Oct. 16, 2022 Week #3: Getting our Feet Wet in the Work

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been a wonderful week. We spent Monday and Tuesday in Manila receiving more training for our assignment. Then we flew to Cebu on Wednesday. The driving here in the Philippines is incredible. Please pray for our safety. The lines on the road, if they have any don’t mean anything. They do drive on the right side of the road like in the U.S. That is basically where the similarities end. Don’t do any
thing too fast and hopefully we’ll be safe. Motorcycles/scooters are everywhere and always on your right side in blind spots. If your side of the road is a two lane road there are three lanes of vehicles and another with motorbikes on the right and many times in between you and the car in the lane next to you. They will pass

anywhere, anytime, and do u-turns anywhere. It is like a bunch of cattle in stockyards going to different pens, etc. Except, hopefully in our vehicles we don’t touch each other. Intersections are just whoever dares go, goes first. Amazing! I hope I don’t get us in an accident while we are here.

While in Manila we learned about how they start celebrating Christmas in September. All of the months that end in -ber are Christmas months. They start decorating and it continues to ramp up as they get closer to Christmas. We have also heard a few Christmas songs. This picture is one in the office where we were receiving training in Manila. A couple others are in a mall in Cebu.

We are replacing Elder and Sister Randy and Julie Huskinson. They will be going home October 27th. They have been sharing with us for the last several months many of their

experiences here. They have done an incredible job. They are doers and goers. When we arrived in Cebu on Wednesday, Elder Huskinson picked us up at the airport. Sister Huskinson was sick

with apparently food poisoning that had her out until the next day. We got in our apartment, home for the next 18 months, and then Elder Huskinson took us to a little laundromat. They will do our laundry for us each week for about 10 dollars each time. We drop off one day and then pick it up the next morning. That laundromat is in the same building where our office is. It is about a five minute walk away. You basically walk in a big u-shape and end up in a room in a building that is 20 feet away from our building. For those familiar with our high school it would be like leaving the auditorium and walking around the outside of the entire school including the gyms and then ending up in the music room.

We then went to a grocery store just across the street to get a few groceries. It was very few. We will go to a better grocery store on Monday. Then that evening we went to a big Mall. It is as big as a the University Mall In Orem and then three stories tall. We ate at Itilianis. It was really good.

On Thursday we went to the Ferry office to book a trip for our vehicle and the four of us to Bohol island. We then went home, picked up our laundry, bought some bottle water that is

in a pharmacy right next to our apartment building. We then did a little training and had lunch. Then we headed for the ferry and went to Bohol. It is quite a process to book passage on the ferry. I hope I’ll remember where the heck to go and how to do it all when we go again. Apparently we will do it quite a bit to cover all the areas we will go to. It was then a two hour ferry ride.

When we arrived we headed for a completion of a pig project. We met Luisa at the

church to officially complete the project. Then we headed to her place to see it. This lady has done an incredible job with raising pigs. With very little detail (because I don’t know much) with the help of humanitarian aid she has become quite a pig farmer and has helped several others. Several people started in the project but she has done exceptional. In the last year she has raised a lot of pigs. She started with three pigs. She has developed it into a business. With each litter of pigs they are expected to pay it forward by giving a pig to someone else to get started. She has helped many get started. We saw one of the pigs that her sister got from her that just had 13 piglets a few days ago. Luisa is the mother of 9. She has sent one child on a mission, that is now home, another is on a mission and another one is about to leave. Her ninth child and husband just got baptized about a month ago.

The next day we met up with a branch where 9 members are getting started on garden projects and then with chickens also. This one is just getting going and we will be working with them. It was fun to meet with them. It is hard to understand them. It is like talking to Frank Lazcanotegui. When they aren’t speaking to us they are talking in Cebuano. They are a happy people and grateful for the help and are getting this going. These are called FAITH projects. Food Always In The Home.

These different projects are several miles apart and take a long time to get to them. It wouldn’t take long back home, but with their narrow winding roads with a lot of traffic (cars, bikes, motor bikes, pedestrians, animals) it takes time. We then went to the far end of the island to a Turn Over meeting. It was a wonderful program, speeches, dancing (lasted about two hours, put on by students, teachers, etc.) Then a big meal. It was to say thanks to the Huskinsons (LDS Charities) for their gift to this high school of 40 computers. It

is a vocational school and it was impressive. I could talk a long time about these projects, the ending of two and the starting of one, but this is already too long of an email.

We had a great stake conference today. Incredible spirit and great talks. Incredible 40 member choir that sang about 7 numbers in both sessions combined. We also sang a

Christmas song as a rest hymn when we stood up together. Because of travel and so few having vehicles they had the adult session this morning at 8:00 with children attending also, because they need to come when their parents come. Then the regular session started at 10:00. A great spirit. We then came home, had dinner and visited for a couple hours. The mission secretary for President Agustin, president of the Cebu Stake, is a single gal from Lewiston, ID. She is only 47 years old and here by herself on a 18 month misssion. She has an apartment here where we are which is only about a quarter mile from the temple grounds and two large chapels, stake center, and the mission office. This young gal, Sister Garner, fixed the main menu and the Huskinsons had vegetables. We brought ourselves since we don’t have any groceries yet.

We have a TEAMS (zoom) meeting in about an hour with the Manila group and our supervisors. That will conclude a long day. The gospel is true as testified in many different ways today in Stake Conference. All of you keep on keeping on in this great work.

With love,

Dad and Mom

Grandpa and Grandma

Briant and Clyda

Text from Mom to Family:

Bohol was a dream!! We are still there but leave this morning. The ferry ride was cool, the island is beautiful and way less trafficy than Cebu. We got to go to some remote little towns. The first place we went we were taking seed and supplies to 9 families who are in phase one of a FAITH (food always in the home) garden project. Way fun to see Randy and Julie in action and we learned a lot. We met the people involved and we will be monitoring this project through completion. Then we drove 2+ hours to a turnover celebration of another school project. The students performed (danced) and a group of teachers danced, local dignitaries spoke, it was a pretty big deal and so much fun! They LOVE Julie and Randy! This was the second project LDS Charities did for the school helping them recover from the typhoon last December. Then they fed us an awesome meal prepared by their culinary students. This high school is a vocational school helping kids graduate with employable skills. The principal has an incredible story. Really cool guy! This ceremony lasted over 3 hours. We then drove back to our hotel, a lot of it in the dark. So it was a fantastic day! I better figure out how to send this epistle on the family text!

Photos from a Facebook post made by the Huskinson's.