We
couldn’t run on Monday morning, P-day, because we left at 6 AM to meet
President Olivaros at the Buhi chapel.
We followed him up to his mountain baragay and met his wife. There is only one family in his barangay of
over 2000 mountain people that is not related to him. This is wife and youngest son.
He has three daughters in school. Two are in high school. There is 7 years between this boy and his next to oldest sister. They
have one of the homes constructed with blocks and concrete with a metal roof so
when the typhoons hit, everyone squeezes into it. He toured us through his barangay and introduced us to his uncle
the barangay captain. This preschool is
below the barangay office. The teacher
has 25 students but because it was raining only these few boys came to school
today.
We passed a coconut basket on a skid pulled by a carabau.
We climbed up the mountain to President Olivaros’s cousin who owns the biggest carabau on the mountain. It was raining but it was worth it. He loved showing off his animal and letting us sit on it.
We have many more pictures
from this day and a video of president telling us about rice farming.
Tuesday brought exciting
news. A general authority from the
Philippines Area Authority is coming to view a training that we do to teach
missionaries how to use family history as a finding and teaching tool. We did some running around and meeting with
others to arrange things for the event to happen on Friday.
Tuesday was transfers which
is always chaotic. Our van was getting
washed and the parking lot was full of missionaries so I went out onto the
street and hailed a trycee to take me to Sister Watson who was getting her hair
done across the city on Magsaysay drive.
The driver didn’t speak English so I pointed and kept saying,
“Magsaysay”. He gor me there and Sister
Watson was waiting on the street. I
yelled to her and she met me on the road, hopped in and we directed the trycee
back to Panganiban Drive where we live.
It cost 24 pesos which is about 60 cents. Valerie was impressed!
Fast forward to Thursday
evening where we met with the general authority, President Haynie of the
Philippines Area Authority. We had
dinner with him and the Reeders at the mission home. He was a very personable man and easy to talk with. We ate a wonderful dinner and had a 90
minute Q and A. The following is an
excerpt of a report I sent to a friend back home.
We have just passed our year mark and have had quite an adventure
to get to where we are now. We were called as MLS missionaries. We
had very little training on how to accomplish the task of strengthening the
branches in the first district we lived and worked in, Iriga district.
Our task was to help prepare them to become a stake. After several months
of work, experience and research we developed a project that teaches
missionaries how to use family history as a finding and teaching tool. It
springboards them into teaching the principle of eternal families connecting
less actives and investigators to deceased relatives. The success
exploded the positive indicators of the Iriga zone. It took them from the
least producing zone to the top tying them with the highest producing zones and
took Iriga district from 0% submitters to 3% in about three months. That
doesn’t sound like much but it is over 60 submitters with over 600 names.
Presently, he have recently
moved and with our limited time, hope to finish and support the work in one
more district. In the evolutionary process of learning how to make
missionaries more successful we have developed plans and trainings to assist
Priesthood Leaders and Relief Society leaders use family history in their home
teaching and visiting teaching efforts; we have a program to train Family
History Consultants to assist the missionaries with their investigators and
less-active members; we have develop events to be held at the meetinghouses to
create an awareness and an excitement for family history work (with many other
positive consequences for the church unit); and primarily to train and assist
missionary work.
This past week we were
surprised and delighted by a visit from the Area Presidency in Manila who have
heard about the success of one zone (Iriga zone) in the obscure little Naga
mission, and came to investigate. We quickly gathered together many
documents we have produced and put together a binder for President Haynie of
the First Quorum of Seventy. I am attaching a copy of the cover letter in
the front of that binder. The information we refer to in the cover letter
is only a partial collection and was meant to be a reference for him to
analyze. His visit was provoked by our request that the Philippines
produce an instructional video to be viewed by missionaries at the Manila
MTC so they can come into the mission field prepared with a skill that is very
efficient. Our limited research and analysis shows that statistically,
this approach works with more success than any other. Many positive,
unintended consequences have occurred as well, in terms of strengthening
branches and wards, increasing activity, giving purpose to some unit calls etc.
We had a wonderful evening with President Haynie
last night as we outlined what we have done and what we would like to see
happen in the Philippines in terms of support for the missionaries. Today he
witnessed a zone training we did for the missionaries. It is very intimidating
to direct a workshop being monitored by a mission president and a general
authority!
Friday
was the training and it went very well.
President was there to view our project but he took 20 minutes to
address the missionaries. Sister Reeder
took pictures of us while we trained.
We are helping President Haynie set up for his part after our workshop.
I have some notes from his presentation that I am going to paste into this blog right here.
January 29, 2016
Elder Haynie: Presidency of the Area Authority First Quorum of Seventy
A Family History experience is the most essential in the conversion process. In terms of retention in the gospel, it is most important for a new member to go to the temple with a name from their family.
If you were in prison (spirit prison) and someone gave you a key would you not use it? The level of acceptance of the gospel on the other side of the veil is far higher than here on earth. Deceased people are praying for missionaries to be sent to their families here on earth so their families will join the church and do their ordinance work for them.
Moses 6:31 Enoch is called to a mission
V32 …oym..all flesh is in my hands
V34 …mountains flee…rivers turn…walk with me (not behind me)
V 36-37 …beheld the spirits of God…testified…(Elder Haynie said the most important event for a new member is to go to the temple with a name of a relative and feel the spirits God has created.)
My Notes:
The Church of Jesus Christ believes in eternal families.
“Today Thou shalt be with me in paradise” Christ went to spirit world, Paradise.
Luke 16:19-31 Great gulf between Lazarus and the rich man after death. Lazarus begs Abraham to send missionaries to save his living family.
Christ bridged the gulf between spirit prison and paradise 1Peter 3:18-21; Moses 7:37-39
D&C 138:57-59 Elders continue to teach when they depart this life.
By comparison, Paradise is very small and spirit prison is huge.
It was a busy week with a lot
of arrangements to me made. We were
glad for Saturday. I did some paperwork
catch up and Sister Watson went for a hair appointment. On Sunday we went to Libmanan for church and
met President Lucillio of the mission presidency. WE have some plans to get the district more excited about being
LDS. This is going to be so fun!
We love you all!!
No comments:
Post a Comment