convert them.

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.