We begin this week with a lot
of wind left over from Typhoon Landau.
It is hot but windy today. A big
wind around here is 25 kph but it sure dried our clothes in a hurry this
morning. Naturally we have no internet
which is a problem on P-day. Becky
tried four times to Skype but we only had a few minutes of her time before we
got cut off. We miss the communication
with family. Because things are drying
so quickly, I have finished washing a drying the clothes. The sheets are drying on the line and the
towels are in the washer as we speak. I
have just enough clothes line space left for the towels with the sheets still
hanging. It was a great day for me
because I was able to get two stains out of my white shirts. Yes this is Elder Watson! A real man knows how to do the wash with a
manual machine. Removing stains is
becoming a highlight in my life…wait…I need a break. I am very secure in my masculinity.
We have been able to run and
work out every morning so far. The knee
brace is an answer to prayer and the blisters behind my knee have almost
gone. Everything is great.
Tuesday was…let me vent here
about spell check program in Word. When
you misspell a word because you fingers are going faster than your brain when
typing sometimes then you spell check the word, often there is only one
suggestion for the misspelled word. If
the program is smart enough to pick up a misspelled word wouldn’t it be smart
enough to realize there is only one option for that word so it would just
automatically replace it with the one and only choice?? I feel better now thank you…a day of
meetings. We met with President Cheua,
a councilor in the district presidency to talk about getting access to the
buildings so the missionaries could do their jobs. It went well. He is a
wonderful man. He is a returned
missionary, previously a branch president, owns a trycee and is raising his 18
year old daughter himself because his wife passed away last year from cancer.
We just discovered that
Canada has elected an idiot for a prime minister. All I can say is, “Oh Canada…what have we done?”
We met with President Oliva
in Cotnogan in the afternoon to discuss how to make the primary more efficient.
He is another wonder and miracle of this gospel. He is the elected barangay chief and had been the branch
president for 23 years. His family
basically staff the branch.
Wednesday morning we went back to Cotnogan to
attend a district competition to locate the best barangay chief in 120
barangay. While we were waiting for the
judges to arrive we toured the school and watched some workers reparge the
school wall. The man in the blue shirt
is a member of the branch and is the Sunday School president. They shovel sand onto the screen and shake
the sand out then throw the tailings in a pile next to the sand. You would be surprised how fast they can
make a pile of sand. They make piles of
sand along the wall, scoop out the middle, add bagged cement mix and water and
mix it by hand right there.
We
watched the kids play at recess. They
hold an elastic at shoulder height and the girls jump up and try to hook their
foot over it to pull it down far enough to jump over it. They are amazing at this skill.
This
gentleman with President Oliva is the president of the agricultural society in
the barangay. He is also a retired
soldier from their national peace keeping force and is now the head of the
militia in the barangay as well.
President Oliva says he has a lot of impact and people listen when
talks.
Last
year President Oliva was awarded 4th place. The judges were all government officials
from various departments including education.
This is President Oliva giving his 20 minute presentation with a power
point. It was very well presented and I
have a copy of it.
I
was asked to give an opening prayer and the judges asked me to comment on the
family day presentation I gave last month.
They were quite surprised to see white people there. I have many pictures of the event but this
is the group at the end of the session.
After
the meeting we took a road trip to the coast.
It was only an extra 20 minute drive from Nabua through a mountain pass
and suddenly we appeared in a very poor coastal town.
In
the mountain pass we saw some terracing for rice fields.
This
is my favorite display of Filipino life.
There is wild chickens, ducks, geese, goats, dogs, cats and domestic
livestock staked out on the main highways.
We had to wait for these geese to waddle off the highway. Valerie and I have a saying at sights like
this, “You can’t make this stuff up!”
We have learned that Canada
has elected a majority liberal government.
We are going home in 9 months to a federal liberal government and a
provincial NDP government. OH CANADA,
what have we done?
We raced out to Buhi to give
Elder Cayago a list of people we are doing FH work for in the Ibayugan group
across the lake. We spent a few minutes
with them in their district meeting then had to go back to Iriga to re-juice
the router, buy fresh produce at the market, then get ice cream and root beer
for the missionaries. We met the
missionaries at the district building and finished their district meeting. While they were eating together we set up
for training at the family history center and were ready for the two companionship's we trained. We have a
good training system. Valerie gets them
on the computers to print off their family tree and fan charts and I do the 45
minute training and role playing. The
sisters sang a duet for me that I taped in my ipad but can’t attach
here…sorry. I should have taken a
picture of them eating the root beer floats.
On Friday we planned to train the other sisters
but one is sick. We did some homework
until the internet quit then I did an apartment check at the elders place. They did well and it was cleaned perfectly
for inspection. We did wash and raced
into Pili for groceries then took a new route home. We went through Bula and came out at Nabua. There was some beautiful scenery and this
terraced rice farm in a shallow valley.
This shows how much they value every square foot of productive
land. With all the rice production they
still can’t feed their own population and have to import rice.
There
was a lot of road construction and I had to stop to take picture of the
thickness of the concrete they pour for a highway. In many places they cover the 14” of concrete with asphalt.
We hurried home to meet the
sisters who needed to use our technology to print a baptismal program for
tomorrow. Of course they were late and
didn’t get here until after 7:00 PM. We
expected them at 4:00. Missionaries
give me chest pains. We did get it done
and they left at 8:30 so we had oatmeal and fruit for dinner. It was good!
Saturday morning we raced
into Naga to meet with the Canaman zone leaders to make plans for zone training
next Friday, hit SM Mall to buy a magnifying glass for President Oliva and
drove straight to
Iriga for the baptism of the year. The Juntialo family was found as a referral
to the sisters when Siste Bakly was here.
The dad, brother Joey was playing basketball with the elders in Iriga
three months ago and mentioned to Elder Balse that he had joined the church 25
years ago but had lost contact with the church. The sisters found the family and we helped teach with them a few
times and even did an administration when John got sick. Sister Bakly
got transferred and the sisters kept teaching with the help of president Botor
and whole branch. We did family history
with the boys at a FH event the branch hosted last month. Long story short is…Brother Joey got the
priesthood last month and on Saturday the 25th he baptized his wife
and four children. The other two are
too young for baptism. They have their
temple trip planned for next October.
It was a marvelous occasion to see the family together and half the
branch there to support them. I love
this branch!
This
is Brother Joey and his family just before he baptized them. The three Aaronic priesthood aged boys will
nearly double the young men’s group in the Baao branch. They are amazing kids. To teach them was a
privilege because of the seriousness of their natures toward spiritual things.
Finally, we got to meet Jared Oliva’s baby girl,
Ophelia. She was named and blessed today
in sacrament service. This Brother and
Sister Oliva with Ophelia. They have a
two year old girl but I don’t know where she was at this time.
I
snuck into primary just before priesthood meeting to see how Sister Watson was
doing. We take an extra fan with us
every week because it gets so hot in that back room. The younger kids were in another room. This is a picture of the 9 to 11 year old class. As you can see I caught Sister Watson’s best
side!
We are now resting, catching
up on homework and waiting until we can start cooking our famous tradition of
crepes with lemon juice and icing sugar for dinner at 6:30. Stop in and we will share with you.
We love you all and miss your
horribly. Because we are busy and among
such incredible people in a poor yet beautiful environment we do not get home
sick but do miss you all. We are
grateful for our calls to serve. This
is one of the biggest blessings in our lives.
We have noticed that we are changing our own value structure because of
the people we have fallen in love with the lessons they have taught us in
humility and gratitude.
Thanks again for your support and for Tabitha’s
endless effort in keeping you posted on this blog. Tabitha my darling daughter, you were inspired to call this blog,
“547 Miracles” That is the number of
days we will serve here and each is a gift, a miracle.
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