14 May 2023 Week #33: Happy Mother's Day!
Dear Family and Friends,
HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!! I’m grateful for a wonderful mother. She had to put up with a lot from me. Thank goodness she had 9 other kids who were good. I’m grateful for all of you ladies on this email list and recognize all of you as wonderful mothers. As President Nelson said, God’s work of creation wasn’t complete until his final and greatest creation took place, Eve, the first mother. I agree! My greatest desire for the young women that I had the privilege to coach was for them to become great wives and mothers. I wanted them to be good at the sport that I coached, but that would dwindle off and not mean anything, but being a mother will last for eternity. What a wonderful thing. As I watch my dear wife and her interactions with our children, I marvel at her great relationship with each of them. Thanks for being wonderful mothers, and all of you are!!
On Monday we presented a project proposal for 30 Child Development Centers in the municipality of Garcia Hernandez on the island of Bohol. It is a project we have worked on for a long time. We started on this project in December. At the first of January we went over and visited 7 of the centers in the mountains of Garcia Hernandez. They thought we were Santa Claus and gave a list that was about $300/beneficiary. We had to narrow that down a lot. Well, we have, and we think it will still be good. We hope they are not too disappointed. The project passed our group, but we didn’t have our Friday meeting for final approval. We will have that on Monday after our normal Monday meeting. We will present another project this Monday for tools for the 7th Forward Service Support Unit (Army). They rescue and recover stranded armed forces vehicles throughout the Visayas. We will see how this goes.
Back to last Monday. We had Sister Garner and Elder and Sister Heath join us for dinner. Clyda had a wonderful dinner prepared with mashed potatoes and gravy, crock pot beef, corn, and they brought a fruit salad and brownies for dessert. It was wonderful and fun to get to know them better.
Tuesday was spent at the office. We sent emails to purchasing to hopefully get a PO for our Toboso National High School project. We also asked for bids on this 7th Forward Support project and for a project called My Bonita Home. That is a home for abused girls. That afternoon we went to the Welch’s so Clyda could give Sister Welch a haircut. We had an enjoyable visit with them. He had a lot of different kinds of jobs managing hotels and restaurants, but spent his last 26 working years as a school teacher, and coach, and then an administrator in Marsh Valley. That was fun, but our day ended in a disappointment as we did not receive a PO or bids for the other two projects.
On Wednesday, back to the office for the morning to work on project development and getting all our notes up to date in our pipeline of projects. We now have 57 proposed projects, and I think they are all good. If we were to get one approved a week from now to the end of our missions, we can’t do them all. Not to mention, then finish them, after they are approved.
Our solar panel project was approved in March, and we still haven’t started on it. Finally, this week the vendor said he has the supplies. Now to get the installer over here from Orem. We hope it will finish up the first week in June. A senior couple, the Strongs from American Fork, over on Bohol island have helped us with this project. They leave to for home on June 18th. It would be wonderful to get this finished before they leave. They have involved their ward back home to do some things for this school. Sister Strong was an elementary school teacher and Elder Strong worked for United States Postal Service.
When we got our first project approved, we thought, if we can get one project approved a week and finish one a week, we will have had a productive mission. So far that isn’t happening.
About a week ago we decided we needed a break. We asked the Koyles and the Taylors if there was a day they both worked the morning shift at the temple. Wednesday was the day. So, we decided we would go bowling, since that is what is in our monthly date packet that Tessa gave us. Afterwards we would get dinner. We went, but on Wednesday afternoon they have league play. What a pit. The bowling alley is in a huge mall, the size of the University Mall in Orem, and then 4 stories tall. It is huge! Well, we went to a food court, got some mango shakes and visited. It was fun to get to know them even better. They are amazing people. They remind me of all of you. Then we had dinner and went home.
On Thursday we spent the day with our boss, Jairus, and the director of temporal affairs here in the Philippines, Ed Fernando. He is directly under the Area Seventy Presidency. They took us to see some places where we have had projects. They are looking for places to take Elder Renlund and Bishop Budge, when they come in June. We need to show them some neat projects here in Cebu. Well, guess what, we haven’t done any and aren’t getting close to doing any. Thankfully, our predecessors have done some good things. Brother Jairus had come in the night before. We picked him up at 8:00 and headed to the airport to get Elder Fernando. He arrived at about 9:30. We went to Mabuhay Deseret and made a visit. They still don’t have permits to house patients and that is really trying their patience. We had a good visit. Then we went to Vincente Sotto hospital. We have a project with them where we contribute wheelchairs. Another charitable organization stores them for us in a warehouse. They were assembling one when we were there for a patient. This was in their physical rehab lab at the hospital. We meet several other local senior missionaries there. It was a good visit.
We had gone to lunch before that visit. After the hospital we went to Lahug School. It is the school by the temple and LDSC had provided ceiling and roofing materials for four of their buildings that were severally damaged by Typhon Odette. While we were there a discussion came up about why they were having shorter classes. It was because of their lack of water and the learners can’t use the CRs. The CRs are backed up with sewage because of the CRs we built for them. Whoa! The bosses looked at me, “When did we build CRs for them, and what is the problem.” Well, we didn’t build CRs for them, Rise and Rebuild did. We pay half of Rise and Rebuilds expenses. So now we need to solve the problem. To me, a sewage problem at the school should be taken care of by the school. We would call the plumber and get it fixed. Well, this will take a little more than that. We have to get a hold of Rise and Rebuild and get this mess straightened out. It is a bad name for the church. Okay, I will call the plumber and charge it to the church since the school won’t take any responsibility for their overflowing septic tank. No, the school in the middle of the city is not connected to city water or plumbing. Our bosses don’t have any solutions for us, but we need to get it taken care of, now. This will be interesting. I have no clue how to do this. We are going back on Monday to make a better assessment of the situation. Thank goodness for Brother Colipapa. Superman to the rescue, we hope! The other thing is, we have to present it as a project, well it takes me 2 months just to get bids on materials for a project, then when it is presented, it takes at least 2 more weeks to get a PO to purchase the materials. Then, who is going to fix the problem when we get the materials since we can’t pay for labor, supposedly. If you see me in Cokeville in a couple weeks, you will know that I got fired.
While we were there a gentleman comes up to the boss and tells about some students that can’t stay awake at school because they have to work all morning. If he could hire them at the school and feed them then they would be able to stay awake and get their education. So, now I need to develop a project for that one. There are thousands of kids who have to work and go to school. This could be interesting. By the way, this is another school of about 7,000 students like the Gothong school where we are providing 1,485 desks.
Thank goodness we had the sisters over for dinner that evening. It was a joy to have them in our home. They are good missionaries. We enjoy them.
On Friday we picked up Jairus at the motel and headed to the Mandaue Stake Center to meet up with Brother Colipapa. He is married to Jairus’s sister. Jairus wanted to take a look at all the food that we hadn’t given away to the fire victims because we were so slow and other organizations beat us to the punch. The food needs to be given away soon, before they come from Salt Lake. So, Brother Colipapa is working on giving it to Stake Presidents to give to Bishops to members. We also discussed the situation for the emergency supplies, 3 generators and 5 chainsaws stored in a classroom there. ??
By the way, when they are visiting from the U.S. it is on Monday, June 12th, Philippines Independence Day. The schools will be closed, and the rehab part of the hospital is closed. So, no visits to any of the places we had visited the day before. Now the pressure is really on to find some places to show where LDSC has done something.
Now, Jairus is asking Brother Colipapa if he knows of things that we can show to Bishop Budge of our humanitarian aid. Brother Colipapa suggests that we hurry and get the project completed with the 7th Forward Support Service Unit. I checked the records. We had gone with Bro. Colipapa Belmont Tools to price all of the tools on February 10th. Belmont Tools is like a Home Depot. Brother Colipapa says they worked with Belmont Tools during Typhon Odette so it is already an accredited account for LDSC. Belmont checks and can’t find anything. So, we get paperwork from them. On Monday February 13th I send the paperwork to Manila asking if they are accredited. I sent it to two people. No answer. So, on March 13th I just send the list of tools to purchasing for a bid. On Monday of this past week, I ask again for a bid. It has now been two months. I pointed that out to Jairus, and the fact that it has been two weeks since our Toboso project was approved and we don’t have a PO for that project so we can implement it. I told him we have 57 projects on our waiting list that we could be sending in bids for, but I can’t get a bid for one in less than two months so why sent in more. I figured if we could get a bid a week, a PO a week, and a turnover a week, we still can’t come close to filling out the 57 projects that we have, and he just gave us four more the previous day. He said we need to choose between good, better, and best. Well, that depends a lot on what you value as best. I think educating the kids is one of the best in the long run, because it is the only way they are going to rise above their poverty. I just don’t know what I am doing wrong. I don’t think it should take this long. Hopefully I will get better at this. Sorry. Enough. I need to quit complaining and get to work. I am experiencing a little frustration.
Vocal Point came to town and provided a great concert on Friday evening. It was a lot of fun. The Koyles sat by a family at the concert. They got talking and it turned out to be the family of their nephew’s wife. He had married a Filipino gal.
On Saturday we decided to go to the temple. We were in the same session with Olivia’s friends Leo and Yet-Yet. That was fun to see them again. What a pleasant surprise.
We just came back from a Mother’s Day dinner at the Welch’s. Heaths, Koyles, Taylors, Sister Garner and us went up the mountain to the Welch’s place. It was a grand time and a lot of great food.
It was fun to see the results of Mylie’s regional track and how Mt. View boys won regional track by one point and it came down to the last race. Pretty exciting stuff. The Cokeville kids did great. I wish this track stuff was on NFHS. Good luck to all of them this week at state.
In Priesthood we discussed Elder Uchtdorf’s talk, “Jesus Christ Is the Strength of Parents”. It was a marvelous talk.
Once again, congratulations to all of you wonderful mothers. I’m proud to know all of you and your children. HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
Week #33 5/8-5/14
HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!! I’m grateful for a wonderful mother. She had to put up with a lot from me. Thank goodness she had 9 other kids who were good. I’m grateful for all of you ladies on this email list and recognize all of you as wonderful mothers. As President Nelson said, God’s work of creation wasn’t complete until his final and greatest creation took place, Eve, the first mother. I agree! My greatest desire for the young women that I had the privilege to coach was for them to become great wives and mothers. I wanted them to be good at the sport that I coached, but that would dwindle off and not mean anything, but being a mother will last for eternity. What a wonderful thing. As I watch my dear wife and her interactions with our children, I marvel at her great relationship with each of them. Thanks for being wonderful mothers, and all of you are!!
On Monday we presented a project proposal for 30 Child Development Centers in the municipality of Garcia Hernandez on the island of Bohol. It is a project we have worked on for a long time. We started on this project in December. At the first of January we went over and visited 7 of the centers in the mountains of Garcia Hernandez. They thought we were Santa Claus and gave a list that was about $300/beneficiary. We had to narrow that down a lot. Well, we have, and we think it will still be good. We hope they are not too disappointed. The project passed our group, but we didn’t have our Friday meeting for final approval. We will have that on Monday after our normal Monday meeting. We will present another project this Monday for tools for the 7th Forward Service Support Unit (Army). They rescue and recover stranded armed forces vehicles throughout the Visayas. We will see how this goes.
Back to last Monday. We had Sister Garner and Elder and Sister Heath join us for dinner. Clyda had a wonderful dinner prepared with mashed potatoes and gravy, crock pot beef, corn, and they brought a fruit salad and brownies for dessert. It was wonderful and fun to get to know them better.
Tuesday was spent at the office. We sent emails to purchasing to hopefully get a PO for our Toboso National High School project. We also asked for bids on this 7th Forward Support project and for a project called My Bonita Home. That is a home for abused girls. That afternoon we went to the Welch’s so Clyda could give Sister Welch a haircut. We had an enjoyable visit with them. He had a lot of different kinds of jobs managing hotels and restaurants, but spent his last 26 working years as a school teacher, and coach, and then an administrator in Marsh Valley. That was fun, but our day ended in a disappointment as we did not receive a PO or bids for the other two projects.
On Wednesday, back to the office for the morning to work on project development and getting all our notes up to date in our pipeline of projects. We now have 57 proposed projects, and I think they are all good. If we were to get one approved a week from now to the end of our missions, we can’t do them all. Not to mention, then finish them, after they are approved.
Our solar panel project was approved in March, and we still haven’t started on it. Finally, this week the vendor said he has the supplies. Now to get the installer over here from Orem. We hope it will finish up the first week in June. A senior couple, the Strongs from American Fork, over on Bohol island have helped us with this project. They leave to for home on June 18th. It would be wonderful to get this finished before they leave. They have involved their ward back home to do some things for this school. Sister Strong was an elementary school teacher and Elder Strong worked for United States Postal Service.
When we got our first project approved, we thought, if we can get one project approved a week and finish one a week, we will have had a productive mission. So far that isn’t happening.
About a week ago we decided we needed a break. We asked the Koyles and the Taylors if there was a day they both worked the morning shift at the temple. Wednesday was the day. So, we decided we would go bowling, since that is what is in our monthly date packet that Tessa gave us. Afterwards we would get dinner. We went, but on Wednesday afternoon they have league play. What a pit. The bowling alley is in a huge mall, the size of the University Mall in Orem, and then 4 stories tall. It is huge! Well, we went to a food court, got some mango shakes and visited. It was fun to get to know them even better. They are amazing people. They remind me of all of you. Then we had dinner and went home.
On Thursday we spent the day with our boss, Jairus, and the director of temporal affairs here in the Philippines, Ed Fernando. He is directly under the Area Seventy Presidency. They took us to see some places where we have had projects. They are looking for places to take Elder Renlund and Bishop Budge, when they come in June. We need to show them some neat projects here in Cebu. Well, guess what, we haven’t done any and aren’t getting close to doing any. Thankfully, our predecessors have done some good things. Brother Jairus had come in the night before. We picked him up at 8:00 and headed to the airport to get Elder Fernando. He arrived at about 9:30. We went to Mabuhay Deseret and made a visit. They still don’t have permits to house patients and that is really trying their patience. We had a good visit. Then we went to Vincente Sotto hospital. We have a project with them where we contribute wheelchairs. Another charitable organization stores them for us in a warehouse. They were assembling one when we were there for a patient. This was in their physical rehab lab at the hospital. We meet several other local senior missionaries there. It was a good visit.
We had gone to lunch before that visit. After the hospital we went to Lahug School. It is the school by the temple and LDSC had provided ceiling and roofing materials for four of their buildings that were severally damaged by Typhon Odette. While we were there a discussion came up about why they were having shorter classes. It was because of their lack of water and the learners can’t use the CRs. The CRs are backed up with sewage because of the CRs we built for them. Whoa! The bosses looked at me, “When did we build CRs for them, and what is the problem.” Well, we didn’t build CRs for them, Rise and Rebuild did. We pay half of Rise and Rebuilds expenses. So now we need to solve the problem. To me, a sewage problem at the school should be taken care of by the school. We would call the plumber and get it fixed. Well, this will take a little more than that. We have to get a hold of Rise and Rebuild and get this mess straightened out. It is a bad name for the church. Okay, I will call the plumber and charge it to the church since the school won’t take any responsibility for their overflowing septic tank. No, the school in the middle of the city is not connected to city water or plumbing. Our bosses don’t have any solutions for us, but we need to get it taken care of, now. This will be interesting. I have no clue how to do this. We are going back on Monday to make a better assessment of the situation. Thank goodness for Brother Colipapa. Superman to the rescue, we hope! The other thing is, we have to present it as a project, well it takes me 2 months just to get bids on materials for a project, then when it is presented, it takes at least 2 more weeks to get a PO to purchase the materials. Then, who is going to fix the problem when we get the materials since we can’t pay for labor, supposedly. If you see me in Cokeville in a couple weeks, you will know that I got fired.
While we were there a gentleman comes up to the boss and tells about some students that can’t stay awake at school because they have to work all morning. If he could hire them at the school and feed them then they would be able to stay awake and get their education. So, now I need to develop a project for that one. There are thousands of kids who have to work and go to school. This could be interesting. By the way, this is another school of about 7,000 students like the Gothong school where we are providing 1,485 desks.
Thank goodness we had the sisters over for dinner that evening. It was a joy to have them in our home. They are good missionaries. We enjoy them.
On Friday we picked up Jairus at the motel and headed to the Mandaue Stake Center to meet up with Brother Colipapa. He is married to Jairus’s sister. Jairus wanted to take a look at all the food that we hadn’t given away to the fire victims because we were so slow and other organizations beat us to the punch. The food needs to be given away soon, before they come from Salt Lake. So, Brother Colipapa is working on giving it to Stake Presidents to give to Bishops to members. We also discussed the situation for the emergency supplies, 3 generators and 5 chainsaws stored in a classroom there. ??
By the way, when they are visiting from the U.S. it is on Monday, June 12th, Philippines Independence Day. The schools will be closed, and the rehab part of the hospital is closed. So, no visits to any of the places we had visited the day before. Now the pressure is really on to find some places to show where LDSC has done something.
Now, Jairus is asking Brother Colipapa if he knows of things that we can show to Bishop Budge of our humanitarian aid. Brother Colipapa suggests that we hurry and get the project completed with the 7th Forward Support Service Unit. I checked the records. We had gone with Bro. Colipapa Belmont Tools to price all of the tools on February 10th. Belmont Tools is like a Home Depot. Brother Colipapa says they worked with Belmont Tools during Typhon Odette so it is already an accredited account for LDSC. Belmont checks and can’t find anything. So, we get paperwork from them. On Monday February 13th I send the paperwork to Manila asking if they are accredited. I sent it to two people. No answer. So, on March 13th I just send the list of tools to purchasing for a bid. On Monday of this past week, I ask again for a bid. It has now been two months. I pointed that out to Jairus, and the fact that it has been two weeks since our Toboso project was approved and we don’t have a PO for that project so we can implement it. I told him we have 57 projects on our waiting list that we could be sending in bids for, but I can’t get a bid for one in less than two months so why sent in more. I figured if we could get a bid a week, a PO a week, and a turnover a week, we still can’t come close to filling out the 57 projects that we have, and he just gave us four more the previous day. He said we need to choose between good, better, and best. Well, that depends a lot on what you value as best. I think educating the kids is one of the best in the long run, because it is the only way they are going to rise above their poverty. I just don’t know what I am doing wrong. I don’t think it should take this long. Hopefully I will get better at this. Sorry. Enough. I need to quit complaining and get to work. I am experiencing a little frustration.
Vocal Point came to town and provided a great concert on Friday evening. It was a lot of fun. The Koyles sat by a family at the concert. They got talking and it turned out to be the family of their nephew’s wife. He had married a Filipino gal.
On Saturday we decided to go to the temple. We were in the same session with Olivia’s friends Leo and Yet-Yet. That was fun to see them again. What a pleasant surprise.
We just came back from a Mother’s Day dinner at the Welch’s. Heaths, Koyles, Taylors, Sister Garner and us went up the mountain to the Welch’s place. It was a grand time and a lot of great food.
It was fun to see the results of Mylie’s regional track and how Mt. View boys won regional track by one point and it came down to the last race. Pretty exciting stuff. The Cokeville kids did great. I wish this track stuff was on NFHS. Good luck to all of them this week at state.
In Priesthood we discussed Elder Uchtdorf’s talk, “Jesus Christ Is the Strength of Parents”. It was a marvelous talk.
Once again, congratulations to all of you wonderful mothers. I’m proud to know all of you and your children. HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
