The
rain is beginning again but the heat is still oppressive. It gets so humid after a rain you sweat just
standing still. We have fans going all
day so our papers and documents are always blowing around and need to be
weighted. On Tuesday we spent the
morning doing house chores and working on a power point we are doing for a
mission conference for two days next week.
We are having technical difficulties but getting it done slowly. Valerie has taken on a total revamping of
the existing primary operations and is holding meetings with district and
branch primary staff. The district
presidency have become very good friends and we work well with them. We have a district primary training coming
up in two weeks we need to get ready for as well. Valerie is working with the presidency and I am doing a teacher
training class. It should be fun!
While
we were waiting at the church for the sisters to arrive we watched this guy and
his wife try to knock fruit down from a tree in front of their house. He had a 12 foot bamboo pole but stood on
his pudyak to get more height. I was
ready with the camera in case the pudyak rolled away. His wife is under the umbrella so the mangos don’t hit her and
their baby.
Tuesday
afternoon was busy with a visit from Angela and Maria Moralis. They came to say good-bye. Angela has been called to the Cebu mission
south of here and her mother is getting re-married to a black guy from Florida
she met on line. She has insisted he
take the discussions and he has quit drinking and has a plan to be baptized
soon. They are meeting for the first
time in two weeks. He is coming here to
visit and send Angela on her mission. I
wouldn’t advise this but many people are meeting this way and getting married
so it must be part of the new age of relationships. This is a picture of Angela and I in our home modeling our new
hats.
Here
is the group of us.
I
forgot to mention a day last week when the sisters called and needed some
help. We visited them in their
apartment and found both of them quite down and depressed for several
reasons. We had a great visit with them
and ended by giving both a blessing.
Sister Bakly is from Great Falls MT and is a first time trainer. She is an amazing missionary and we are so
impressed. Sister Barawidan is from
Cebu and doesn’t like this area at all.
We live in one of the two poorest areas of the Philippines. She may have expected a higher standard of
living than what is here. We have
worked more closely with them recently and see them a few times a week.
On
Tuesday they took us with them and we taught a discussion to a new family they
just met. Then we went to a less active
member family whose 9 year old daughter just got baptized and gets herself to
church every Sunday. The mother
Michelle Salvenara was not well and asked for a blessing. Her husband, Paul was home and heard the interview
and blessing I had with her. They were
both touched and we had an amazing experience with them. They have both had their patriarchal
blessings but have lost them. We are in
the process of getting duplicates for them.
It will be a wonderful day when we can take their personal scripture to
them. This is a picture of the kids
during our new member discussion.
We went from there to a
single mother whose boyfriend is at sea as a merchant marine. They have a two year old son. She hadn’t heard from her boyfriend in two
months and was, of course, worried. She
has been reading the Book of Mormon for a few months but her boyfriend doesn’t
like her doing it. We talked about
prayer and we got to bear testimony of prayer.
I explained how personal a prayer can be and gave her an example of what
language to use to talk to Father as a Father and she burst into tears. She said the feeling was more than she could
understand and loved to hear the words spoken to a Father in Heaven. I was a little humbled by her reaction and
will never forget it. I realized I take
prayer for granted too often. I wish I
had a picture of her and her son. We
will visit again and get a picture of her family.
On Wednesday, we got stood up
by a Brother Ordinario from Manila who works for the church as a family history
consultant for the Philippines. We have
four pages of issues that prevent the people here from getting the same
services and access to the same technology as in NA. We did some member visits as we didn’t want to ask the
missionaries to baby sit us again.
Thursday was Bato day. We did a training with the Cotnogan/Bato/Nabua district at the
Bato church. Cotnogan is a small branch
outside of our mission boundary but in our mission because it is like
Rosemary. It is always on the border of
any church maps. We pick up the elders
on District training day to save them the long, expensive ride to Bato. The interesting thing is their apartment is
a half finished duplex with lots of unfinished room. They occupy only a small part of it. They said the place is haunted.
Their neighbor is a funeral home with caskets stacked beside their yard. The elders live in the yellow part
downstairs. Just beyond the lady’s
umbrellas is the gate and through the gate you can make out the casket displays
under the red roof. Their place may be
haunted!
We had to race over to Iriga
after the district training to get our phones and router juiced up for another
month then go back to Bato for an
afternoon appointment. The gate was
locked but we had made arrangements with the elders to let us in at 1:30 The didn’t show up and wouldn’t answer our
text messages. Sister Magistrato
arrived at 2:00 so we took out our router and laptops from the trunk and did
two hours of family history work with her and Valerie in the back seat. I sat in the front and when Valerie’s
computer died I fired mine up and finished her work. I am sure the locals wondered why the car sat idling for nearly 3 hours but we had to keep the
a/c on. There is always a way!! I had a discussion with the elders later
that evening. We understand each other
a bit better now.
We worked with the Ressureccion family two weeks
ago in Iriga. The family got baptized
on Saturday morning and the father is scheduled to get the Aaronic priesthood
next week. The missionaries started
this family with a family history approach and they wanted to know about
eternal families immediately. It was a
wonderful baptism.
Sunday is another busy
one. We begin at 9:00 AM in Iriga for
Angela Moralis’s farewell then back to Baao for primary at 10:00. We will skip out of primary a few minutes
early for a 12:00 meeting of the primary in Bato. We need 4 Saturdays and 5 Sundays a month to get everything
done. Our next big assignment is the
mission conference next Thursday and Friday in Naga.
Thanks again to my wonderful family! We love you all.
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