Blog 11 March 15 to 21, 2015

We are off to Naga for a good-bye gathering of SR couples.  Gardners are going home in 8 weeks and this may be the last time we have to play with them.  It is Tuesday the 17^th but SR couples can make their own schedules and this was the only day we could all get together.  President and Sister Reeder are planning on coming but they are slaves to their schedule out here.  We plan to get some good pictures of wherever we are going.  Valerie has some pictures she will share on the family websites.

I had to take Valerie to Nabua for a FH session.  I left her at the meeting house and raced back to Baao for another dental appointment.  There is nothing left for my 5 tooth bridge to attach to so Dr. Dato is doing her best to keep it on.  She is an amazing professional and fast becoming a good friend.  Her husband is going to take us on a tour of their farm operation during a harvest season.  This is Dr. Dato trying to save my life while her assistant assists!

This is a selfie of Dr. Dato back in my mouth with her amazing skill and crowbar!

This is us after the bridge is back in place and we are both happy.  She doesn’t charge me full fee so I am still smiling.  She spoils the missionaries that go to her.

Here are my guardian angels in the operating room with us in case I need to make a last minute confession.

We were in Nabua on Wednesday and met with several members.  This is Sister Masculino and her daughter.  They are not members but are being taught and have been twice before.  How did they get the “Spirit of Elijah” before me and I have been a member my whole life?

I am making them laugh in this picture.

We taught a family history class to the consultants in Baao on Friday.  Then had members come in for evening genealogy  work. 

On our way to get the keys from President Botor’s home we saw some interesting sights.  A truck loaded with bamboo and a kid playing on it outside our yard.  The bamboo was cut with machetes.

At Botor’s home a guy was loading this cart with sand.  Valerie has a video of it as well.  Notice the size of the hooves on this water buffalo (Caribou)  It can trudge through mud with great traction.

Saturday morning we went to Naga city very early to meet Gardiners.  Valerie went with them to a baptism near Ocampo in the rain, then stopped at our home to change.  They went on to a Relief Society celebration to Iriga.  They had a morning devotional and a folk dance fiesta in the afternoon.  Each branch did their own folk dance.  It was colorful and very exciting.  Baao did an amazing job.

I was with the Hoopes at Naga College Foundation where we were guest speakers at a conference held for the grad students.  They were in the faculty of education and were graduating with their masters and PhD degrees.  We were treated like royalty and had a great time.  Elder Hoopes and I had an hour each and Sister Hoopes spoke for about half and hour.  There was a huge photo shoot after and then we went to a restaurant for lunch with the students.  Sister Melvi Briones was the professor that invited us to speak.  She is a member of the church and a returned missionary.  What a wonderful lady.  It was the highlight of the day to get to know her.

Pictures of Naga College Foundation PD Day with grad students and staff.

This is Elder Hoopes doing his presentation on Communication in the Workplace.

Above is the auditorium at the university.  In the bottom right corner is a picture of Dr. Melvi Briones who is a member of the church and invited us to speak.  She is amazing and I have more pictures with her that won’t fit in this blog.

The following are me in my presentation.

This is Sister Hoopes doing her presentation.  

This me with the college director.

We are being presented with plaques by the college director in red and Dr. Briones in pink.  Very classy move!

Following our presentation it was photo shoot time and like all Asian’s, they love the camera.  We were filmed for 20 minutes with different groups.  Here are just a few that my camera man took.

On Sunday we went to Nabua for Sacrament meeting and Bato for priesthood.  I took a few pictures of the Nabua nursery.

We are very busy and very happy.  My technology is still not working correctly but we are limping along.  We love you all!

Blog #10 March 8 to 14, 2015

Darn, missed a week.  It has been ridiculously busy with family history work.  We put in some long days last week and had many great experiences with the members.  I met the most interesting person last week.  Her name is Dr. Dato and she is a dentist with a huge heart.  In my first consultation with her about some dental problems I am still encountering, she talked about her desire and motivation to teach young children about dental health.  Naturally that peaked my interest because schools are the target area for educating children.  Since my visit with her I have investigated the educational system to see if this is possible.  I emailed Dr. T Evans in Calgary and got a passionate and immediate response with many good ideas and suggestions.  I am meeting with Dr. Dato tomorrow morning and will evaluate what I have gathered so far.  I am very excited and blessed to have met such an altruistic individual.  To make things better, her husband is a farm manager.  I am going to get a greater perspective of agriculture here.  We live in a rice producing area.

Dr. Jeanette Dato Dentist in her clinic.

The big news here is that there is a political conflict in our district with the company that provides electicity and they are cutting the power off here tomorrow.  The last time this happened in 2013 it lasted 3 months.  Our neighbor, Brother Ropurto, is a member in government.  Tomorrow, Monday, he is going to investigate and tell us how long they anticipate this brown out to last.  We may be buying a generator or moving to the mission office complex in Naga.  We do not want to move but can’t live here or do our family history without  power.  This is a crisis on many levels for us but it will work out.

It is Tuesday afternoon and the lights are still on.  The word on the street, and I mean on the street as we pass people on our morning walk, is that the local mayor has saved us from a lengthy brown out.  We have a FH class in Baao soon so we hope the power stays on. 

On Sunday we spoke in Bato about family history work.  We arrived 10 minutes early to find the branch president and the branch waiting at the locked gate for a key to arrive.  President Tino had loaned his key to his councilor and the councilor was not there yet.  Finally I took a young RM from the branch, Jon-Jon in the car to get the key but we passed the councilor on his scooter as we drove.   The pictures are overexposed but worth seeing.  Everyone is across the street standing in the shade. 

On our way home we passed this beautiful little farm.  I loved the big net in the water.  They must be fish farming as well.

We stopped in Nabua in our rush to get back to priesthood in Baao.  They had just let out and I got a picture of Elder Kie, from New Zealand.  He is 6’4” and his Philippino companion, Elder DeLara who is 5’4”.  It is fitting they are waving from a sign that says, “Party Clown’s…”

In front of the church is a 2” galvanized metal pole about 12 feet high leaning against the “Party Clown Magician” sign to keep the electrical cables above the traffic.  I hope on one moves the sign.  It is an a small parking lot so I hope no one moves the sign or backs into it!

I spent the morning in the dentist chair getting my bridge reattached while Valerie was set up and waiting for sisters who had signed up to do family history work in the morning in Nabua.  We started at 9:30 and I was back in Nabua at noon but the sisters didn’t show up so Valerie had been there alone waiting.  My bridge feels good but won’t last.  Chorita came in the afternoon and we added her father’s family names to what she has done.  She is very faithful and adds a few more names every week.  She has no electricity and carries her water to her home from a pump to a bucket.  She has beautiful printing and works in her My Family booklet every day.  We are so blessed to know such a faithful person.  She will be back next week.

Besides the threat of a long term brown out, our internet provider has been down for two days.  I will have dozens of emails to address if we ever get service.  I will say it again, this is a third world environment.  We are waiting this morning to see if the internet service will restore or we will have to cancel our classes in Bato today.  

Acts 2: 17-18 talks about the abundance of spirit that will be poured out in the last days and how people will prophesy and dream dreams.  This week we have had two sisters who have told of dreams that affected their family search efforts.  Wednesday is Nabua day.  Last week I helped Sister Corita enter family names for about an hour and a half which included her siblings.  She comes every Wednesday and this week she said she wanted to see her family tree on line.  She is a little difficult to understand.  She told me, “My deceased sister and parents came to me in a dream last night.  She didn’t speak but it woke me up.”   As soon as we saw her family tree online we discovered that this sister had been missed.  Out of the 13 children we had only recorded 12 even though they were written in her book.  Sometimes the family search program will not record a name we input and that must have happened.                      

Sister Chorita Biones

Today in Bato Sister Magistrado came to do family history for the first time.  She said her deceased uncle came to her in a dream and she couldn’t understand why because his work has been done as well as his family.  Valerie researched it and found that the records showed that the parents had not been married so he could not be sealed to them.  She is fixing the error now so the uncle will be sealed to his parents.  Acts 2: 17-18  It shouldn’t be but it is chilling to hear these stories as the people

sit right next to us.   This is Valerie with Sister Magistrado and Elder Tinney.

The youth come in to Bato chapel on Thursday evenings and the elders help translate.

Friday morning we had to stop in to my dentist.  It is a clinic for dental, medical and a birthing clinic.  The girl in the blue is the midwife and the other girl is a receptionist.  They are very helpful and do a great job without medicines of any kind.  They took Valerie back to the nursery to see a mother and baby.  I saw three there last week.

Friday was a zone mission conference in Iriga.  We went for a few minutes and talked about our future with Pres. Reeder.  He wants to leave us here to do family history work and we are relieved.  We then went to Baao and worked with three sisters.  One is a consultant and is an amazing kid.  She is waiting for her mission call.  She told me a boy wanted to court her in high school but he wasn’t a member so she gave him a copy of “Especially for Youth” and told him to read about her standards.  He decided not to go any further.  

Saturday morning we were invited to watch Gloria’s sun perform in a group dance competition.  These people really know how to put on a show.  We know nothing about constumes and pageantry.

The bridge near Baao is being reinforced with bamboo poles.  That must be the strongest wood in this environment.

In the afternoon we went to Sister Hugo’s baptism in Bato.  Her husband is an RM and works in Saudi Arabia as an engineer, so he couldn’t be at the baptism.  We went with the elders to teach her and have done some family history work with her.  She is an RN and they have done very well for themselves.  We may get to meet her husband this Sunday in Nabua.

Busy week!  There is rumor of a tropical storm hitting this region.  It should be north of us.  No worries mate!  Thanks again Tab for doing the hard work and making us look so good!  I love you all!

Malachi 3:8-11

Blog 9 - Feb 23-28th

The Watson household has upgraded to a 4G portable router.  The problem is, where we need it to accommodate people using it to do family history, we are out of range of 4G.  We are working around it. 

We were invited to the Bato Central School’s Senior’s night.  The Bato branch president is a teacher and was in charge of the evening events.  He did an amazing job.  The theme was the Greek mythological goddesses.  At home, we have no idea of what pageantry and costuming is!!  Valerie has some pictures and videos to show how impressive this was.  The class of over 100 did a floor dance that was choreographed incredibly.  Valerie stated how impressed her mom would have been with these kids and their dancing skills.  The final formal dance had the student’s select teachers and local officials to dance with them.  Because we were the only white people there and were at the head table with the staff, a girl asked me to dance and it was photographed for the local media.  Finally, I am a star at something worthwhile!!  They asked us to be photographed with the staff, students and grad class but we declined.  When the public was invited to dance the staff started with some Cha-cha-cha steps.  Allen and Sandy would have fit right in!  Then they got fancy and they can dance!  The youth did some western line dancing to a heavy fast rock beat.  President Tino called it square dancing.

Our plan for bringing family history to these rural areas is evolving slowly although the work is very demanding.  We are busy!  The church web programs are not accessible in these areas.  To register on familysearch.org or ldsaccounts.lds.org requires smart phone service or an email and many here do not have access to either.  We cannot use our recovery information because they are used for our own accounts and cannot be duplicated.  That is my rant for the week.  We are working around it as much as possible and have rewritten most of the church’s paper forms so they can be used and transferred to computer with the technology we have here.

Tuesday was busy with Angelica at the Nabua church doing family history in the morning.  She was to be baptized in two weeks but got a job in Oman and has to leave her family and 2 year old daughter to go make enough money to survive.  She thought she was engaged to the father of her child who works “up north” in the Philippines only to find this week that he is married with a family there.  Her parents blame her for the mess.  So she lost her relationship, her family ties, her future and her financial support in a week.  She had to make the decision to go to work in a few days and has to leave her daughter with family.  Angelica is 25 and has never left the farm.  She is scared and alone and left on a bus for a 10 hour drive to Manila last night.  The elders and I gave her an administration yesterday and Valerie and I are texting her often so she doesn’t feel totally alone.  She is a great kid and we love her dearly.

While we were working I looked over the church balcony at the stack of open coconuts and a family of rats was running around in them.  The picture doesn’t show very well but there is a rat looking at me from a coconut shell.

We raced back to Baao to work with the Azure family.  Sister Gloria is in the blue top is helping the couple.  The sister in the green is the relief society president.

We are getting a good system going.  Our mobile office is our two laptops, our printer/scanner, our files, our home made booklets to get people started on genealogy, our router and other paraphernalia to make it all happen.  It fits into a plastic container that fits into our car trunk.   If the place we are going does not have Wifi, like a church building, we take our own router.

It is a big thing to hit 21 years old here so a boy who is in the branch presidency in Bato is turning 21 on the 6^th.  While we were working with him on Thursday he had a group of friends show up to practice a dance they are going to perform at his party.  We are invited but have classes that night.

While we were working with Sister Cyntia a parade went by.  They have a fiesta for any reason and they do it big!  This is a school who had a parade past the church building in Baao.  It was the King and Queen of March parade and fiesta.  School is out for summer break in two weeks so it is party time here.  Check out the effort and decorations for a school fiesta.

The Sisters stopped by so we could meet the new sister who replaced Sister Alatini.  She is from Eastern Washington, about 6’1” and very white.  I told her she would blend in very well here!!

Missing picture

We are so proud of the Baao branch.  We started with them and asked that they do a great job so we can use them for the other branches in the district.  On Satruday they had over 130 names ready for the temple. 

They play the goofiest games here.  They love to laugh and have fun together.  The Bato branch had a post Valentines party on Friday night for the youth and young adults.  They played a game like pin the tail on the donkey but it was boys who had to get closest to the lips on the wall with the vocal direction of his female companion.  They laughed so hard it was ear splitting and cheered each participant.  I love partying with them!

We have been experiencing a lot of brown outs lately.  It is a little scary with the weather warming up.  It would be difficult without the fans and the ac at night.  I asked our grounds keeper, Daniel why and he thought some wires may have come down or shorted out.  Ya think?!? 

We are still loving it here and are learning lessons about humility, sacrifice and good intent everyday.

The economy in North America is in a tail spin.  Alberta is being hit first because the oil and gas taps are off.  Life styles must change and other sources if income must be investigated.  The most important thing with finance is to pay a full and honest tithe!!  Malachi 3:8-11  If you pay your tithing there will always be something you can do to have an income.  Verse 11 has been translated to mean that we will always have some way to have an income, rather than what it specifically states to the people of the time who were farmers.  It refers to them always having a harvest if they paid their tithes and offerings.  This is a fact not my opinion and you know I have countless stories of how it works.  I am so grateful for the principle of tithing and the assurances it promises. 

Thanks again to Mike and Becky for all the help with house, farm, and finance will all else they have to do.  Thanks again to Tabitha who does such a professional job of this blog.  We love you all!!