Naturally
Monday was wash day just in time for the weekly rain storm. I got most of the heavy material off the
line and in front of the fan in the drying room (spare bedroom). We call the rain on Monday the extra rinse
cycle. The weather has been quite
unsettled but still nothing close to a typhoon like the low pressure storm we
experienced the first week we were here.
They did send the kids home from school on Thursday in Cotnogan because
the it rained so heavily up there in the mountains. I would have loved to be there for that. We have a website called wunderground.com
that is very reliable and tracks weather around the globe. The mission president checks it daily for
any signs of risk to the missionaries.
I used to check it daily but some days when there is nothing in the
Western Pacific in the morning there may be a hurricane or cyclone starting on
the ocean in the afternoon. There are
always warnings for ships and fishermen when it gets close. The problem is that most housing in this
area is made from bamboo wood a leaves for thatched roofs and it doesn’t take
much of a wind to move things around and be quite destructive.
A
sister who was baptized last month came to visit on Tuesday. She is married with 6 kids, only one left at
home, but we have only met one daughter.
She runs her own rice farm, raises pigs, sells fruits and vegetables
from her garden and sells unique clothing and cosmetics. She is very industrious and works hard. Her name is Sister Day (pronounced Die) and
she gave us a tour of our own back yard and showed us how to prepare the fruits
and vegetables growing back there. They
go through a lot of work to make foods edible around here!
Before I forget here are some
stats that put things into perspective if you live here. The area of the Philippines (which is an
archipelago consisting of over 7100 island) is 116 000 square miles and houses
94 000 000 people. The area of Canada
is 3 855 102 square miles and houses 35 000 000 people. We often talk about the crowding of the
population here but we are 33 times bigger in land mass and 1/3 of the
population. They are staked on top of
each other, like most of Asia.
We went on a trycee tour of Iriga city today
with a good friend, President Chuwa, the second councilor in the district
presidency. We spent three hours while
he showed us the sights of the city.
You really need to trust your driver when you ride a trycee.
Since
I am on the crowding issue I will show a picture of a Catholic cemetery. They bury their dead above ground in a
concrete tomb. The Catholic church owns
most of the cemeteries and you have to pay for a tomb. Most people can’t afford a tomb so they buy
a 5 year rental tomb with an access into it.
If you can’t afford to keep the body in their after the 5 years they
take the body out, which is just bones by then and give it back to the
family. We have walked through the
cemetery beside our house in Baao and seen the old torn bags with bones in
them. This cemetery is probably 10
acres in the middle of the city and the tombs are stacked about 10 high in
places. Look in the back ground and see
the staked tombs directly above President Chuwa’s head. See all the “honey combed” concrete tombs in
the back ground. Valerie and President
Chuwa are leaning against small tombs that house the bones of the people who
were taken out of a full sized tomb because the family couldn’t afford to keep
them there. Their bones are packed into
the small tombs up front. On the right
side of the picture is a private chamber owned by a rich family with their
tombs locked inside. Through the locked
gate you can see the tomb markers, some flowers, some candles and other family artifacts to decorate the room. It is all tiled and gated. Speaking of a gated community…don’t you
wonder what type of neighborhood heaven must be in? Think about “the Pearly Gates”.
What kind of neighborhood is heaven in that is has to be in a gated
community? I wonder…
We went to a private resort
operated by a school friend of President Chuwa. It was quiet and beautiful. There as a swimming pool, lounge
area, outdoor restaurant, and hotel. We
were most impressed with the beautiful vegetation. There was a grove of trees with hanging vines all through
it. Because I am a giant here I had to
duck to get around but I am used to that now.
I
have several more pictures but this file will be too big to email already so
they will have to wait. However, this
is a selfie of us on the go in the trycee.
Valerie is sitting beside us but lower in the side car so we can’t see
here. I am sitting side-saddle on the
bike seat with President Chuwa.
This
is what it looks like onto the street as we drive. I had to pull my feet in sometimes so they didn’t hit a bike, car
or trycee beside us. This ride takes a
lot of courage!
One
of the cool things we saw on our tour was this structure on a hill in the
middle of the city. It is straight up
but the gate was locked (thank goodness) so we couldn’t go up the million stairs
to see the city center. It used to be
the city center but the BDO bank put up a building, a two story strip mall and
a hotel/convention center in front of it and hid it away. The only way to get to it is up a side
street we would call an alley.
Thursday was zone conference
all day in Iriga. The morning was
filled with great instruction and training.
President and Sister Reeder both gave great advice and encouragement. While the zone leaders were doing a power
point Valerie and I went into a classroom and outlined what we want to do in
Pamplona and the mission with the project we have. We thought we developed it but after more study and research we
found it outlined in the missionary handbook, Preach My Gospel.
The catered meal was very good. The afternoon session was a short testimony
meeting by assignment. Valerie was
asked to bear her testimony and she did a world class job on how using FH as a
finding and a teaching tool can help the missionaries.
The theme of the conference
was taken from a talk in 2008 by Elder Callister called Becoming A Consecrated Missionary.
Wow was it powerful! The
missionaries were challenged to step up and be 100% obedient to the many
mission rules and schedules. President
Reeder and others offered examples of missionaries who they felt were
consecrated missionaries. I thought of
Shand and the story President Leo Hill told of a woman who gave back the Book
of Mormon she received from a skinny missionary on a flight from New York to
Calgary. Great story but I don’t have
time to tell it right now.
On another note, I was not popular when I was
shaking out the freshly line dried clothes I washed on Monday and shook a
spider out onto the bed Valerie was sitting on working on her laptop. Then today we did a perimeter burn around
the house with some poison we are supposed to spray around the walls of the
house then leave for 4 hours. When we
got home we had flushed out this big guy from the spare room. Yes this is a normal sized dust pan!
We
spent most of Friday waiting for people to come to the Baao church. The elders brought two girls from a family of
11 kids they are teaching. The power
went out “brown out” so we had them come to our house and turned on the
generator. We accomplished what we hoped
to do for them. Their parents are very
interested in family history work. They
were shy to be around English speaking white people but they got the job done.
Saturday and Sunday were
general conference days. We did
Saturday in Naga and had lunch with Reeders in the new mission home. It is very beautiful but I have some issues
with some of the building decisions. WE went to the district center for the
Sunday sessions. Following that we had
our district family history reporting meeting.
It was the end of a very busy week.
We hope this sends. We are tired but love you all!!
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