This is disgraceful. I have not written for a week. When that happens the pictures have to tell
the story because it seem each week gets a bit more complicated. I will get the negative out of my system to
begin with. By the way, Pili, the house
gecko is above me on the wall making his chatter sound. Back to my rant…I am trying to keep a
calendar on my ipod as I have for 10 years.
I started with a Palm Pilot and loved it then and went to the ipod about
4 years ago. It has quit me twice since
we got here and Valerie’s has needed repair once. I got mine fixed two weeks ago but it won’t start up so I tried
my ipad as a calendar but it is too bulky for some situations. The old pen and paper might win yet. I am back to Valerie’s ipod since she stole
my camera and doesn’t use it. Its nice
to have all-in-one but I carry my iPad for scriptures, my ipod for calendar and
camera and the mission issue phone that doesn’t work most of the time. That was complaint number one. (Because this is my mission journal, if you
are reading this sorry for these diversions but they are there to remind
me.) Complaint number 2 is that I had a
window of time last Thursday so I did a big load of wash and hung it on the
line in time for a nice extra rinse from a rain on Thursday, 3 inch downpour on
Friday, 2 more inches on Saturday and 3 more inches on Sunday. Today is Monday and the sun is shining. Valerie has dried a few of her things inside
with a fan but there is no space. Since
it is supposed to rain this afternoon I made a clothes dryer. I put a fan
outside in front of our clothes line.
Cross your fingers because I am out of undies! Thanks for letting me vent that…I feel better, thank you!
On Thursday we had Elder Pajaro and his wife,
Valerie, do a two day mission conference.
He is the area authority Seventy.
After our day with them, the Hoopes, and us had dinner with them at
President Reeder’s home. The eight of
us had a great evening that Sister Hoopes cooked for. They have served a mission in Germany so the meal was all German
food. The company was wonderful and we
had many great stories to tell and to listen to. This is half the missionaries from the Iriga and Goa zones. President and Sister Reeder are on the far
left, he is standing. Elder and Sister
Pajaro are seated in the front on the far right. Hoopes attended the Wednesday session so they are not in this
picture. We know about half of the
missionaries in this group and they are all world class Elders and Sisters.
On Friday we had to pay the
electricity bill so we did other business and visited the La Medalla
school. It is smaller and is the school
in our barangay just behind our house.
The parents and children see us walking every morning so I told them to
knuckle us from now on. We visited a
few classrooms and gave each teacher a Canada pin, an Alberta pin and a county
of Newell pin. They think the county is
our barangay.
This is a grade 6 class holding up 6
fingers. The teacher is directly in
front of me. See why I can’t guess age
here. The people pre-40s look like
teenagers to me, then when they hit 50 they look 80.
This
is a grade 1 child that Valerie is scaring the daylights out of. Check out the wooden desks. Man I love this country!
This
grade 5 teacher was very pleased when I
asked if I could send her picture to Canada. I wanted to get her name tag on her teacher’s shirt. I don’t know why it is blurry…darn!
We
had a busy Saturday with missionaries, Hoopes stopping in, appointments at the
church and rain. While we were waiting
in the car for the church to open it poured and we watched the kids play a
game. They would buckets of every size
and pour the water over their own heads.
One kid filled a big white pail from a down psout then filled the other
kids small toy buckets for them. We
watched them for 20 minutes. They
started a game of street soccer next.
The streets are their
playgrounds.
On
Sunday we attended sacrament service in Nabua.
It has been a long time since we were able to go there. We went to Bato after sacrament service and
had a meeting with President Tino about a family history open house. He is still grieving over his mother’s
death. We felt terrible for his
suffering. He is a great man and a good
leader. While in Nabua we set up some
FH appointment and talked with friends.
This is a picture of the Dava couple.
They are amazing people. She was
born in the church and he joined to marry her.
They just got back from the Manila temple where they were sealed. We love them very much for so many
reasons. He is an engineer on cargo
ships so is gone for a year at a time then home for 6 months. Luckily, she has a lot of family support
when he is gone. He makes very good
money and needs the income. There are
only very hard, poor paying labor jobs locally. Yes that is a sweat rag I am holding. It is a necessity!
We
went to Cotnogan to see President Oliva and visit the school. The teachers were as accommodating as
ever. This is a grade 6 class singing
us a local anthem about the Bicol district.
Whenever we enter a classroom the class say a memorized welcome. Here we heard, “Welcome visitor. We are happy to meet you. Please come in and have a seat.” Often there is no place to sit but we are popular
from the start.
We
toured a few room and ended in this grade one class. Ther teacher was covering two grade one classrooms side by side
because the regular teacher was gone that day.
Notice the little guy to the right of Valerie in the last desk. He is in a blue shirt and is asleep in his
desk. The teacher told us that he is a
special needs student who is malnourished.
He did not wake up through all the laughter and visiting we did.
While
visiting outside with others on the
staff we stopped at a small tindahon where a local woman sells treats to kids
who have money. I gave her and the
teacher a Canadian flag and she gave us some Pili-nuts. They are slightly like peanut brittle. I asked for a wacky picture and this is what
I got. Valerie is talking with
President Oliva, of the Cotnogan branch.
He is also the barangay chief.
This is his third term of elected office and can’t run again. From
what we hear the barangay love him and wish he could stay on.
While
we were visiting two boys brought drinking water to the school from the local
deep well pump.
We
followed President Oliva to a new member’s home where they were doing a service
project. We told the elders to let us
know when these things are happening.
We know this woman because we went to her baptism in the river below her
house. They were building a fence for
her yard way out in the country. They
cut branches from some kind of a tree, then sharpen the end and stab them in
the ground for the posts. The branch
takes root and becomes permanent in a short time. We have seen many fences like this and the trunk gets bigger but the rails of the fence do not get much
higher off the ground. Because the
posts are only stuck in the ground they wire the bamboo rails. Pounding nails would loosen the post too
much. I asked what kind of gate they
were using and they said there was no gate.
I asked why she wanted a fence and Elder Hermosa said to keep bad guys
out. I pointed out that there was only
two (flimsy) rails and no gate and he didn’t get it. The fence represents a boundary that no one crosses. This is a young mother of 5 girls, the
oldest is 14. They don’t have a door on
the house but they have a fence for protection.
The rails are made from fresh bamboo that was
cut in the neighbor’s yard. He is the
first councilor in the branch presidency.
The bamboo is 40 feet long. They
drive a bolo (machete) blade into the end pull the two pieces apart to split
the bamboo into two halves. It splits
perfectly from the bolo cut.
This
is what the fence looks like in front of Sister Michelle’s home.
She
fed us tilapia in a some green vegetable sauce over rice. It was masarap! (Delicious)
Sister
Michelle is testing her new fence.
It
was the perfect close to a good week.
Sister Frenendo got baptized in Bato.
Her two daughters attended and her son came to church on Sunday. She is the only member but in her testimony
at the baptism she tearfully expressed her wish to have her family feel what
she has felt in learning about the restored gospel. It was one of those times that reminded you about your own
commitment to the gospel. Valerie and I
both spoke at the service. These are
the missionaries with Sister Fernendo and her two daughters. She has three daughters and five sons.
It
is always hard to say Good-bye to good missionaries that have served valiantly
and leave to go home. This is me with
two missionaries from Nabua on my right is Elder Grospe and the other is Elder
Fernandez who I called Billy Goat because he had stubble on his chin. Most of the Filipino missionaries don’t need
to shave very often. We will miss these
men!
To my family, thanks again for your support and
for all the considerations and prayers in our behalf. None of it goes unnoticed.
We love you all!
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