Mission Blog of Chuck and Cheri Lambson

  We usually have several irons in the fire. One of the things that we are working on at this time is modifying one of Church brochures to be published in Indonesia. The brochure is titled: Introduction to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is a high quality publication with lots of pictures and a few brief explanations about the history of The Church and some of the key teachings. We give it to government officials and other high profile persons when we have occasion to meet with them so that they will know a little about The Church. We obtained the template for the Hong Kong bochure and we are substituting the text with the Indonesian text which has been translated by our Publications group here in Jakarta. We are also substituting many of the pictures with local pictures from Indonesia. In the square collage above, all four of the corner pictures have been replaced with pictures from Indonesia. It is going to take many hours to complete because it is 24 pages lo...

  The people of Indonesia are by and large very patriotic and they cherish their indepedence, freedom and the democratic form of government that operates here. Indonesians understand the value of freedom after having been ruled by europeans for 300 years in many parts of the archipelago. Because of the rich resources found in these fertile tropical islands, trade for things such as spices was contested by Spanish, Portugese, English and Dutch at various times since the late 1500s. In 1619 the island of Java was conquered by the Dutch East India Company and in 1799 the Dutch East Indies was officially claimed as a Dutch colony. The Dutch remained the main ruling power in these islands until the Japanese invaded during WWII. Two days after the surrender of Japan in 1945 Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta issued the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence. Sukarno become the first president of Indonesia and a very amazing thing happened. The many islands scattered throughout this archipelago ...

  I am not sure if many will really understand this post. Perhaps only those who know the history of the Church in Indonesia. If you are curious you can ask me to explain when you meet me after we return home and I will be happy to tell you the whole story. For now let me just say that I had a remarkable opportunity this week that I honestly did not think I would have on this mission. We were invited to pay a visit to a beautiful woman whose family has been a friend of the Church for many years. Her name is Ibu Shinta Wahid and she is the widow of former Indonesian President, Aburrahman Wahid (Gus Dur). Cheri was not feeling well so she was not able to come. I went with Elder Subiantoro, Sister Nugraheni, Sister Abbott, Sister and President Tandiman and Brother Poliman. This was just a friendly visit without any particular purpose except to visit a friend. Ibu Shinta is charming and delightful woman with a keen sense of humor and easy laugh. She spent about 1 hour visiting with us....

  During the last two weeks we had a special opportunity to spend time with the families of our sons. Paul and Suvi and Sam and Liz came to Indonesia for vacation so we were able to set aside some time to spend with them. The pictures above are from the elephant preserve in Bali and the Komodo national park on the island of Komodo. On the left grandkids are taking turns feeding a young Sumatran elephant and on the right Cheri is standing behind a komodo dragon. The picture was taken by the park ranger using my camera just before the giant lizard decided to turn around and the ranger had us quickly back down from the trail we were on. Now the komodo dragon is walking on the same trail Cheri was standing on a few seconds before. I was a bit surprised by how close they allowed us to be to the komodo dragons.  I am writing this blog entry while back in Jakarta. The kids have all gone now and we are settling back into our missionary work. It was great to be able to spend some time ...