7 May 2023 Week #32: Labor Day, Desks, and Kangaroo Tubes
Dear Family and Friends,
Monday was Labor Day. Yes, May 1st is Labor Day in the Philippines. It doesn’t matter what day of the week it is on. It just happened to be on a Monday this year. School was out, people were celebrating, and it was a good day. Our stake, the Lahug Stake, had a great celebration. Registration started at the Templex at 6:00 a.m. and the party started at 7:00. It went until 3:00 p.m. When we went walking at 5:30 a.m. there were already people at the Templex. When we left at 6:30 there were 30-40 people. I would say there had to have been well over 200 people present when we, the party poopers, showed back up at 9:00. Each ward had colored shirts. The Lahug Panthers wore purple. I liked the idea that our ward was the Panthers but couldn’t quite get myself to wear purple like the Saratoga Panthers. I wore an orange shirt. Not really. The Kumputhaw Ward wore orange. Anyway, it was easy to tell what ward each person was from, and each ward has a mascot. They played all kinds of games. With a lot of the games, wards would line alongside each other and compete. Sometimes, the whole ward would go at the same time, and be timed, then another ward would do the same. Then you just compared times. They had all kinds of games. They also had a huge chess tournament for different ages. A lot of the games were outside, and each ward had a big tent cover for shade when they weren’t competing. They have these mono-block chairs that are light and stack really easy so everyone could sit. The tents were on the outside of the parking lot, and where cars would park if they had cars. Then, down the middle of the lot was where the games were played. Some games were played inside in the cultural hall. They have a big cultural hall. The Zumba that lasted for over an hour was in the cultural hall. Different wards would have different groups lead a dance. It is more like line dancing than Zumba I would say. They love to dance. After about an hour, as it was dying down, they had the stake presidency and their wives lead a number. Then, last of all they called the senior missionaries up. I would have of course, but someone had to take the video. I hope you could see Clyda doing some pretty mellow dancing. She was following the two guys in front and did great. This was really mellow compared to what had been going on. They brought their own lunches, and each ward was assigned a room for lunch and asked to clean up after themselves. The building has air conditioning, which is great, because it was about 90 degrees that day and humid. That is why they start so early in the morning.
With it being a holiday, we didn’t have any meetings. We went back that evening for FHE. We had it at the Koyle’s apartment in the Patron Housing. It was a good time. We sure enjoy these other senior couples and admire them.
The stake president from the new Iloilo North Stake that took us to see some schools has spread the word, and we are getting bombarded with proposals. We created a file folder on the desktop for proposals, a file in the email, and a file on our pipeline, (an excel spreadsheet to keep track of all the proposals). These new files are called “Call us back in October”. We are still getting a bunch, they are in a folder called “Call us back next January”.
We spent Tuesday in the office just trying to get all of these answered and organized. Wednesday was a welcome relief as we went to visit a couple hospitals. They are government hospitals for the indigent people. They don’t have to pay to get care. However, the care is sketchy. We visited a hospital where a project was done a few years ago. It is called “Kangaroo Tubes”. Clyda loved this project and so we are resurrecting it. 5,000 “Kangaroo Tubes” were sewn and given to the hospital. Only 54% of the budget was spent. This was a project back in 2018. It still has 46% of the budget left. The nurse was so glad to see us because they are right at the end of the 5,000. Okay, so “Kangaroo Tubes” are a body wrap that a mother or father can put around themselves and then tuck the baby inside the wrap skin-to-skin when they are born premature to give them the best chance to live, since they don’t have the kind of equipment necessary to keep the babies alive. While we were there, they had 4 mothers and 1 father sitting up in beds with babies in these tubes with them. We have gone to three different stores to look for fabric. They would like to have lycra of course so it is flexible enough for the adult to slip it over their head and down to their chest, so they can then have the material still fit snug to hold the baby in. We are excited about this project, Clyda, for doing it, me, for not having to prepare a project proposal. We can just finish it off as it was designed. We will coordinate with the stake relief society to get seamstresses, etc. We will be cutting a lot of material.
We visited another hospital also, to see if we could help with something there. Brother Colipapa took us and Elder and Sister Heath went with us. Elder Heath is a retired doctor who is the medical advisor for the Cebu Mission. He has spent a lot of time in hospitals. The second hospital, right by the first was just a drop in and meet. We will go back again later to check it more thoroughly.
Thursday was another office day. We then went to the temple that afternoon. There were 5 gentlemen and 5 sisters getting their endowments. They all joined in the prayer circle. We were in the circle. Needless to say, they didn’t have a clue how to stand with each other during the prayer, so we were busy helping them hold hands correctly. It was interesting, but very cool. They were from different places. Four of the five young men are from down on Mindanao and are getting ready to go on missions. The sisters were older. The next day we were at the patron housing to meet our bosses who had come down from Manila. We saw those young elders again. They had just finished another session and were getting ready to go get back on the ferry for a 16-hour boat ride back home and then a couple hour bus ride. WOW! WHY? Because the gospel is true, the Holy Ghost has born witness to them, and they want to join in this great work of Gathering Israel!
One thing we did with our bosses on Friday was go visit the Gothong School where we have the project of giving them 1,485 wooden desks. 500 have been delivered so far. It is a school that has 5,000+ students. You can’t believe these schools. I’m surprised any learning takes place. Hot, no fans, wooden desks, chipped cement floors, blackboards and chalk, sit and learn. WOW! Be grateful for what we have! Now, if we could just have prayer in schools and talk about Jesus and how he wants us to live. Now, they should be grateful!
We fed the Elders on Friday evening. One is a new missionary, out just a week. He speaks real good English and is from Mindanao. They speak Cebuano down there also, so he doesn’t have to learn a language just get better at the Cebuano dialect here and English. He is already pretty good. The Elders were on splits and a threesome came here. So, Elder Espinoza wasn’t here, Elder Jenkins came with this new Elder who is assigned to Busay Second Ward, way up in the mountains, and Elder Filio, one of the assistants. It was good to get to know them. Elder Filio is one of 8 siblings. He joined the church 4 years ago. He has baptized his twin brother and one younger sister. He has 3 older sisters. His parents and none of the other siblings have joined the church. He is a sharp young man.
Today, Saturday, after walking, scriptures, showering, etc. while Clyda was cooking us some bacon bit pancakes with fried eggs, I hurried and took a quick look at Friday’s BYU high school track results. I correspond with Drake Plowman and Bryli Groll each week congratulating them on their successes. I took a quick look at the Cokeville kids Friday results. They had some great perfomances. Bryli and Mia Dayton made it into the Golden Hour finals in the 400, and Adison Barnes in the 300 hurdles. They ran great times. It will be fun to see how they place in the finals. Addison also, placed high in the high jump clearing 5’3”. She is quite an athlete. Drake set a new school record in the 3200. That was exciting. That was his goal. We talked about his goals before we left on this mission. He is shooting for the 1600 tomorrow.
After breakfast we went out to Talisay to check out a footpath project through an area where it gets extremely muddy when it rains. We will see if we can coordinate a cement walking path for about 200 meters. Jeffrey, from the translation team in our office is the bishop out there. We met him at the church and then went for a hairy ride. I was driving down a road where I had about two inches on each side of the vehicle. Then, we had to make a 90-degree turn. Oh my, it was a 25-point turn with 2 inches forward, then 2 inches back, over and over again with Bishop Jeffrey and an investigator giving me the hand signals, one in front and one behind. This investigator seems like a great guy. His oldest daughter is on a mission and his oldest son is now preparing to go later this summer. His call hasn’t come yet. He will be ordained an Elder this coming Sunday. The mother got baptized last week. We went in their home, very humble, but a neat feeling there. I will be shocked if the dad doesn’t soon join. The son and mother radiate the Light of Christ. It was fun for us to be in their humble home.
Then, when we arrived home late this afternoon, we started our fast, and then I got on the computer to check out in detail the BYU track results. I love the BYU meet, regional and state track. I love regional and state basketball, regional and state wrestling, although I haven’t gotten to very many of those. I love regional and state volleyball, and I love football playoffs, especially state championships. They are a great time for hardworking kids to be rewarded. Also, a great time for those same kids to learn that you don’t always win, but you have become a better person for having worked hard for a goal. Hopefully, they learn that to achieve a great goal you have to practice each day like you want to be a champion. You must work for it, not just say you want it. I love the kids who work for it. It was my great privilege to get to work with a lot of kids that realized that and went to work each day. I love sports, and the lessons they can teach us. Be very good at the fundamentals and you will experience success. By small and simple things are great things brought to pass. It isn’t plays that win championships, it’s players. I’m glad I was able to join and work with coaches that spent more time developing players, than developing plays. Plays are important, but only when you have players that can execute them. Heavenly Father’s game plan is pretty simple, and if we will just work hard to develop the players, we ourselves will become better and we can be on the winning team!! I’ve watched a lot of great players that didn’t win state championships because they didn’t have the supporting cast. We played against girls that we couldn’t stop, but we won. I would tell the girls to be grateful for their teammates. Thankfully, we and all of you have great teammates. Then, no matter how hard we try, we would not win in this game of life if we didn’t have Jesus Christ. But, since we are on his team, if we just do our best, even though we will have plenty of turnovers, we will still be on the winning team, because Jesus will cover for us. What a great blessing. An incredible plan. If we just join his team and do our best, have faith, repent, get on the covenant path, try hard to keep the Holy Ghost with us, keep the commandments and our covenants, and endure to the end, then we will be on the winning team. We will be able to return and live with Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and our families. Let us all press on doing our best to have Holy Habits, Righteous Routines, and Lift Where We Stand. IT IS TRUE!! LET’S WIN!!
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
Week #32 5/1-5/7
Monday was Labor Day. Yes, May 1st is Labor Day in the Philippines. It doesn’t matter what day of the week it is on. It just happened to be on a Monday this year. School was out, people were celebrating, and it was a good day. Our stake, the Lahug Stake, had a great celebration. Registration started at the Templex at 6:00 a.m. and the party started at 7:00. It went until 3:00 p.m. When we went walking at 5:30 a.m. there were already people at the Templex. When we left at 6:30 there were 30-40 people. I would say there had to have been well over 200 people present when we, the party poopers, showed back up at 9:00. Each ward had colored shirts. The Lahug Panthers wore purple. I liked the idea that our ward was the Panthers but couldn’t quite get myself to wear purple like the Saratoga Panthers. I wore an orange shirt. Not really. The Kumputhaw Ward wore orange. Anyway, it was easy to tell what ward each person was from, and each ward has a mascot. They played all kinds of games. With a lot of the games, wards would line alongside each other and compete. Sometimes, the whole ward would go at the same time, and be timed, then another ward would do the same. Then you just compared times. They had all kinds of games. They also had a huge chess tournament for different ages. A lot of the games were outside, and each ward had a big tent cover for shade when they weren’t competing. They have these mono-block chairs that are light and stack really easy so everyone could sit. The tents were on the outside of the parking lot, and where cars would park if they had cars. Then, down the middle of the lot was where the games were played. Some games were played inside in the cultural hall. They have a big cultural hall. The Zumba that lasted for over an hour was in the cultural hall. Different wards would have different groups lead a dance. It is more like line dancing than Zumba I would say. They love to dance. After about an hour, as it was dying down, they had the stake presidency and their wives lead a number. Then, last of all they called the senior missionaries up. I would have of course, but someone had to take the video. I hope you could see Clyda doing some pretty mellow dancing. She was following the two guys in front and did great. This was really mellow compared to what had been going on. They brought their own lunches, and each ward was assigned a room for lunch and asked to clean up after themselves. The building has air conditioning, which is great, because it was about 90 degrees that day and humid. That is why they start so early in the morning.
With it being a holiday, we didn’t have any meetings. We went back that evening for FHE. We had it at the Koyle’s apartment in the Patron Housing. It was a good time. We sure enjoy these other senior couples and admire them.
The stake president from the new Iloilo North Stake that took us to see some schools has spread the word, and we are getting bombarded with proposals. We created a file folder on the desktop for proposals, a file in the email, and a file on our pipeline, (an excel spreadsheet to keep track of all the proposals). These new files are called “Call us back in October”. We are still getting a bunch, they are in a folder called “Call us back next January”.
We spent Tuesday in the office just trying to get all of these answered and organized. Wednesday was a welcome relief as we went to visit a couple hospitals. They are government hospitals for the indigent people. They don’t have to pay to get care. However, the care is sketchy. We visited a hospital where a project was done a few years ago. It is called “Kangaroo Tubes”. Clyda loved this project and so we are resurrecting it. 5,000 “Kangaroo Tubes” were sewn and given to the hospital. Only 54% of the budget was spent. This was a project back in 2018. It still has 46% of the budget left. The nurse was so glad to see us because they are right at the end of the 5,000. Okay, so “Kangaroo Tubes” are a body wrap that a mother or father can put around themselves and then tuck the baby inside the wrap skin-to-skin when they are born premature to give them the best chance to live, since they don’t have the kind of equipment necessary to keep the babies alive. While we were there, they had 4 mothers and 1 father sitting up in beds with babies in these tubes with them. We have gone to three different stores to look for fabric. They would like to have lycra of course so it is flexible enough for the adult to slip it over their head and down to their chest, so they can then have the material still fit snug to hold the baby in. We are excited about this project, Clyda, for doing it, me, for not having to prepare a project proposal. We can just finish it off as it was designed. We will coordinate with the stake relief society to get seamstresses, etc. We will be cutting a lot of material.
We visited another hospital also, to see if we could help with something there. Brother Colipapa took us and Elder and Sister Heath went with us. Elder Heath is a retired doctor who is the medical advisor for the Cebu Mission. He has spent a lot of time in hospitals. The second hospital, right by the first was just a drop in and meet. We will go back again later to check it more thoroughly.
Thursday was another office day. We then went to the temple that afternoon. There were 5 gentlemen and 5 sisters getting their endowments. They all joined in the prayer circle. We were in the circle. Needless to say, they didn’t have a clue how to stand with each other during the prayer, so we were busy helping them hold hands correctly. It was interesting, but very cool. They were from different places. Four of the five young men are from down on Mindanao and are getting ready to go on missions. The sisters were older. The next day we were at the patron housing to meet our bosses who had come down from Manila. We saw those young elders again. They had just finished another session and were getting ready to go get back on the ferry for a 16-hour boat ride back home and then a couple hour bus ride. WOW! WHY? Because the gospel is true, the Holy Ghost has born witness to them, and they want to join in this great work of Gathering Israel!
One thing we did with our bosses on Friday was go visit the Gothong School where we have the project of giving them 1,485 wooden desks. 500 have been delivered so far. It is a school that has 5,000+ students. You can’t believe these schools. I’m surprised any learning takes place. Hot, no fans, wooden desks, chipped cement floors, blackboards and chalk, sit and learn. WOW! Be grateful for what we have! Now, if we could just have prayer in schools and talk about Jesus and how he wants us to live. Now, they should be grateful!
We fed the Elders on Friday evening. One is a new missionary, out just a week. He speaks real good English and is from Mindanao. They speak Cebuano down there also, so he doesn’t have to learn a language just get better at the Cebuano dialect here and English. He is already pretty good. The Elders were on splits and a threesome came here. So, Elder Espinoza wasn’t here, Elder Jenkins came with this new Elder who is assigned to Busay Second Ward, way up in the mountains, and Elder Filio, one of the assistants. It was good to get to know them. Elder Filio is one of 8 siblings. He joined the church 4 years ago. He has baptized his twin brother and one younger sister. He has 3 older sisters. His parents and none of the other siblings have joined the church. He is a sharp young man.
Today, Saturday, after walking, scriptures, showering, etc. while Clyda was cooking us some bacon bit pancakes with fried eggs, I hurried and took a quick look at Friday’s BYU high school track results. I correspond with Drake Plowman and Bryli Groll each week congratulating them on their successes. I took a quick look at the Cokeville kids Friday results. They had some great perfomances. Bryli and Mia Dayton made it into the Golden Hour finals in the 400, and Adison Barnes in the 300 hurdles. They ran great times. It will be fun to see how they place in the finals. Addison also, placed high in the high jump clearing 5’3”. She is quite an athlete. Drake set a new school record in the 3200. That was exciting. That was his goal. We talked about his goals before we left on this mission. He is shooting for the 1600 tomorrow.
After breakfast we went out to Talisay to check out a footpath project through an area where it gets extremely muddy when it rains. We will see if we can coordinate a cement walking path for about 200 meters. Jeffrey, from the translation team in our office is the bishop out there. We met him at the church and then went for a hairy ride. I was driving down a road where I had about two inches on each side of the vehicle. Then, we had to make a 90-degree turn. Oh my, it was a 25-point turn with 2 inches forward, then 2 inches back, over and over again with Bishop Jeffrey and an investigator giving me the hand signals, one in front and one behind. This investigator seems like a great guy. His oldest daughter is on a mission and his oldest son is now preparing to go later this summer. His call hasn’t come yet. He will be ordained an Elder this coming Sunday. The mother got baptized last week. We went in their home, very humble, but a neat feeling there. I will be shocked if the dad doesn’t soon join. The son and mother radiate the Light of Christ. It was fun for us to be in their humble home.
Then, when we arrived home late this afternoon, we started our fast, and then I got on the computer to check out in detail the BYU track results. I love the BYU meet, regional and state track. I love regional and state basketball, regional and state wrestling, although I haven’t gotten to very many of those. I love regional and state volleyball, and I love football playoffs, especially state championships. They are a great time for hardworking kids to be rewarded. Also, a great time for those same kids to learn that you don’t always win, but you have become a better person for having worked hard for a goal. Hopefully, they learn that to achieve a great goal you have to practice each day like you want to be a champion. You must work for it, not just say you want it. I love the kids who work for it. It was my great privilege to get to work with a lot of kids that realized that and went to work each day. I love sports, and the lessons they can teach us. Be very good at the fundamentals and you will experience success. By small and simple things are great things brought to pass. It isn’t plays that win championships, it’s players. I’m glad I was able to join and work with coaches that spent more time developing players, than developing plays. Plays are important, but only when you have players that can execute them. Heavenly Father’s game plan is pretty simple, and if we will just work hard to develop the players, we ourselves will become better and we can be on the winning team!! I’ve watched a lot of great players that didn’t win state championships because they didn’t have the supporting cast. We played against girls that we couldn’t stop, but we won. I would tell the girls to be grateful for their teammates. Thankfully, we and all of you have great teammates. Then, no matter how hard we try, we would not win in this game of life if we didn’t have Jesus Christ. But, since we are on his team, if we just do our best, even though we will have plenty of turnovers, we will still be on the winning team, because Jesus will cover for us. What a great blessing. An incredible plan. If we just join his team and do our best, have faith, repent, get on the covenant path, try hard to keep the Holy Ghost with us, keep the commandments and our covenants, and endure to the end, then we will be on the winning team. We will be able to return and live with Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and our families. Let us all press on doing our best to have Holy Habits, Righteous Routines, and Lift Where We Stand. IT IS TRUE!! LET’S WIN!!
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
