13 Nov. 2022 Week #7: I didn't know how much I liked Swiss Miss!
Dear Family and Friends,
It has been quite a week. On Monday we had our weekly meeting with the other couples involved in Humanitarian Aid (Welfare Self-Reliance) WSR meeting. (Elder and Sister Leininger from the Sacramento area, the old timers, they go home in January, Elder and Sister Hayne, from San Diego, Elder and Sister Huff from Laie, Hawaii. These last two couples have just been here one month more than we have.) It also includes a lawyer, Elder Slaugh, to make sure we are staying legal in the stuff we are trying to do. There are three or four other people in this meeting, and I’m not sure what their responsibilities are just yet, along with our supervisor, Jairus Perez, who is over all the Philippines as the WSR manager. It has been just the four of us couples for a month and now Elder and Sister Larsen from the SLC area. Last Monday was their first meeting with us. Another couple joined us over zoom, that will arrive in January. That will make 6 couples. Actually, there is another couple who are involved strictly over the wheelchairs throughout the Philippines, and they are a Filipino couple, but full-time missionaries. They then work with senior service missionaries that are local but serve where called and spend as many hours a week helping out as needed. Elder and Sister Gonzaga are an example of this. (they help when not busy cheering on the Gonzaga Bulldogs, just kidding) I will let you know more about them later. The other couples are all stationed up in Manila for now. The meeting lasted about 2 hours. This is the meeting where we present a proposal to get a project passed. You have to come to the meeting with all your ducks in a row to get your project passed or the flaws will be brought out and then back to the drawing board to get it fixed up. It is a good meeting to make sure the projects we do are successful and are helping people the very best we can. I’m sure when we make our first presentation there will be a long list for us to go back and figure out the answers to make it a better and more successful project. Right now we are still finishing off projects the Huskinsons had. We have been looking at others though, as we have been asked to come and help. We have at least 10 projects that we have been asked to help on. It is difficult to know which ones are MOST worthy of consideration. They all need help!!
On Monday afternoon we went shopping at “Landers” grocery store, (like a Sam’s club). It gets a fair amount of stuff from the US. When it comes you better stock up because it goes fast, and then the ship doesn’t sail again for awhile. After shopping I got us lost coming home. I missed one turn, and it was a 45 minute correction. It was during rush hour and I didn’t dare do a u-turn in all that traffic. It is not like going around the block in SLC. It is a bunch of cow trails connected together. Well, we finally got on the right road home, I say we because Clyda was then frantically searching on google maps a different route. I was so buzzed up that when we finally got to our apartment, which is on the opposite side of the road, I missed that turn and it was another 45 minute adventure. Our hour long shopping trip took about 3 hours. We could have gone to Logan and back in that time, but with all the traffic, we went to the westside subdivision and back. What a headache. Hopefully I will learn with these learning experiences.
That evening we met with the other senior missionaries here in the apartment building with us, the Woods, and Sister Garner. This week the Parkers, a senior couple from England, and they have a sweet English accent, who live about 5 miles away joined us. We had a good time together. We are planning a get away together in December.
On Tuesday it was up early and we met with Brother Colipapa at the templex at 6:30. He drove again and I was glad to have him drive. We were together for the day getting back home at about 5:00 p.m. We headed back down south where we were last Saturday. We didn’t go quite as far south, to a town/city Carcar. When we got to Carcar he taught me how to use the Palawan Pawnshop to wire money to someone else. We sent it to the Bishop in the area of the boat builder so he can go get the plywood to get the other two boats finished.
Then we met a school principal that we had met at one of our turnovers. She rode with us as we headed to the mountains, rugged mountains, to what they call “Last Mile Schools”. We visited 6 schools. Two of which had roofs completely torn off of parts of their schools during the typhon, Odette. All of these schools need help with physical things. The heat in some of the classrooms is almost unbearable, and this is the coolest season. They are crowded into classrooms at the two schools where there was severe damage. Two schools were grades 7-12 and the other four were K-6. The worst damage was at a 7-12 school, and you would have thought we were at Lake Alice by the drive to get there. It is a school for about 150 kids. The bridge to the school has been destroyed. We walked the last half mile to the school. Everyone has to do that, that lives on this side of the bridge. All the teachers live on this side. Many of the students walk for an hour just to get to school. The building that houses their industrial art classes, sewing classes, cosmetology, upholstery, and floral was basically destroyed. The boys were doing the welding outside which is fine. With the floral arrangements, for a hot glue gun, a boy was holding a glue stick over a candle flame and then dropping glue where the gal instructed him to drop the glue for her. Classes are crowded together to accommodate this situation. The principal is a young pretty lady that has a child. She drives an hour and then starts walking to get to school. She had a young male teacher join us on the tour. He is from that area, single and in his fourth year of teaching. He had excellent English. You could see why he was asked to join us. Bro. Colipapa was able to easily communicate with them in Cebuano. Then he would interpret. We have one photo here of the destruction, and we have many more. It was a full sad day. They are asking for help with tents to serve as classrooms and then supplies to replace ruined supplies from the typhon. The Department of Education (DepEd) seems to ignore these schools far away. Schools in the cities can get help from the businesses. They are seen and when they cry for help the businesses see them and help. These out of the way schools don’t have any businesses around to help. We are fortunate in the US to have the schools we have. It is sad to see.
On Wednesday we caught an afternoon flight to Iloilo on the island of Panay. We were delayed a couple hours, arrived late, Elder and Sister Gonzaga met us at the airport, in a van with a driver. The van was rented for the next three days. We would end up with many in the van the next couple of days. We took a long bumpy drive to Roxas. Roxas is on the north end of the island Panay, and Iloilo is on the south end. We bumped along for about 3 hours. Clyda and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. We were hungry. We went to bed at about 10:00. Then up at 5:30, caught breakfast at 6:00, and started out at 6:30. Breakfast was a US breakfast. With it was hot chocolate or coffee, so we had some hot chocolate. It was Swiss Miss and wonderful. The next morning, Jairus, our manager, was the first to order, and he got Filipino food, we got US food, but when our hot chocolate came it was Filipino hot chocolate. They loved it, we didn’t. What a let down. We are spoiled.
Back to Thursday’s events. We picked up the group at the airport. We then headed to breakfast, rice, fish looking at us, etc. We were so glad we had eaten breakfast at the motel. (Yes, I am a complainer. There are two kinds of people in this world, problem solvers and problems, I am the problem.) Then off to the mountains in northern Panay. It was beautiful. We went to a turnover meeting that was held at the Manoling Ward Chapel, a beautiful building. It was a great event. Elder and Sister Leinenger had done this project because the Huskinsons were swamped with all of their events. It was one where the right people new the right people. The area seventy had been there for a funeral of a relative. Another relative was a teacher that said their school could sure use some help. So they got immediate help. They were given TVs for each classroom and laptops for each teacher to run the TV and other supplies. These schools were Lamborghini’s compared to what we had witnessed two days earlier, and yet they were getting the help. Every school needs it. I am sharing some pictures from an elementary that was helped. They have gardens by their classrooms. The kids work in the gardens. It is pretty cool. This school had the best basketball court of any I have seen in the Philippines except at the Stake Centers. They are all outdoor courts. The church has the best. They serve as parking lots on Sundays. I will attach about 3 pictures of these schools. The coolest thing though, and one that I really want to learn a lot more about and promote is a thing called RACHEL. It is a server that doesn’t need the internet. It is loaded with incredible educational materials. From kindergarten to senior high school materials. The kids just need a “gadget”, phone, to connect to it. It is amazing!! And no bad stuff on it. It is all educational, so now you want the kids to have their phones in the room to do their school work. These Filipino’s are poor, but they all seem to have a gadget. After the turnover, before the visit to the 4 schools, they fed us. Then we visited the schools.
It was a great day. Then back to Roxas. We went to the same place that fed the others breakfast. It is owned by a member. It was the same meal the others had for breakfast, and we had for lunch.
Then at 8:00 p.m. Elder Leinenger gave me a quick tutorial on the RACHEL. He has been the head of this product, getting it into schools. I am sold on it and will really push it, especially for these last mile schools that have no internet.
The next day it was off to a project with the Haynes called REACH52. It is an immunization project. We partner with them and then with the local government to get children immunized, measles, small pox, etc. and of course covid19. We supply the money of course to purchase the vaccines. However, this was a checkup to see if they are doing their part to get the word out to the people out in the village who can’t make it to the hospitals, but can get to the local government facility to get their shots.
Then off to lunch. Then to Calinog to see how the TVs are being used that were given under Huskinsons project. That was a turnover we attended with them a month ago. It was good to see them in use in the classrooms. Then to a meeting with 100 farmers who want to produce Turmeric. It needs a 1,000,000 pesos machine. That is what they are asking for. The project is a 1,500,000 pesos project. They are going to do the 500,000 part and are asking if we will get them a machine. It was a good meeting with me not knowing hardly an ounce of what was going on. Thankfully Jairus was there. He could speak their language, which isn’t Cebuano or Tagolog. They have a lot of languages here in the Philippines. They say they are a direct result of the Tower of Babel. The meeting lasted quite a while. They were given some things they need to do to make it happen. Assignments were made. Then they fed us. Thankfully someone had made some great cinnamon rolls. So, along with all the rice and fish, etc. There was dessert. I of course filled up on dessert.
Then to Iloilo. We met up with Elder and Sister Peters. We had found out about them. They are a senior couple that came out in June. They grew up in Montana. He did an internship through Ricks College with Lowell Clark in Cokeville in 1982. That is in the other ward so I never met him. About 2000 Burke hired him to work on the church ranches in Nebraska. They have spent the last 22 years there until this past June. It was so fun to meet them. They are a wonderful couple. I gave them your best regards, Burke, as you asked me to. They said to send you theirs. They spoke so highly of you, Burke, both as a professional agricultural man and as a person. We had dinner with them where we could actually eat roast beef and potatoes. It cost $24 bucks, but it was worth every bite. A wonderful evening. We will look forward to seeing them again as our work takes us back to that island. While we were there we had three new projects sent our way from that island.
Today, Sunday, we visited with some children on facetime. We had wonderful meetings. Our church meetings don’t start until 1:00. We stayed at the chapel after meetings for another meeting at 4:00. The 4:00 meeting was a Cebu Stake Self-Reliance graduation ceremony. They had 92 graduates in the past two years that graduated from one of four classes: 1-Emotional Self-Reliance, 2-Starting and Growing Your Business, 3-Personal Finances, 4-My Path for Self-Reliance. They had 8 of them share a brief testimony. A couple were elderly widows who had always just depended on their husbands, one was a young girl with siblings (it sounded like she is in charge of their livelihood). Quite a range of graduates with about 15 youth from one ward where the Bishop thought all of his youth should take the Personal Finance class before they graduate from high school. A great idea!!
We just got back and now it is time for Chicken and Noodles – Clyda style, with Filipino flour and at sea level. Clyda is hoping it will work.
Our testimonies continue to grow as we watch the hand of the Lord in the great work going on here in the Philippines. The Lord reaches out to all, old and young, rich and poor, male and female, and everyone. It is amazing to see His hand in these peoples lives.
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
P.S. Sorry this was so long.P.S.S. The chicken and noodles were great. Just like at home. We will do that several times and invite guests.
Week #7 11/7-11/13
It has been quite a week. On Monday we had our weekly meeting with the other couples involved in Humanitarian Aid (Welfare Self-Reliance) WSR meeting. (Elder and Sister Leininger from the Sacramento area, the old timers, they go home in January, Elder and Sister Hayne, from San Diego, Elder and Sister Huff from Laie, Hawaii. These last two couples have just been here one month more than we have.) It also includes a lawyer, Elder Slaugh, to make sure we are staying legal in the stuff we are trying to do. There are three or four other people in this meeting, and I’m not sure what their responsibilities are just yet, along with our supervisor, Jairus Perez, who is over all the Philippines as the WSR manager. It has been just the four of us couples for a month and now Elder and Sister Larsen from the SLC area. Last Monday was their first meeting with us. Another couple joined us over zoom, that will arrive in January. That will make 6 couples. Actually, there is another couple who are involved strictly over the wheelchairs throughout the Philippines, and they are a Filipino couple, but full-time missionaries. They then work with senior service missionaries that are local but serve where called and spend as many hours a week helping out as needed. Elder and Sister Gonzaga are an example of this. (they help when not busy cheering on the Gonzaga Bulldogs, just kidding) I will let you know more about them later. The other couples are all stationed up in Manila for now. The meeting lasted about 2 hours. This is the meeting where we present a proposal to get a project passed. You have to come to the meeting with all your ducks in a row to get your project passed or the flaws will be brought out and then back to the drawing board to get it fixed up. It is a good meeting to make sure the projects we do are successful and are helping people the very best we can. I’m sure when we make our first presentation there will be a long list for us to go back and figure out the answers to make it a better and more successful project. Right now we are still finishing off projects the Huskinsons had. We have been looking at others though, as we have been asked to come and help. We have at least 10 projects that we have been asked to help on. It is difficult to know which ones are MOST worthy of consideration. They all need help!!
On Monday afternoon we went shopping at “Landers” grocery store, (like a Sam’s club). It gets a fair amount of stuff from the US. When it comes you better stock up because it goes fast, and then the ship doesn’t sail again for awhile. After shopping I got us lost coming home. I missed one turn, and it was a 45 minute correction. It was during rush hour and I didn’t dare do a u-turn in all that traffic. It is not like going around the block in SLC. It is a bunch of cow trails connected together. Well, we finally got on the right road home, I say we because Clyda was then frantically searching on google maps a different route. I was so buzzed up that when we finally got to our apartment, which is on the opposite side of the road, I missed that turn and it was another 45 minute adventure. Our hour long shopping trip took about 3 hours. We could have gone to Logan and back in that time, but with all the traffic, we went to the westside subdivision and back. What a headache. Hopefully I will learn with these learning experiences.
That evening we met with the other senior missionaries here in the apartment building with us, the Woods, and Sister Garner. This week the Parkers, a senior couple from England, and they have a sweet English accent, who live about 5 miles away joined us. We had a good time together. We are planning a get away together in December.
On Tuesday it was up early and we met with Brother Colipapa at the templex at 6:30. He drove again and I was glad to have him drive. We were together for the day getting back home at about 5:00 p.m. We headed back down south where we were last Saturday. We didn’t go quite as far south, to a town/city Carcar. When we got to Carcar he taught me how to use the Palawan Pawnshop to wire money to someone else. We sent it to the Bishop in the area of the boat builder so he can go get the plywood to get the other two boats finished.
Then we met a school principal that we had met at one of our turnovers. She rode with us as we headed to the mountains, rugged mountains, to what they call “Last Mile Schools”. We visited 6 schools. Two of which had roofs completely torn off of parts of their schools during the typhon, Odette. All of these schools need help with physical things. The heat in some of the classrooms is almost unbearable, and this is the coolest season. They are crowded into classrooms at the two schools where there was severe damage. Two schools were grades 7-12 and the other four were K-6. The worst damage was at a 7-12 school, and you would have thought we were at Lake Alice by the drive to get there. It is a school for about 150 kids. The bridge to the school has been destroyed. We walked the last half mile to the school. Everyone has to do that, that lives on this side of the bridge. All the teachers live on this side. Many of the students walk for an hour just to get to school. The building that houses their industrial art classes, sewing classes, cosmetology, upholstery, and floral was basically destroyed. The boys were doing the welding outside which is fine. With the floral arrangements, for a hot glue gun, a boy was holding a glue stick over a candle flame and then dropping glue where the gal instructed him to drop the glue for her. Classes are crowded together to accommodate this situation. The principal is a young pretty lady that has a child. She drives an hour and then starts walking to get to school. She had a young male teacher join us on the tour. He is from that area, single and in his fourth year of teaching. He had excellent English. You could see why he was asked to join us. Bro. Colipapa was able to easily communicate with them in Cebuano. Then he would interpret. We have one photo here of the destruction, and we have many more. It was a full sad day. They are asking for help with tents to serve as classrooms and then supplies to replace ruined supplies from the typhon. The Department of Education (DepEd) seems to ignore these schools far away. Schools in the cities can get help from the businesses. They are seen and when they cry for help the businesses see them and help. These out of the way schools don’t have any businesses around to help. We are fortunate in the US to have the schools we have. It is sad to see.
On Wednesday we caught an afternoon flight to Iloilo on the island of Panay. We were delayed a couple hours, arrived late, Elder and Sister Gonzaga met us at the airport, in a van with a driver. The van was rented for the next three days. We would end up with many in the van the next couple of days. We took a long bumpy drive to Roxas. Roxas is on the north end of the island Panay, and Iloilo is on the south end. We bumped along for about 3 hours. Clyda and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. We were hungry. We went to bed at about 10:00. Then up at 5:30, caught breakfast at 6:00, and started out at 6:30. Breakfast was a US breakfast. With it was hot chocolate or coffee, so we had some hot chocolate. It was Swiss Miss and wonderful. The next morning, Jairus, our manager, was the first to order, and he got Filipino food, we got US food, but when our hot chocolate came it was Filipino hot chocolate. They loved it, we didn’t. What a let down. We are spoiled.
It was a great day. Then back to Roxas. We went to the same place that fed the others breakfast. It is owned by a member. It was the same meal the others had for breakfast, and we had for lunch.
Then at 8:00 p.m. Elder Leinenger gave me a quick tutorial on the RACHEL. He has been the head of this product, getting it into schools. I am sold on it and will really push it, especially for these last mile schools that have no internet.
The next day it was off to a project with the Haynes called REACH52. It is an immunization project. We partner with them and then with the local government to get children immunized, measles, small pox, etc. and of course covid19. We supply the money of course to purchase the vaccines. However, this was a checkup to see if they are doing their part to get the word out to the people out in the village who can’t make it to the hospitals, but can get to the local government facility to get their shots.
Then off to lunch. Then to Calinog to see how the TVs are being used that were given under Huskinsons project. That was a turnover we attended with them a month ago. It was good to see them in use in the classrooms. Then to a meeting with 100 farmers who want to produce Turmeric. It needs a 1,000,000 pesos machine. That is what they are asking for. The project is a 1,500,000 pesos project. They are going to do the 500,000 part and are asking if we will get them a machine. It was a good meeting with me not knowing hardly an ounce of what was going on. Thankfully Jairus was there. He could speak their language, which isn’t Cebuano or Tagolog. They have a lot of languages here in the Philippines. They say they are a direct result of the Tower of Babel. The meeting lasted quite a while. They were given some things they need to do to make it happen. Assignments were made. Then they fed us. Thankfully someone had made some great cinnamon rolls. So, along with all the rice and fish, etc. There was dessert. I of course filled up on dessert.
Then to Iloilo. We met up with Elder and Sister Peters. We had found out about them. They are a senior couple that came out in June. They grew up in Montana. He did an internship through Ricks College with Lowell Clark in Cokeville in 1982. That is in the other ward so I never met him. About 2000 Burke hired him to work on the church ranches in Nebraska. They have spent the last 22 years there until this past June. It was so fun to meet them. They are a wonderful couple. I gave them your best regards, Burke, as you asked me to. They said to send you theirs. They spoke so highly of you, Burke, both as a professional agricultural man and as a person. We had dinner with them where we could actually eat roast beef and potatoes. It cost $24 bucks, but it was worth every bite. A wonderful evening. We will look forward to seeing them again as our work takes us back to that island. While we were there we had three new projects sent our way from that island.
Today, Sunday, we visited with some children on facetime. We had wonderful meetings. Our church meetings don’t start until 1:00. We stayed at the chapel after meetings for another meeting at 4:00. The 4:00 meeting was a Cebu Stake Self-Reliance graduation ceremony. They had 92 graduates in the past two years that graduated from one of four classes: 1-Emotional Self-Reliance, 2-Starting and Growing Your Business, 3-Personal Finances, 4-My Path for Self-Reliance. They had 8 of them share a brief testimony. A couple were elderly widows who had always just depended on their husbands, one was a young girl with siblings (it sounded like she is in charge of their livelihood). Quite a range of graduates with about 15 youth from one ward where the Bishop thought all of his youth should take the Personal Finance class before they graduate from high school. A great idea!!
We just got back and now it is time for Chicken and Noodles – Clyda style, with Filipino flour and at sea level. Clyda is hoping it will work.
Our testimonies continue to grow as we watch the hand of the Lord in the great work going on here in the Philippines. The Lord reaches out to all, old and young, rich and poor, male and female, and everyone. It is amazing to see His hand in these peoples lives.
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
P.S. Sorry this was so long.P.S.S. The chicken and noodles were great. Just like at home. We will do that several times and invite guests.
One of the schools we visited.
Elder and Sister Gonzaga
The school's gardens.
The TV on the wall was donated by LDS Charities
The school's basketball court.
Elder and Sister Peters
Pictures texted from mom during the week:
Between your dad and I, we completed well over a marathon yesterday bouncing around in the back seat of a 12 passenger van. 😂😂 Most of it was rough mountain road. Like riding in the back of a van to Lake Alice twice. Our backsides may never recover and it rattled all the fillings out of our teeth. 😂
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