This
is transfer week so it is difficult to get to see the missionaries until the
end of the week. The interweb is down
so we haven’t skyped with family for over a week and we miss that. Last Thursday I wrecked my left knee. It started to hurt as we were running in the
morning but I ignored it as I always just work through the pain in any instance
but after we showered it started to swell and I couldn’t put weight on it. We had an early Canadian Breakfast on Friday
so we couldn’t run but it was good to rest it a bit. The swelling went down on Sunday but it is Tuesday and I am still
having problems with it. To make things
even more fun…on Saturday Valerie was just getting off the bed and her lower
back went out. When this happens she is
in extreme pain and nothing seems to help.
I have applied heat, rubbed it gently and tried to make her life a bit
easier but like me she powers through and makes things worse. We are a pair of cripples right now. We went to Cotnogan and walked the rice
fields to President Oliva’s home where we met with them. Sister Oliva came back to the meeting house
with us and we did some FH training with her and her daughter for the
afternoon. On the way we passed a
trycee carrying these three pigs.
While
we were walking through the rice fields to President Oliva’s home Valerie
wanted a picture of the Cassava plant that grows like a huge patch of
brush. They dig up the roots that look
like a long white potato and boil it like a potato. This is our lovely tour guide, Valerie displaying the cassava
plant .
Since
Tuesday is transfer day and it is very confusing to get any contact with the
missionaries we took a day off and became tourists. We went to the coast near Ligmonon in the Goa zone. Naturally my camera messed up after I took a
video of some fishermen bringing in a net so I don’t have good pictures of the
beautiful drive. We though many
beautiful little villages on the coast and saw some amazing junglescapes and
architecture in the old buildings.
On Thursday we had to deliver
pedigree charts to Bato elders and get our router re-juiced for the month. It costs 1000 PHP (Philippine Pesos) which
is about 27.00 CAD. It is not bad but
we pay the premium price for 4G service but the provider only transmits 2G and
we are in a dead area so we only get very poor intermittent service. We talked to the service rep and they have a
new story every month. This time they
are working on the towers for the next 2 weeks to get better service into Baao area. I wonder…
Friday was busy with a
district training in the morning. We
met 4 new missionaries that have arrived in the Naga mission. We don’t call them Greenies any more, they
are new missionaries. In-actives are
now less actives and we don’t call non-members that either but we don’t have a
politically correct term for them as yet.
“The times they are a changin’” to quote Bob Dylan. He was correct! We did family history with two members of the Botor family in
Baao in the afternoon. It was a busy
day but we accomplished a lot so we were happy.
Another Sunday in
Cotnogan. They are praying for rain and
it came while we were in church so they gave us credit for it. There were a lot of happy farmers leaving
the church that day. They are dry-land
rice farmers who wait for the rain before they can plant. The irrigated land is under water about 10
months of the year and still produces three crops of rice a year. It is extremely fertile land that needs to
be under water to produce crops. On the
high land in the mountains they grow a lot of corn for livestock feed as well
as table corn. There a lot of feed
shops as everyone has chickens, pigs, pets, and carabow (water buffalo) to pull
their plows.
I will finish with the big news from home. Chelseys’s package finally arrived on
Friday. It was like Christmas that
night. Because she and Joel have
experience living here and in Dominica, she knows what to send that we can’t
get here. This is the treasure chest we
opened.
This
ends another period of time. Our
internet is…well, I am going to quit whining about that. We have members and investigators coming
into the church in Baao in a few minutes so I will use the church’s internet to
send this. We love you all and miss you
too much!
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