I have to carve time out of
our schedule to do this blog. It is a
priority for me yet it doesn’t get peak time, it gets left over time and it
bugs me. Also, I think faster than my
fingers can move over the keyboard so I know there are many mistakes in
spelling, missed words, grammar, punctuation etc. I want you to believe that all of those mistakes are purely
intentional and I meant every one of them.
(I hate to admit mistakes)
We had the most memorable day on Wednesday, September
16. There is another little branch
called Buhi in our district. It is up
in the mountains on a fresh water lake fed by springs. The city has 9 barangay around it and the
branch just built a beautiful new building.
We attended the dedication in July.
President Olivaras is the branch president and is a remarkable man. He farms way up in the mountains and comes
down twice a week to do church business and get his emails and texts from his
sister who lives in town. His wife is
not a member and does not support him but it does not slow him down. He called us on Tuesday night and said he
and the missionaries were going across the lake to deliver some resources to
the members who live there and cannot get to church because of the cost and the
distance. It is an expensive 40 minutes
boat ride across the lake or a 5 hour hike around the lake and through the
jungle and mountains. We quickly
rescheduled our day and said we would meet at the chapel in P-day clothes to
help carry the goods into the mountains.
We met at the church to find everyone there. The manuals, hymn books and other materials were packed in
garbage bags and ready. The former
branch president, who is now the elder’s quorum president, offered his jeepney
for the day to get us to the boat dock and back. Here we are on our first jeepney ride. Elder Jalocon is holding the palm leaf out of the way so Elder
Cayago can take the picture. We
apologize for looking more like tourists than missionaries.
These
are the three companionships that work in the isolated Buhi district but teach
and baptize more than the rest of the zone.
They are remarkable missionaries.
Elder Cayago is the in the
front. He is the DL. Every one of these kids has a story of
hardship and sacrifice that they endured previous to their missions yet here
they are. At home our youth make a
decision to enter the mission field or not.
That usually is the only sacrifice we make. These young people have endured heart breaking situations to get
them to this point. They serve
diligently knowing they are going home to adversity and hardship that my family
will never know. We love these
missionaries.
Yes, that long narrow canoe
with a fiberglass canopy is our ride and yes it was as unstable as it
looks. We had to balance ourselves to
keep it from rolling. There is no
safety equipment at all except a bucket to bail water with. Whoever was closest to the bucket got to
bail. The motor is inside the canopy so
it was noisy and the exhaust came through the cabin. Some of the missionaries rode on top outside which made the ride
even more unstable but I will quit whining now because it was amazingly
fun! I have video footage of the
lake. Fishermen live on the lake in
floating bamboo houses. They make
corrals out of netting and buy fingerling fish to stock their corrals then feed
the fish until they are market weight just like a beef feedlot at home.
The big guy in the middle is the elder’s quorum
president and jeepney owner.
After we docked and waded to
shore we carried the resources up the mountain side for about 15 minutes. There were houses and yards everywhere. It is quite populated. Both the fields and yards are terraced
because of the mountain grade but we walked up well developed paths to a
member’s home. That is where their
church will operate until something can be built. They will be a group within the Buhi branch and will be under
President Oliveras’s direction. He is
very concerned for his branch and knows these members need the sacrament and reinforcement of the priesthood. Elder Cayago and his companion will attend
weekly as it is in his area. They go
across the lake weekly to teach. They
have over 20 investigators in that area.
After we arrived at the
members home people started showing up until President Olivaras called this
historic meeting to order. We didn’t
know his purpose was to call the presiding elders and assign others to
positions in the group. They sat and
discussed what they needed to accomplish in their newly formed group. Everyone was more than willing to accept
responsibilities to make it a success.
There are 5 families with 41 members in total in that area. The grey haired man in the white shirt in
the following picture is the barangay chief and owns the land where they decided
to erect a temporary shelter as a meeting house. We walked through the area where they want this to happen. President Oliveras is on the right in the
white tee shirt. I love that man!
The relief society cooked a masarap (delicious)
meal of rice and vegetable broth. I
should have got a picture of the mountains of rice. It was very good. It was
all cooked outside on a small fire/bbq pit.
The sister in the picture with her back to us is Pres Oliveras’s sister
and the RS president.
The trip back was just as fun and all went well. It was a historic day. We had assignments in Cotnogan and could not
attend the first meeting of that group on Sunday but president Reeder phoned us
Sunday night to get details of the Wednesday meeting and reported that there
were over 70 people in attendance. I
had tears in my eyes when he told me as I could picture exactly where they were
and what they were accomplishing.
Thursday we had a district training in
Bato. We had to wait at the gate of the
church grounds and of course that Valerie got out of hand as usual. She is such a party girl!
When
the elders arrived we had a district training in the morning and then trained
the last companionship in the Iriga zone.
We had trouble connecting with the Bato elders because the were
suffering from dengue fever. This is
Elder Bondoc, a Filipino elder from Las Vegas and Elder Marques. They were both very prepared with their own
four generation pedigree charts and fan charts. We printed them for them to use them as examples when they are
useing FH as a finding and teaching tool.
On
Friday morning we had a Canadian breakfast for the departing missionaries. Sister Bakly will probably leave and we
might lose Elder Pring. They are both
dynamic missionaries and we will miss them.
We have already made plans to visit Sister Bakly and her family in Great
Falls MT in the fall of 2016.
We spent the rest of Friday
preparing for the FH event in Cotnogan.
We took the sisters from Baao with us to Cotnogan on Saturday morning at
7:00 AM. We attended a baptism of two
children from President Victorino’s family.
He baptized his 8 year old son and 9 year old daughter. All of the Bato district attended the
baptism and stayed to help with the branch event in the afternoon. The baptismal ceremony was held at President
Victorio’s home above the river. I
spoke on the gift of Holy Ghost. I
didn’t realize I was asked to speak until we got there and read the
program. As a missionary you need to
have many different talks available at the touch of a button and luckily my
iPad was working.
We walked about a km to
President Oliva’s home then on to his nephew, President Victorino. We had to take the path which is just the
border dykes that separate the rice fields.
These are the missionaries and Valerie walking to President Oliva’s
home.
Believe it or not, being on
the top of a mountain they don’t have irrigation so they are dry land rice
farmers. They rely on enough rain at
this time of year to flood the fields so they can plant rice. They are suffering a drought right now and
are praying for enough rain to seed rice.
This is the baptismal service at President
Victorino’s home.
Following
the service we walked down to the river for the baptism. This is the path through
the jungle.
We
arrived at the river for the baptism.
ough
the jungle.
After
the baptism Sister Victorino and her sister fed the whole group! As we were walking back to the church from
the baptism a sister was pumping water to do her washing. She let me pump the water for her. It required more effort than I had
anticipated but I didn’t want to look wimpy so I kept pumping!
Following the baptism and
meal we went back to the meeting house and set up the projector, screen,
chairs, tables, handouts…etc…to be ready for the FH event at 1:00 PM. At 2:00 PM no one had arrived so we were
deciding to wait for a few more minutes when President Oliva arrived and many
others started to come in. We started
at 2:30 and had a great event. There is
a standing joke here that everything starts on Filipino time which is about 2
hours later than what it is scheduled for.
They are very patient people and I have taken my watch off my wrist and
tried to relax from my North American clock watching habits.
This is a picture of about half of the people
who attended and are watching the initial presentation before we broke into
groups. Most of the members are in the
classroom on the right side of the screen at the front of the room which is in
an L shape.
Sunday
in Cotnogan was a sad day. Not because
I was asked to speak in Sacrament service when we arrived in the morning but
because we had to say good-bye to Elder Hermosa. He is the DL and goes
home tomorrow. It has been a pleasure
serving with him and he served with honor.
I am tickling his back so he is squirming away from me in this
picture. Saying good-bye to these
Filipino missionaries is like a funeral for me because I will not likely see them again in this life.
This
ends another week. I will not be able
to send this huge file to Tabitha until we get much better internet
service. We love you all and thank you
again for all your support for us so we can be here without worry from
home. Thank you! I love my successful, world class family!
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