Historic

I kind of like it when I experience something that feels historic. It feels good, and a little strange and uncomfortable. It's like something that is happening around you and inside of you that you can't really explain to others well enough that they can understand. Have you ever been in a situation that someone later wrote about in an article? Sometimes what is written sounds something like what you experienced but almost like something that happened somewhere else to someone else?
When I was a missionary in Latvia, James E. Faust came and dedicated the country for the preaching of the gospel. It was an amazing experience and something I will never forget. When I later read about it in the Church News it sounded similar to what I had experienced, but not exactly. But more than that, it felt different reading it than actually experiencing it. It was almost two different experiences from the perspective of how it felt.
Hmm... not sure if I'm explaining this exactly right. I have heard many people, including myself, try to explain what it was like to be a missionary. I remember others explaining it to me before I was one. The explanation and the reality just never seem to really match up. It is very difficult to give a sense of something experienced, especially something significant, or historic, in a few words. Some are much better at it than me, but I still think that what is sometimes conveyed well is a certain aspect of the thing when reality is much more layered and complex. It is much easier when the other person has experienced something similar, but still challenging. When they have a frame-of-reference similar to what you are explaining it is easier to understand and harder the more you have to explain, though perhaps not impossible.
That is my thought as intro to saying that it has been an interesting and in some ways "historic" week. We broke the record for the snowiest winter on record in this area. But that doesn't explain what it was like to be in it. It meant historic firsts for my life like having-time-that-was-not-really-work-and-not-really-vacation-and-I-didn't-physically-go-in, but my-work-is-learning-a-language-and-I-still-did-my-best-to-keep-up-with-it-and-progress. Some of the things I experienced include: running in the snow in the early morning and having to run in the street because the snow was piled as high as me on the sides of the road and sidewalks; seeing every member of my family nearly all day long for days; trying to study with children running around in our small apartment; outside looking like someone had a giant snow machine on for hours upon hours; my back sore for days because of the hours of shoveling; most of the hours of shoveling was just the space around my car; playing on a ton of snow on a tennis court on a sunny but cold day with my children on what should have been a work and school day; weeks without formal church meetings, which has felt very strange for me after having so many church meetings for so many years; stake conference being cancelled; attending a young single adult ward with my wife and children in Washington DC; teaching a class in that ward with my wife; having a good time on a date to dinner with my wife and our friends who are not members of our church; doing better than I expected on an Indonesian written test I took a week ago and only was able to check a week later; seeing ancient clay figures from China (terra-cotta warriors) on display with my oldest son; feeling far away from family; getting to know my own family; etc; etc. Naming it doesn't give a sense of what it was like, but it is a start. This week was historic. But isn't every week in some way in our own lives historic?

Snow-what!

Okay. I don't mean to sound repetitive since I already talked about snow a few weeks ago, but it snowed big again!
In December we had the biggest December snowstorm ever here and #7 on the all time list. Over this last weekend we had the 4th largest storm at Reagan National and it was #1 at Dulles Airport. We are located a little closer to Reagan, but in between those two airports. It was one of the largest ever. If we get just a few more inches snow it will be the snowiest winter ever in the DC area! The National Weather Service says that Washington DC has had more than 13 inches of snow only 13 times since 1870. Two of them have been this year! I'm not superstitious, but am beginning to wonder if it's me. Wherever I go, it seems to snow! It's a good thing I like snow.
Because the system here is not made to have big snowstorms, it cripples the area. We didn't have church meetings last Sunday because of that weekend's snowstorm, nor today for obvious reasons. We only had a half-day on Friday at work and it's cancelled tomorrow. Our kids have missed a lot of school and will have to make up days over holidays and spring break now. And another big storm is on the horizon for Tuesday night.
Having huge storms is what learning Indonesian is like for me also. I am getting a storm of vocabulary and grammatical elements and every day I am trying to dig out. It gets tiring, but it's also exhilarating. I met with the language learning consultant this week to find different ways to help myself learn the language fast. Before I met with her I took some tests to find out about my style and natural tendencies. Apparently I have a bit higher tolerance than the average learner at FSI for ambiguity, I prefer not to have structure imposed on me and want to do a lot on my own, I have to push myself to talk more, I need to trust my instincts more, I need to take breaks every day and on weekends (not counting sleeping) to let everything sink in, and I shouldn't worry since my learning profile says I should be very successful learning languages. It still feels like I am falling behind and like I will never get to the level of fluency I need. But I can see progress. And most importantly, I am still amazed that I am so blessed to have learning a language as my job. It's a dream come true. So, I took a break on Tuesday night after the consultation and watched Groundhog Day, since it was Groundhog Day. Six more weeks of winter. Really.

One-Liners

Events for the week:

Flashcards
Crash-and-burn dialogue in Indonesian with Instructor
Daughter's birthday
Fun at mall for birthday: hot noodles, ears pierced

Discouraged I can't remember words I've studied

Understanding more anyway

Lecture on Islam in Indonesian for 3 hours

Brain workout every day

Flashcards
Early morning lecture by man who worked in Tehran and became a hostage when the embassy was overrun
Finishing moving someone I am assigned to home teach - finally
Had to borrow a truck to move the bed
But it wouldn't fit up the stairs in the new place
Staying up late preparing first lesson for YSA Sunday School
Catching sight of new family I home teach at FSI just after they found out they're heading to Kuwait
Flashcards

More snow just in time for the weekend
Fun watching "Operation Repo"
Thought daughter lost outside in snow but not lost, just playing in stairwell
Church cancelled in YSA ward
Church "postponed until next week" in our own ward
Trying to read Lehi's Dream part of Book of Mormon in Indonesian
New family I home teach over tonight for cookies and chit-chat

Smorgasbord

I have a smorgasbord of things to report this week:

Monday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and I had the day off work. That's good.
The only problem with the day was that my wife started feeling sick on Sunday night and very early Monday morning before I woke up she drove herself to the doctor's office and came back with a diagnosis of strep throat! I think I already knew how much she does and how much I depend on her, but it is hard to try to pick up even a little of what she does every day. I spent that day getting medicine, doing laundry, cleaning up the things from our weekend trip, cleaning up, cooking, shopping, and trying to keep the children occupied and not fighting. I did go with the children for a couple of hours to do some shopping at Costco and have lunch, which was a bit of a break for all of us, even though that particular Costco is completely crowded and nuts all the time.

On Wednesday I got to go to the Middle School Geography Bee because my oldest son was in it. It was a lot of fun to watch and try to guess the answers to myself. Those kids were good. Mine did really well, even though he did not end up winning. I was glad that it was right during the break in between the two halves of my language instruction so I could go and not miss anything.
On Wednesday night I went to an activity at the church with my oldest daughter and we played a game where you answer questions about yourself and the other person and then match up your answers. We had fun.

On Thursday I attended a Freedom of Conscience Seminar which had its interesting and boring parts, but overall is an interesting subject to me. One of my takeaways from the morning was that it is important to understand the religion and background of the people to understanding them better individually and understanding the culture of the country. It would be wonderful if there was more tolerance of the beliefs of others all around the world. After that, some of my "classmates" and I went to eat Indonesian food with one of our Indonesian teachers. It was some pretty interesting stuff. The anchovies with peanuts and honey tasted pretty good at first and then I started to feel it in my stomach and kept seeing their little eyes staring up at me.
We did keep up on more Indonesian grammar and getting a bunch more words which I still have yet to memorize but I can see some progress. We did have a new development in our class structure as one colleague felt he would be better off working with a group that started a little later than we did to give himself more time to catch up. So we are now down to five. I don't know if this will make it so that we don't split like we were supposed to or not since now we are at the maximum and not above it as before.

I was able to get back into my exercise routine this week after missing a couple of days because of the weekend vacation and family sickness. That helps me think clearly and I like the feeling it gives me like I can do anything.

Last but not least, I had a good time Friday night celebrating my wife's birthday. Luckily, by this time she was all better. Some great ward members and friends offered to watch our kids for her. We watched an old "chick flick" she picked out and had a really good dinner together at Lebanese Taverna and had a dessert she really wanted. She is really amazing and may be the best thing that has ever happened to me.

'Till next week!

Week in Review

This week in review:

We had a good Family Home Evening on Monday that our oldest conducted. We watched the old film about the First Vision and talked about it's significance. It was one of the better ones we've had in a while, in my opinion because we had about five minutes of peace and good discussion.
For this day and all other days this week most of it was about learning more Indonesian: trying so hard to do the homework and listening labs and keep pace. I am not able to spend as much time as I want to sit down and memorize more words. There are so many words that I recognize and should know but have not yet become part of me. Hopefully this will come sooner than later.

On Tuesday we had a film about the crazy time in Indonesia when power changed hands from Sukarno to Suharto and then a lecture from someone who worked for the US Government in Jakarta during that time and later served as ambassador to Indonesia. It was very interesting and informative.

On Wednesday, I had a scheduled break from language training to do "administrative work." I decided that this would be a good time to put in our passport applications for the children since they all had an early out day and they have to be there in person. We trekked down to DC for the task after getting everyone from school. I thought it would be faster to go by car and park nearby and we made it in about 20 minutes. Parking the car reminded me of the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" when he drives up to the parking garage and the attendant takes the key and tells him he'll take good care of it then proceeds to take it for a joy ride. The obvious difference here is that I wasn't worried about them taking our old minivan for a joy ride, so I left the car with the attendants. I then saw across the street in big letters, "Passport Office," and was happy that it was so easy to find. After waiting in line for a little while we realized that they did not have the ability to do photos there, (we thought they would at this particular office), so we left and went down the street to get them for everyone and returned to find the line had grown. After finally arriving at the window, we were asked if we had an appointment, (the answer was no), and found out that that office is for issuing expedited passports for people who need them within days and that the office we were looking for that accepts applications for special passports like the ones we were applying for is in the office building we were in upstairs. Frustrated from going to the wrong place and waiting so long, but grateful that we were now on the right track we went to the right office, which was also much nicer and much less crowded. We put in our applications and photos for 10 passports, (a diplomatic passport for each member of the family plus a regular tourist passport for each of the children), with a very patient and methodical employee. The great news is that the kids were relatively well behaved, their pictures are pretty good, and we got it done!

Thursday and Friday were more intensive language study days. Then after work on Friday, Amy picked me up from work and we drove straight from there to Gettysburg, PA. Because of traffic it took us more than 3 hours instead of less than 2. But we made it and swam in the hotel pool which was a fun experience since we had to get our swimsuits on and run across the parking lot in the cold to get to the building with the pool. We were the only ones in there the whole hour we were there. We had a good time even though the kids were complaining a little about the hotel being older. We tried to explain that there are not many places that will take 6 people in a room and wondered when they became hotel critics. Hmmm....

Saturday we had a lot of fun. We went to the Gettysburg Visitors Center and watched a film and saw a "cyclorama" of the battle and also took a look at the other exhibits. We then went on the auto tour and up the lookout towers. It was a nice day and interesting. We then drove up to Hershey, PA and went to Hershey's Chocolate World. They have a free ride that tells about Hershey and their chocolate and has some really corny music and chocolate candy at the end. Our kids liked it and wanted to go more than once. We also did a chocolate tasting that was pretty fun where we tried different kinds of chocolates: listening to the sound it makes when broken, smelling it, letting it melt on your tongue and describing the different characteristics it exhibits. We also learned a little about the different chocolate contents and different types of beans and where they're from. We had a good meal that night and then swam in that hotel's pool, which also required running outside in our swimsuits.

We came home this morning, a 2 1/2 hour drive, and went to church in the Young Single Adult ward in our stake for sacrament meeting because Amy and I had to give a talk in that ward.

What a week!

Getting into it

Okay. Now I'm really getting into it.

I even bought some dictionaries. My wife laughs at me because I told her I needed different kinds of dictionaries for different kinds of things. I have one for desk reference that is more comprehensive, ("one set" actually, since it is two dictionaries, Indonesian-English and English-Indonesian), one comprehensive but smaller one for everyday reference, and one small phrasebook/dictionary to tote around with me to reference when a word I should know pops into my head and I want to know at that moment what it means. There is still so much Indonesian I don't know, (huge understatement), but it is beginning to feel familiar. That is a really good thing in my experience. If it's sounds and patterns and words are starting to become familiar and almost normal sounding than I feel like I am on the verge of really learning a lot more.
There are still not enough hours in the day, however, to make things really stick. It takes me hours to really get down inside and out a couple dozen words or phrases. When I'm going to need to know tens of thousands; that is a lot of hours. Saturdays are so full of other things and I try not to study on Sundays, so the couple of hours on the evening go pretty fast. I am confident, though, that with a lot of study and trying to do what's right and prayer and keeping the Sabbath day holy that I can be blessed beyond my own ability. I've had this blessing so many times before in my life that I don't know why this time would really be any different. I am really enjoying it, even though my brain feels like it is on fire and completely saturated most of the time.


I did take a course on protocol this past Saturday. It was interesting. Some things I knew and some I wasn't too sure about. The whole point is certain ways things are done so that it's easier to operate understandably in diplomatic events like dinners and receptions and not bring undue negative attention to yourself. We learned about where to sit people, how to eat with the different kinds of silverware and courses, the right way to work a reception, what to wear, how to address and introduce people, etc. Good to know.


We also nailed down some details this week about our new church calling. My wife and I will be teaching a Sunday School class in the Young Single Adult ward in our stake on preparing for marriage. We are excited to do it together. It will be a lot of work, but potentially very rewarding. We will likely start at the end of the month. We will go to the ward next Sunday and give a couple of short talks in Sacrament Meeting and start to get familiar with the ward. I guess I'm not only getting into Indonesian but also a new church calling!

May this coming week be as good as the rest!

Holidays

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
I missed posting something last week since I was having so much fun talking with my parents and siblings at my parent's home in Texas.

It has been a fun couple of weeks.
I was supposed to start the next stage of Indonesian where we actually break up into our smaller classes and get into the textbook material and so on. But one instructor was retiring, our class was not anticipated soon enough to hire another instructor or two in time, and there are several days around Christmas and New Year's when we are supposed to do study on our own and formal class is not held. So we ended up just in the same larger group, doing review of material we already had and finishing up the material we never got to. We also had one day canceled because of the huge snow storm that hit the area.

I took off the only three vacation days I have accumulated to this point and went to a family reunion that my parents have been planning for us for the last 2 1/2 years. Almost all of my siblings were there with their families. We missed my oldest brother and his family, but had a really good time relaxing and spending time together. It was colder than it usually is this time of year and we were cold most of the time, but it was still fun to be in a big beach house on the beach. I even took a dip in the freezing water a few times. Invigorating!

I kept up on my studying as well as I could so I don't lose what I have acquired. Most days I was able to still do a little studying. On Christmas Eve we didn't have class and I spent some hours studying and on Monday I spent most of the day studying. It worked out really well since we went down to the beach house on Tuesday morning early.

2009 was a year of many changes for me and my family. I feel very blessed and grateful for everything. I had two job changes, both of them jobs I have wanted for a long time and great opportunities. I moved across the country. I was released from the church calling I had for 5 years. I experienced the joys of not wearing a suit to work and of getting paid to learn a language. We sold our home. I have learned how to live with less with so many of my possessions in storage. I have seen a bunch of historical sights. I have met a lot of new people. It has been great. 2010 will continue to bring changes. It will be interesting to see what kind of experiences we have.

It has been a great holiday and I loved seeing my family and spending time with them, and I am excited to be home and to get back to work.