My Pick

This week was filled with training and reading and Email coordination. Two days of the week I had training that was scheduled for me about security and safety overseas. The other days of the week I had to figure out something on my own. It is a good challenge to have. Even when I wasn't scheduled to be anywhere, I still got up and went to work to make sure I did something productive. It is a rare opportunity to be able to choose what I will study and when. It was surprisingly difficult! I feel like I spent the time well attending lectures, reading, sending and reading Email, doing research, finding out more about resources available to me for future reference, and working on my schedule for the next couple of months.
Oh, and one exciting thing for me . . . I picked up a map of the world that shows the time zones and U.S. Embassies and other posts overseas and ordered a big wall map of Indonesia!
We had a couple of crazy days this week, too. The craziest was the day the power went out at 8:30 p.m. and didn't come back on until 2:30 p.m. the next day. I went for an early morning run that morning only to realize afterward that our water heater has some kind of electrical component. I had to take a shower anyway. It was VERY cold. After a couple of minutes it wasn't too bad, because my skin was numb by that time. It would have been 100% torture if I hadn't run that morning and been really hot. Anyway, I'm thankful for electricity for sure. I was thinking that maybe when I live in Indonesia and it is 95 degrees every day, I might pick cold showers every day to cool off!

Oath

On Friday I finished orientation and was officially sworn in! I am an official of the U.S. Government, a commissioned officer. It is exciting and amazing to think about it. I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution and do my best ("well and faithfully discharge the duties of the Office"). I will do my best to serve my country and the citizens of my country; that is the reason I pursued my job and now it is also the promise I have made.
I have noticed that whenever oaths of service are taken that it is no longer about the individual in the office, but about something bigger and more important that needs to be done. The individual plays a part, but it is about serving the greater good and sacrificing one's own interests for the benefit of others. This kind of selfless service, (isn't service always supposed to be selfless?), interestingly also builds the individual engaged in the service. I think it is one of the secrets of life--understanding the power of service to lift and enrich all those involved in it, particularly if it is done selflessly and for a cause greater than one's own interest. The words "swear" and "oath" come from Old English. They are words that have been around a long time--more than a thousand years. They also have a lot of layers of meaning. When I swear in, which is to take an oath, I feel a weight to fulfill a big responsibility whatever the size of my particular job at the moment and to work for the success of the whole.
I pray that I will "well and faithfully discharge" any and all of the duties I have taken or responsibilities that may be mine. And I pray that I will remember the significance of taking an oath to do so.

What's the news?

The news is . . .

I have been assigned to Surabaya, Indonesia!

Indonesian Flag

Surabaya symbol:

A shark and an alligator battling for dominion

I will move next year, at the end of summer, and will do training of various kinds until that time, including learning Indonesian.

This was one of several places on my list I thought would be good to go to. It will be good. The school is good, the assignment is good, I learn a new language. Indonesia is the 4th most populous country in the world, behind China, India, and the United States of America. Surabaya is the second largest city in Indonesia, after the capitol of Jakarta, and has many more people than in my whole home state of Utah! It also has a couple of branches of the Church and is part of the Indonesia Jakarta mission. When they gave out the assignments on Friday afternoon, my assignment was announced second-to-last! As assignments were announced for others I was trying to remember what was left. It was intense. This is the right one for us.

In other news this week: I had a lot going on at work. I received my Russian score, which was about what I expected and good enough to not need any additional training in that language if I get a future assignment that requires it. (Wahoo!) I also got back results of a test that supposedly assesses my ability to learn a language, not counting the all-important factor of motivation, and apparently I should be able to learn languages really well. Great. This week I also had some pretty intense practical exercises like answering tough questions on the spot and giving a speech. It was also intense waiting until Friday afternoon to find out my assignment.

We went out to eat to celebrate on Friday night and visited a couple of fun sights on Saturday, including Madame Tussaud's, which is where I got the first picture in this post.

Russkii i dom

This week much of my focus has been on two things: the Russian language and the sell of my home.

These two things have occupied any free "brain" time I have had this week.

In the evenings, and sometimes early mornings, as much as I could I listened to Russian news podcasts and read articles in Russian. At lunchtime I did not eat with others but went instead to a place where there are old Russian-language magazines and newspapers and I spent my lunch time reading them. Whenever I could remember, I prayed in Russian and talked

to myself in Russian about whatever was running through my head and I even translated in my head sometimes when people were speaking.

Why all this work and craziness? I took a 2-hour language test on Friday afternoon. Part of it was speaking and part of it was reading. The test is designed to be as difficult as possible to find out where the upper limit of ability is. It was pretty tough when they wanted to get into a technical political debate with me and I that seemed to be about my limit. On the reading they only give you a couple of minutes to read passages and tell them what they are about (not necessarily translate, but describe and give context, and so forth). It was challenging and I knew it would be.

The other thing that took up some of my brain-time and time-time this week was the sell of our

home. After what seems like forever waiting for it to happen, it actually closed this week! Since we were doing it long-distance we had to sign the paperwork on our own, fax it, and send it in FedEx. We barely made it (thanks to FedEx being a few minutes late to pick up). A lot of rushing around and worry, but it is done. Thanks to our Realtor and friend for all of her help.

I also thought it was interesting that on Wednesday night we had a notary come over to certify some of the documents that required a notary and . . . . she was a Russian!

Russkii (Russian) i (and) dom (home) -- done!