20 Nov. 2022 Week #8: Temple Celebration
Dear Family and Friends,
It has been another busy week. A lot of this week has been in the office trying to learn more about our responsibilities and how to go about solving problems and implementing solutions. We have had quite a few firsts and progress in areas that would really be hindering us if we were going full tilt in this mission. Since we are making baby steps at this time they haven’t hindered us too much.
Our normal daily routine, we hope, is up at 5:10, out the door at roughly 5:30 to walk for an hour. We head to the temple complex grounds which is a quarter mile away. Once inside the fence it is peaceful, away from the busy street. It is so nice. We arrive back home at about 6:30 and try to do some push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, and stretching. We do our daily “Come Follow Me” app and read a chapter in the Book of Mormon while we cool down. That takes us to about 7:30-7:45. Then we get a shower and breakfast. Then to work. Of course some days we have to be out and gone early so that interrupts that routine. However, this week we got 4 full days of that. On Friday we only got 40 minutes of walking because we had to head out a little earlier. Friday was also a rainy morning so we walked with umbrellas. Our feet got soaked, and I got soaked as my umbrella broke halfway through. It is a warm rain so that was okay. Needless to say we took showers when we first got back that morning.
There is a laundromat right across the hall from our office. Usually, we take our laundry there on Monday mornings, and they have it ready for us to pick up that evening about 8:00. They are so busy there. It is the same people from morning until night. I think it is a family. They work about 14 hour shifts. After dropping our laundry off on Monday we spent the day in the office answering emails. We get a bunch of those each day. That is a new thing for me and one I haven’t exactly embraced yet. We are putting all our projects into an excel document to try to organize them. We have too many loose papers flying around. We are prioritizing the projects and project requests. Huskinsons left us 10 projects to finish. That is a good thing. They finished a whole bunch before they left. The ones they left for us, they also gave us instructions on the next steps to take to finish each one. We can’t thank them enough for all their help. We still communicate with them almost daily. They are wonderful. They also left us with about 6 proposals that they thought would be pretty good to pursue. We have received requests for about 14 more. And they keep coming in. Everybody wants help. We visited a school on Saturday where the Huskinsons had provided 30 Smart TVs and other equipment. It is a 7-12 school with about 5,000 students. They were very appreciative and asked for more help. I told them we would love to help, but there are only five of us couples doing this work, and millions of Filipinos asking for our help. We will help if we can, but we need to help others also.
We didn’t have our Monday meeting until Tuesday because of people traveling to different parts of the country during that time frame. Three new projects were presented. The Haynes presented two projects that both passed. It was their first projects to pass the committee. Pretty cool. They are a couple that came out a month before us. They are in their early 50’s. He was a successful businessman in San Diego. One of their projects was to provide first aid packs for schools and supplies for the nurse’s stations in the schools. It covered all of the schools in one district. They had 605 teachers with each teacher receiving a pack of supplies similar to what I had hanging by my door at school to grab on the way out, when we had our fire drills, etc. and to actually use in a real emergency. Their second proposal was an x-ray machine out on an island with a couple thousand people who have a clinic but no hospital, a Cokeville with a few more people. Most of them would never be able to leave the island unless it was a life or death situation. They have a young doctor, a guy who grew up on the island and is committed to these people. He needs an x-ray machine to diagnose things better. Both great proposals to help people. I have forgotten the third proposal that was presented by someone else in behalf of the Leinengers because the Leinengers were traveling during the meeting time. Needless to say it was a proposal to help people, and a good one or it wouldn’t have passed.
The Leinengers are a great couple that I wish I could spend more time around. They came out in April of 2021, at the same time as the Huskinsons. They spent 10 days in a motel in Manila, quarantining. The two couples were in the same motel and could never see each other. Their meals were delivered to them and there was a guard in the hallway. Both couples spent all day every day for 10 days in their rooms. Then they had to quarantine for another 10 days when they got to their apartments, the Huskinsons here in Cebu and the Leinengers in Manila. Anyway, last winter sometime Sister Leinenger had to go back to the U.S. for a couple months for an operation. They could have gone home when the Huskinsons did, but they wanted to complete 18 months here in the Philippines. They will go home in January, and they will be greatly missed. I’m so impressed with the couples here who have been here for quite awhile and their love for these Filipino people and the Lord. We get to work with great people in this great work.
That evening my name had finally gotten cleared so I could apply for a Bank of America Card (BoA). I was also finally cleared so I could get on the church’s VPN Global Connect site so when I have to do money statements or legal documents it is through a protected site. I don’t know why that isn’t taken care of while we are in the MTC. They tell us how important it is and then it takes until we are here for six weeks to make it happen. Oh well. Also, they don’t have tortillas here any bigger than a doughnut circumference, so Clyda made tortillas for us and we had “Taco Tuesday” finally. It was a day to celebrate.
On Wednesday we spent another day almost entirely in the office. We are in an office with 3 Filipino guys who work on translation. They are the translation team for the Philippines. They are great guys. Two of them are older, like in there 40’s and one is in his late 20’s. They are very helpful. They are pretty computer savvy. We are not. I brought my MAC with me. Clyda was given a DELL laptop when she got here. Me trying to help her on that is for sure the “Blind leading the blind”. Thank goodness for those guys. They are gracious and have been able to help alleviate quite a bit of swearing. I’m not any good with a MAC, let alone a DELL. Just change the first letter on that machine and you know how we feel about it. However, there was more to celebrate that day as the printer in the office, which had been out of use since a month before the Huskinsons left, finally got fixed. Two months to get someone here to fix it. It is kind of like being in Cokeville and having Star Valley recognize our problems. We are the step child of Manila. If it is not important to them, then it is not important. We got our computers lined up to print and scan on the machine. Hooray!! We have to be able to scan legal documents onto our computers to enter into CHaS, the official site that keeps track of all our passed projects that we are working on for church headquarters to see what we are doing.
Wednesday evening I opened my hair salon parlor and colored Clyda’s hair. Needless to say she is now gorgeous. She probably was before, but all I can see is the present. I missed my calling in life. I don’t know why I wasted time teaching and coaching when I could have been coloring.
Thursday was more time in the office organizing projects and corresponding with people that want our help. Then we went to work on completing monthly reports. We have two reports that are due on the 20th of each month. One is a word document called a Stewardship Report. We list all of our activities for the month. That wasn’t too big of a deal. We could cut and paste pretty good on my MAC and type in a word document. Now, doing that on the DELL computer for Clyda is a different animal. Also, you should know, she is trying to do this without a mouse. It is all touch and scroll with fingertips. She hasn’t used this kind of language since the last time I crossed her path. Well, that was the easy part. Then, we have to do a Monthly Report in a PowerPoint presentation. Neither of us has ever used PowerPoint before. We said, we’ll just use the Huskinson’s report and cut and paste, that will be easy enough. HaHa!! With fingertip scrolling and not knowing where documents are, etc. I’m pretty sure at this point in time we are getting further away from Heaven on this mission than getting closer to it. Also, it is just the same information basically as in the Stewardship report. It seems kind of redundant. I guess it is another thing to help keep us humble. Well, I’m not humble and I’m sure that is a big part of the problem. So that combined with the language is a problem. It is a bigger language barrier than not knowing Cebuano.
Friday was a rainy day. We had our 7:30 meeting with Manila. Any projects approved during the Monday meeting are then fixed up very nice with help from our boss, Jairus Perez, so it can be presented to his bosses and others on Friday. Above Jairus in the line of authority is Abe Penioro, then above him is Ed Fernando. They are great guys. Ed Fernando then is under the Area Presidency. They are all 70’s of course. The president is Steven R Bangeter. He is from the U.S. The first counselor is from China, Elder Choi, and the second counselor is from here in the Philippines, Elder Revillo. Back to Friday. The meeting took about 2 hours.
One extra thing included in this meeting was the approval of medical supplies, hygiene kits, food, etc. for families in a complex where all their homes burnt down a couple days ago. The church tries to act quickly on these things, but still need to go through the proper channels. Then at 10:30 we were on a conference call with a group from Bohol Island. They represent Garcia Hernandez, a municipality. We have towns, counties, states, and country. For the most part their smallest form of government is a Barangay (like a town or village), then a Municipality (like our county), then a Province (state). Real small villages like Cokeville are called a Purok, and country sides with a lot of farmers is called a Sitio. Sorry about all the detours in this paragraph. We were on this conference call for about 2 hours. They shared who they all were, about 10 people, then all that they do, and then a plea for help. They are wanting help with their 30 day care centers, supplies to help the kids etc. Then they want help for their farmers association. I feel for them. They are doing good things, yet they do need help. The Huskinsons told us the toughtest thing we would have to do is decide who to help and who not to help.
When developing a project you need to make sure you include the LGU (local government unit). So for sure contact the Barangay captain. If you don’t include him he will be offended and that won’t be good for the church. Then make sure to include the Department of Education (DepEd) if it is a project with schools, the Department of Agriculture (DA) if it is with the farmers or garden, chicken, goats, or pig projects, the Department of Health (DH) if it is medical, dental, immunizations, etc. Whatever we do make sure the right agencies are involved or notified.
Then back to work on the monthly reports and trying to keep the frustration level down. We finally asked Sister Garner if there was any chance they had an extra mouse at the mission office. I can’t figure it out, Clyda use to cuss mice and now she is in love with a mouse. What a blessing when Sister Garner brought a mouse home for Clyda. We went to the mall to find an umbrella. We were successful. So with a new umbrella and a mouse, and it being 7:30, we decided to eat out. We ate at an Italian place, Italianis, similar to an Olive Garden, at the mall.
Saturday was a great day. Just a few push-ups, sit-us, and lunges because we had to meet Brother Colipapa at the templex at 7:00. We met up with Elder and Sister Fernando by the airport and our WSR manager for this area Ayo Abanggan and her husband. We went to see the Fisher folks boats in action. We met the men at the ocean and they showed us the boats. They took a spin in them so we could see them moving with their motors. They are extremely grateful for these boats. Hopefully the other two will be finished soon. Then we went to a high school of 5,000 students (7-12). It was Saturday, so the students who are behind were there. There had to have been well over 200. We met with the principal and all the head teachers of each curriculum. They expressed their gratitude for the 30 Smart TVs LDS Charities had given their school. Of course these aren’t just given. They have to commit to taking good care of them. Keeping them in locked facilities. Teaching the teachers how to use them so they are put to good use and not just hang on the wall. They have to share with us how it will impact their school. So they give us their past test scores and a commitment that next years will be better because of the TVs. One of the main things in a project is what is the sustainability of the project. We aren’t here just to hand out things except in emergencies, like fires, earthquakes, etc. We will be checking on that school at the end of the year to see how their scores have improved.
It is so sad to see these schools. They have been out for two years. They have a lot of third graders that can’t read. Be grateful you live where you live.
At 5:00 p.m. they had a cultural celebration at the Templex, much like we had at the temple dedication for the Star Valley Temple. Today they have an all Philippines Fireside Devotional at 5:00 p.m. to be broadcast to every meeting house in the Philippines. Usually something like this happens in Manila, but this time it is happening in Cebu. The backdrop will be the beautiful Cebu Temple. We are excited for it. Anyway, last night they had wards and stakes share amazing talents with dancing, singing, acting, etc. There was a lot of talent displayed in those arts and in the art of the writers for the different shows performed. These were done by the youth and their leaders. It was a packed house and filmed and broadcast to people in the other building. It was a great hour and a half of entertainment. They are a talented people.
We went to church today with another ward. Our meetings don’t start until 1:00, but they wanted all meetings to be done by 12:00 today so they could get set up for this big event. It will be outdoors with the temple in the background. I will give you a report of the big event. Now to head to it. Talk to you again in a bit.
It was a marvelous experience. Theme: Come Unto Christ – I Will Go (to the temple and stay on the covenant path) I Will Serve. A few different youth groups sang incredible numbers. All three members of the Area Presidency spoke and their wives. One husband wife team sang a powerful number. Actually, he played the piano while she sang. She had an incredible voice and he was amazing on the piano. They did a great job of having great microphones and TV screens all around so everyone could see and hear. It was raining to start and they had a prayer for it to quit. So it quit. Then right after the program it started to rain again. It wasn’t a hard rain but it pulled out the umbrellas. Having the backdrop be the temple was perfect. We were at an angle so we didn’t get a great picture like they were showing on the TV monitors with the speakers and performers right in front of the temple. Testimonies were strengthened and commitments to live the gospel were strengthened. That is what we are trying to do, so we can all return with our families to our Heavenly Parents.
With love,
Week #8 11/14-11/20
It has been another busy week. A lot of this week has been in the office trying to learn more about our responsibilities and how to go about solving problems and implementing solutions. We have had quite a few firsts and progress in areas that would really be hindering us if we were going full tilt in this mission. Since we are making baby steps at this time they haven’t hindered us too much.
Our normal daily routine, we hope, is up at 5:10, out the door at roughly 5:30 to walk for an hour. We head to the temple complex grounds which is a quarter mile away. Once inside the fence it is peaceful, away from the busy street. It is so nice. We arrive back home at about 6:30 and try to do some push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, and stretching. We do our daily “Come Follow Me” app and read a chapter in the Book of Mormon while we cool down. That takes us to about 7:30-7:45. Then we get a shower and breakfast. Then to work. Of course some days we have to be out and gone early so that interrupts that routine. However, this week we got 4 full days of that. On Friday we only got 40 minutes of walking because we had to head out a little earlier. Friday was also a rainy morning so we walked with umbrellas. Our feet got soaked, and I got soaked as my umbrella broke halfway through. It is a warm rain so that was okay. Needless to say we took showers when we first got back that morning.
There is a laundromat right across the hall from our office. Usually, we take our laundry there on Monday mornings, and they have it ready for us to pick up that evening about 8:00. They are so busy there. It is the same people from morning until night. I think it is a family. They work about 14 hour shifts. After dropping our laundry off on Monday we spent the day in the office answering emails. We get a bunch of those each day. That is a new thing for me and one I haven’t exactly embraced yet. We are putting all our projects into an excel document to try to organize them. We have too many loose papers flying around. We are prioritizing the projects and project requests. Huskinsons left us 10 projects to finish. That is a good thing. They finished a whole bunch before they left. The ones they left for us, they also gave us instructions on the next steps to take to finish each one. We can’t thank them enough for all their help. We still communicate with them almost daily. They are wonderful. They also left us with about 6 proposals that they thought would be pretty good to pursue. We have received requests for about 14 more. And they keep coming in. Everybody wants help. We visited a school on Saturday where the Huskinsons had provided 30 Smart TVs and other equipment. It is a 7-12 school with about 5,000 students. They were very appreciative and asked for more help. I told them we would love to help, but there are only five of us couples doing this work, and millions of Filipinos asking for our help. We will help if we can, but we need to help others also.
We didn’t have our Monday meeting until Tuesday because of people traveling to different parts of the country during that time frame. Three new projects were presented. The Haynes presented two projects that both passed. It was their first projects to pass the committee. Pretty cool. They are a couple that came out a month before us. They are in their early 50’s. He was a successful businessman in San Diego. One of their projects was to provide first aid packs for schools and supplies for the nurse’s stations in the schools. It covered all of the schools in one district. They had 605 teachers with each teacher receiving a pack of supplies similar to what I had hanging by my door at school to grab on the way out, when we had our fire drills, etc. and to actually use in a real emergency. Their second proposal was an x-ray machine out on an island with a couple thousand people who have a clinic but no hospital, a Cokeville with a few more people. Most of them would never be able to leave the island unless it was a life or death situation. They have a young doctor, a guy who grew up on the island and is committed to these people. He needs an x-ray machine to diagnose things better. Both great proposals to help people. I have forgotten the third proposal that was presented by someone else in behalf of the Leinengers because the Leinengers were traveling during the meeting time. Needless to say it was a proposal to help people, and a good one or it wouldn’t have passed.
The Leinengers are a great couple that I wish I could spend more time around. They came out in April of 2021, at the same time as the Huskinsons. They spent 10 days in a motel in Manila, quarantining. The two couples were in the same motel and could never see each other. Their meals were delivered to them and there was a guard in the hallway. Both couples spent all day every day for 10 days in their rooms. Then they had to quarantine for another 10 days when they got to their apartments, the Huskinsons here in Cebu and the Leinengers in Manila. Anyway, last winter sometime Sister Leinenger had to go back to the U.S. for a couple months for an operation. They could have gone home when the Huskinsons did, but they wanted to complete 18 months here in the Philippines. They will go home in January, and they will be greatly missed. I’m so impressed with the couples here who have been here for quite awhile and their love for these Filipino people and the Lord. We get to work with great people in this great work.
That evening my name had finally gotten cleared so I could apply for a Bank of America Card (BoA). I was also finally cleared so I could get on the church’s VPN Global Connect site so when I have to do money statements or legal documents it is through a protected site. I don’t know why that isn’t taken care of while we are in the MTC. They tell us how important it is and then it takes until we are here for six weeks to make it happen. Oh well. Also, they don’t have tortillas here any bigger than a doughnut circumference, so Clyda made tortillas for us and we had “Taco Tuesday” finally. It was a day to celebrate.
On Wednesday we spent another day almost entirely in the office. We are in an office with 3 Filipino guys who work on translation. They are the translation team for the Philippines. They are great guys. Two of them are older, like in there 40’s and one is in his late 20’s. They are very helpful. They are pretty computer savvy. We are not. I brought my MAC with me. Clyda was given a DELL laptop when she got here. Me trying to help her on that is for sure the “Blind leading the blind”. Thank goodness for those guys. They are gracious and have been able to help alleviate quite a bit of swearing. I’m not any good with a MAC, let alone a DELL. Just change the first letter on that machine and you know how we feel about it. However, there was more to celebrate that day as the printer in the office, which had been out of use since a month before the Huskinsons left, finally got fixed. Two months to get someone here to fix it. It is kind of like being in Cokeville and having Star Valley recognize our problems. We are the step child of Manila. If it is not important to them, then it is not important. We got our computers lined up to print and scan on the machine. Hooray!! We have to be able to scan legal documents onto our computers to enter into CHaS, the official site that keeps track of all our passed projects that we are working on for church headquarters to see what we are doing.
Wednesday evening I opened my hair salon parlor and colored Clyda’s hair. Needless to say she is now gorgeous. She probably was before, but all I can see is the present. I missed my calling in life. I don’t know why I wasted time teaching and coaching when I could have been coloring.
Thursday was more time in the office organizing projects and corresponding with people that want our help. Then we went to work on completing monthly reports. We have two reports that are due on the 20th of each month. One is a word document called a Stewardship Report. We list all of our activities for the month. That wasn’t too big of a deal. We could cut and paste pretty good on my MAC and type in a word document. Now, doing that on the DELL computer for Clyda is a different animal. Also, you should know, she is trying to do this without a mouse. It is all touch and scroll with fingertips. She hasn’t used this kind of language since the last time I crossed her path. Well, that was the easy part. Then, we have to do a Monthly Report in a PowerPoint presentation. Neither of us has ever used PowerPoint before. We said, we’ll just use the Huskinson’s report and cut and paste, that will be easy enough. HaHa!! With fingertip scrolling and not knowing where documents are, etc. I’m pretty sure at this point in time we are getting further away from Heaven on this mission than getting closer to it. Also, it is just the same information basically as in the Stewardship report. It seems kind of redundant. I guess it is another thing to help keep us humble. Well, I’m not humble and I’m sure that is a big part of the problem. So that combined with the language is a problem. It is a bigger language barrier than not knowing Cebuano.
Friday was a rainy day. We had our 7:30 meeting with Manila. Any projects approved during the Monday meeting are then fixed up very nice with help from our boss, Jairus Perez, so it can be presented to his bosses and others on Friday. Above Jairus in the line of authority is Abe Penioro, then above him is Ed Fernando. They are great guys. Ed Fernando then is under the Area Presidency. They are all 70’s of course. The president is Steven R Bangeter. He is from the U.S. The first counselor is from China, Elder Choi, and the second counselor is from here in the Philippines, Elder Revillo. Back to Friday. The meeting took about 2 hours.
One extra thing included in this meeting was the approval of medical supplies, hygiene kits, food, etc. for families in a complex where all their homes burnt down a couple days ago. The church tries to act quickly on these things, but still need to go through the proper channels. Then at 10:30 we were on a conference call with a group from Bohol Island. They represent Garcia Hernandez, a municipality. We have towns, counties, states, and country. For the most part their smallest form of government is a Barangay (like a town or village), then a Municipality (like our county), then a Province (state). Real small villages like Cokeville are called a Purok, and country sides with a lot of farmers is called a Sitio. Sorry about all the detours in this paragraph. We were on this conference call for about 2 hours. They shared who they all were, about 10 people, then all that they do, and then a plea for help. They are wanting help with their 30 day care centers, supplies to help the kids etc. Then they want help for their farmers association. I feel for them. They are doing good things, yet they do need help. The Huskinsons told us the toughtest thing we would have to do is decide who to help and who not to help.
When developing a project you need to make sure you include the LGU (local government unit). So for sure contact the Barangay captain. If you don’t include him he will be offended and that won’t be good for the church. Then make sure to include the Department of Education (DepEd) if it is a project with schools, the Department of Agriculture (DA) if it is with the farmers or garden, chicken, goats, or pig projects, the Department of Health (DH) if it is medical, dental, immunizations, etc. Whatever we do make sure the right agencies are involved or notified.
Then back to work on the monthly reports and trying to keep the frustration level down. We finally asked Sister Garner if there was any chance they had an extra mouse at the mission office. I can’t figure it out, Clyda use to cuss mice and now she is in love with a mouse. What a blessing when Sister Garner brought a mouse home for Clyda. We went to the mall to find an umbrella. We were successful. So with a new umbrella and a mouse, and it being 7:30, we decided to eat out. We ate at an Italian place, Italianis, similar to an Olive Garden, at the mall.
Saturday was a great day. Just a few push-ups, sit-us, and lunges because we had to meet Brother Colipapa at the templex at 7:00. We met up with Elder and Sister Fernando by the airport and our WSR manager for this area Ayo Abanggan and her husband. We went to see the Fisher folks boats in action. We met the men at the ocean and they showed us the boats. They took a spin in them so we could see them moving with their motors. They are extremely grateful for these boats. Hopefully the other two will be finished soon. Then we went to a high school of 5,000 students (7-12). It was Saturday, so the students who are behind were there. There had to have been well over 200. We met with the principal and all the head teachers of each curriculum. They expressed their gratitude for the 30 Smart TVs LDS Charities had given their school. Of course these aren’t just given. They have to commit to taking good care of them. Keeping them in locked facilities. Teaching the teachers how to use them so they are put to good use and not just hang on the wall. They have to share with us how it will impact their school. So they give us their past test scores and a commitment that next years will be better because of the TVs. One of the main things in a project is what is the sustainability of the project. We aren’t here just to hand out things except in emergencies, like fires, earthquakes, etc. We will be checking on that school at the end of the year to see how their scores have improved.
It is so sad to see these schools. They have been out for two years. They have a lot of third graders that can’t read. Be grateful you live where you live.
At 5:00 p.m. they had a cultural celebration at the Templex, much like we had at the temple dedication for the Star Valley Temple. Today they have an all Philippines Fireside Devotional at 5:00 p.m. to be broadcast to every meeting house in the Philippines. Usually something like this happens in Manila, but this time it is happening in Cebu. The backdrop will be the beautiful Cebu Temple. We are excited for it. Anyway, last night they had wards and stakes share amazing talents with dancing, singing, acting, etc. There was a lot of talent displayed in those arts and in the art of the writers for the different shows performed. These were done by the youth and their leaders. It was a packed house and filmed and broadcast to people in the other building. It was a great hour and a half of entertainment. They are a talented people.
We went to church today with another ward. Our meetings don’t start until 1:00, but they wanted all meetings to be done by 12:00 today so they could get set up for this big event. It will be outdoors with the temple in the background. I will give you a report of the big event. Now to head to it. Talk to you again in a bit.
It was a marvelous experience. Theme: Come Unto Christ – I Will Go (to the temple and stay on the covenant path) I Will Serve. A few different youth groups sang incredible numbers. All three members of the Area Presidency spoke and their wives. One husband wife team sang a powerful number. Actually, he played the piano while she sang. She had an incredible voice and he was amazing on the piano. They did a great job of having great microphones and TV screens all around so everyone could see and hear. It was raining to start and they had a prayer for it to quit. So it quit. Then right after the program it started to rain again. It wasn’t a hard rain but it pulled out the umbrellas. Having the backdrop be the temple was perfect. We were at an angle so we didn’t get a great picture like they were showing on the TV monitors with the speakers and performers right in front of the temple. Testimonies were strengthened and commitments to live the gospel were strengthened. That is what we are trying to do, so we can all return with our families to our Heavenly Parents.
With love,





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