23 April 2023 Week #30: Jesus Is a God of Miracles

Dear Family and Friends, 

Week #30 4/17-4/23

We spent most of Monday crying. It was so great to have Olivia and Quincy with us. Thanks, Tre’, for letting them come. What a blessing they are in our lives, like all the rest of you, and that they could come.

On Monday we spent time in the office at our meeting and getting ready for our trip to Iloilo. On Tuesday we caught the 8:00 a.m. flight to Iloilo. The Peters picked us up at the airport at 9:00 and we headed to Colinog to visit Fernandez Perez National High School. We had a good visit and watched a lesson taught using the TV. Everyone wants us to give them TVs to enhance education. I think they are an effective tool. I think my teaching improved greatly after learning how to do it with a TV. Using that tool along with learning some neat Kagan Structures for teaching I think were the two best things that helped me become a better teacher. So, I’m all for it.

These Filipinos are way behind in their education as a result of not having school for two years. They started back to school just this past September. This school year will end the first of July. CRAZY!! The biggest pandemic here, although everyone has some family member that died from Covid, is what it did to create a lack of education for the children. Very few children died. I haven’t met anyone yet that knows of a child that died. So, in my opinion, they should have continued with school, all masked-up, I guess. Third graders started the school year this year not knowing how to read. I would have died as a third-grade teacher. I am so grateful to the wonderful kindergarten, first, and second grade teachers, and aides at Cokeville Elementary School who taught the kids how to read. I certainly didn’t know how to teach them how to read. I was able to help them continue to build on the reading that they knew how to do. But teaching them how, intensive phonics, etc., that is another ball game. I was blessed to have students that had been taught by the BEST.

President Quimba, the new stake president of the new Iloilo North Stake met us at the church in Colinog. He is the champion of the member welfare pig project we have going there. He was a schoolteacher for five years, and admires teachers. He is now a farmer. He took us to the high school, and then he took us to another community to visit a grade school, Bingawan Central Elementary. He and the mission president had visited there a couple weeks ago to find housing to put missionaries in that area. There are about 15 members there. They travel to Calinog to church. One of the members is a teacher at this school and is the first counselor to Bishop Penero of the Calinog Ward. We had a good visit at this school.

Then off to Cayos National High School and Elementary to our first, where we started the whole process, Turnover. It was a great success!! President Quimba and one of his councilors, and Bishop Dullete of the Dumangas Ward were there. Sister Dullete is a teacher at the school and is the one we corresponded with for this project. It was a turnover of TVs, a couple of printers, and a portable sound system. They were so gracious. The principal was excellent. She had committed to providing trainings to the teachers on how to use the TVs effectively. The next day, we received pictures of the teachers in a training session with a TV.

Asking for TVs from LDSC has become common place. No one else has a plan as to how to approach it. Clyda and I have come up with some things that we expect from them. It has been fun for us to go into schools and see what they have, and what they DON’T have. Be glad you live where you live. When they ask for TVs, we ask them how they will be protected. We ask them to show us research to prove that using TVs improves education. We want to see some data. We then tell them we will be back and want to sit in on a lesson where a teacher is using the TV effectively. If they don’t provide research, then we don’t move on with them. If they don’t provide a lesson using a TV, if they have one, then we don’t move on. Then, we want a commitment from the Principal for training for the teachers so they can use the TVs effectively.

We spent the next day visiting 5 remote schools north of Cayos. It was fun to be in these Last Mile schools. They have some committed educators. Some were born and raised there, went out to get an education, and returned to the community they love. Does it sound familiar, Coach Dayton. We know they want the best for these kids. I love going to these little schools and I’m in the fight for them. I have also been to some big ones that I have enjoyed and want to help them.

After our Wednesday visits to the five schools, we caught a ferry to Bacolod. We took a tricyle from that port to the motel. It was our first tricyle ride. At least the cage we were in was attached to a motorcycle instead of a peddle bike. We had gotten the motel on short notice. We had changed plans mid-week last week to accommodate our WSR manager for those two missions, the Iloilo Mission (where a new temple was announced in conference) and the Bacolod Mission. We have stayed here before at a nice motel, but because of the late booking it was full. So, travel got us a different motel. These arrangements are made for us by the travel department in Manila. When the trike dropped us off, we said, “Alright, this is a fancy motel.” Well, after we checked in the doorman picked up our bags and went outside. We followed down the street and went into a different building. Interesting looking place. When we finally arrived at our room, it had two twin beds in it. It was quite small. The next morning when Clyda went to shower she said, “There isn’t a shower here, just a faucet.” Well, the shower head was in the middle of the ceiling and came straight down on you. Kind of different. You had to lean over quite a bit to wash out your armpits. I about fell over, but I’m not very coordinated. It was a clean room, and we didn’t encounter any large critters so we were grateful. We will book our room earlier next time, and we won’t change plans.

Then, we visited a couple out of the way places with our WSR specialist, Erwin Boiser, on Thursday. They were large schools, but in need. The first was a junior high and high school with 7,000 students. The second was an elementary with about 2,000 students. The visit to the elementary school was really cool. The music teacher that showed us around is LDS. She took us into a classroom where she pulled up a song on the TV with the words showing. We were at the back of the class facing the TV. The students turned and faced us and began singing the song, “Jesus Is a God of Miracles”. Clyda and I sang right along with them as we could see the words. They had it memorized. I remember being in the primary when that song came out a few years ago and was a main song in the primary program. It has been one of my favorites, because the greatest miracle is “He rescues you and me.” How cool was that. The entire school knows the song and it is one they sing as a school every morning right after they sing their national anthem. All classes at every school we have attended begin with a prayer. This is a Christian country and Christ is always talked about. There are billboards all over and bumper stickers on every tricycle that talk about the goodness of Jesus Christ. It is amazing and wonderful!! It would be a lawsuit in the US.

We flew home that night, and it was so good to see the smiling faces of our security guard and front desk lady. We are fortunate to live with such wonderful people taking care of our place.

Friday was a busy day trying to catch up on all the emails of the week. Get organized and complete notes on all the schools we just went to. We are presenting another project this coming Monday. Also, our Tres Reyes Solar Project finally got a PO. However, the supplier here in Cebu told us that they don’t have any batteries here in Cebu now. So, he will let us know on Tuesday or Wednesday when they can get some from Manila. Anyway, that project should happen sometime in May. FINALLY!!

Saturday evening and today was a wonderful stake conference. It was so fun to sing in the choir. We sang three songs at the leadership meeting last night from 5:30-7:30. Then, we sang three songs during the adult session this morning from 8:00-9:30. Then a potty break and eating for many of them. Then, the general session from 10:00-12:00. We sang three more songs at that session. It was fun to be a part of this great choir. They are really good. It remimded me of the July 24th choirs in Cokeville. I’m not a very good singer, but I love to be a part of a choir that is good. I really feel the Spirit in those choirs. Elder Heath, the new medical doctor for the Cebu Mission, and lives above us, sings bass and plays the flute. What a combination. He is really good on the flute. The flute, three siblings each with a violin, and a piano, provided the prelude music for each session. It was beautiful!!

Last Tuesday night at Iloilo, we met up with Warren Coates’s son who is on a mission there. We took him and his companion out to dinner. We had met him before. I talked about it in another email. Well, when we met him before, we passed him as he was riding his bike home from a discussion with 17 investigators. We talked about that and how those investigators were doing. The Peters, who we were with, got to be in on some of those discussions. Well, they got teaching that many just from inviting them to invite others. They ended up having a FHE in the first family’s backyard with 65 people. They have now baptized 23 of them. Amazing!! He is a great missionary. Those of you in Cokeville be sure to relay this on the Sherilyn. He is a great missionary doing great things. He is training a second new companion right now. The Elder has been out 3 weeks. He knows how to speak Tagolog well. That is his language. He is getting better at English, which he is pretty good at. He is learning Iligian (sp), the language spoken on Iloilo, but he is also working each day on his Korean because that is his mission and he is just waiting for his visas to go there. How about that challenge. I still can’t speak English. You can tell how proud Elder Coates is of him though. It is fun to see the light in the eyes of good missionaries, and especially those who are having a good experience with their companion, and especially if they are training the new Elder.

While at dinner, Elder Coates says to me, the first counselor in our bishopric served with an Elder Teichert. I asked if it was in the Naga Mission. Sure enough. This gentleman, John Tabasin, started his mission the same day as James Teichert, and then they served together as assistants for 6 months together. He loves James. Unlike James, he is married and has two kids. However, he has a goal to visit James sometime in Wyoming, ride a horse and rope a calf. It was fun to visit with him.

Zack and Krista Bird’s son will arrive this summer in the Bacolod Mission. It will be fun to see him. He came to my Deacon’s Quroum 4-5 times when he was a deacon and visited in Cokeville. Jolene Buckley Bradshaw’s son will arrive here next fall in the Cebu East Mission. It will be fun to meet up with these Elders and take them to dinner after they arrive.

Last, but not least, it was a privilege to watch the funeral of Rose Harmon on FaceBook. What a blessing technology is in many ways. I can’t think of a better family than the Harmon family. She raised wonderful children who have done so much for our community. It is so neat to see all those children with strong testimonies of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Elbert, the oldest son was in my class. You couldn’t have asked for a better classmate. The family at that time wasn’t active in the church. To see where they all are now is amazing. To know of all the good, they have done for and in our community is fantastic, and I’m confident I am not aware of a tenth of it. For example, when Ernie Thornock mentioned in a Ward Council Meeting that Buhla Teichert, who he was assigned to as a home teacher, needed her old trees taken out before they fell down, Wayne stopped him from just going and pushing then down with his backhoe. Wayne then organized an effort to get it done. I came home from the BYU track meet late one Saturday night to look at my mother’s house without trees. I found out Wayne had spearheaded the thing with his teachers quorum, with Ernie the home teacher and backhoe, with Bishop Chadwick and his lift, and many others, they had the job done in a day. I could share many other examples. Cokeville, and myself personally, have been blessed by having these great friends in our community. Rose truly left a legacy. She certainly did “Lift Where You Stand.” May we all strive to develop “Holy Habits and Righteous Routines” so we can “Lift Where We Stand”.

With love,

Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma

Briant and Clyda