16 July 2023 Week #42: Moving Forward and Helping People!
Dear Family and Friends,
On Monday we presented our Sibunag Fire Station proposal to the Humanitarian Committee. It went well. The fire station wants a motorcycle and a chainsaw so they can get down trails where cars can’t go. They have responded to a few of these where they have gone on foot. If they had a motorcycle, they could have gotten there faster. They also want a 20” chainsaw to carry on the bike for cutting down limbs. We didn’t know if this would fly with the committee or not. It did! The people at the fire station work 7 days for 24 hours. Then they have the next week off. They live in a hot room, so we asked for a window air conditioner and a ceiling fan.
Spent the remainder of the day working on computers, on past projects, present projects, and future projects. It is like doing a research paper that will never end. They do end, but it is a lot of gathering information, developing it, and then narrowing it down for the presentations.
We finally got the PO, go ahead for the “My Bonita Home for Girls” project. It was approved about 3-4 weeks ago. We can now move on it. We are excited about it. Next to the Tres Reyes solar project it has been our second favorite project. On Saturday the vendors made their first delivery. They will deliver the rest of the items on Monday. Then it will take a couple weeks to get the electricity and plumbing done for the kitchen. The girls will need to paint, and then they will put the furnishings in place. Then we will have a Turnover. It will be great!
We went next door to Kuy’s Lechon for dinner. They have been in business for about 3 months now. This was a first for us. We had sweet and sour chicken with garlic rice. They have a big menu. I’m pretty picky so I might not try anything else there, but I had heard about this. I gave it a try and would do it again. It was good.
Tuesday was off to the office. After about an hour and Clyda not being able to get Dell to connect to the internet, the D was changed to an H and Clyda went home to do some deeper cleaning in our apartment. She took it out on our rug. They don’t have a vacuum here. So, she rolled up the rug, banged up and down on the floor, swept it up, and did it again. Of course, then she needed to dust the whole apartment. It was all good. She was at the apartment and I was at the office. It worked out fine for both of us. I’m not sure Dell survived.
Our AC in the front room and kitchen is not working. In the later afternoon, when I finally dared go home, we went for a walk to cool off. We headed for the temple grounds. We ended up meeting some people from Tacloban. That is the one mission we have that we have not been to yet. We met a couple, Elder and Sister Balorio, who had on missionary name tags. As we visited, we found out that they are a senior service couple in charge of wheelchairs in their mission. It was fun to get to know them. We now have a contact if we head that way. Their daughter and husband were in on the conversation with his. This couple were taught the gospel first in 1986. In 1991 they were taught again by Elder Joshua Heiner and Elder Meyer. This time they said they were willing to pray and ask, and they got their answer and haven’t looked back. Five of their six children were baptized with them, the sixth was only 6 years old. Brother Balorio got to baptize her two years later. That was the daughter that was with them when we were visiting. Their six children are all married and active in the gospel. They count that as a real blessing. One daughter and family live in Virginia. The rest are in the Philippines. One by Manila and the rest fairly close to home, Tacloban. It is another mission where a temple has been announced.
We recovered from the morning’s frustration to end on a wonderful highlight of the day, getting to meet these fine people. To get here they had a two-hour bus ride, an hour wait at the port, a six hour ferry ride, and a half hour taxi to get to the temple. They hit two sessions and their youth did baptisms. On Wednesday they would do two more sessions, the youth would do more baptisms and then head home. They will come again next year. There was about 30 in their group. On Thursday another group, about the same size, again from Tacloban arrived and did the same thing on Thursday and Friday.
Wednesday was a shopping day. We were low on a lot of items, so off to Landers we went. We returned with plenty of groceries, but not enough. We couldn’t find some items. We unloaded, shelved, and then headed to Familia, the store in downtown Cebu, for some more thread. It was another hour wait, but I had a parking spot so all was well. Clyda successfully, and stress free, got the thread she needed. It is amazing how once you have been and done something, the next time it is so much easier with some familiarity. However, we don’t want to have to go there too often. We stopped at Robinson’s Galleria to finish our shopping for the items we couldn’t get at Landers. We scored, finding the items here that we couldn’t get at Landers. We were nervous getting back home because our parking lot is crazy from 11:30-2:00 with the lunch rush at Kuy’s. However, we were able to get into our parking spot. We have one reserved for us. It isn’t marked handicapped, but we are, and we are grateful that our security guards save it for us. Sometimes, though the lot is so full that the driveway might have 3 or 4 vans parked in it. On this day the driveway was free. We came home one time with 4 vans in the driveway. We just had to find another place to park for a while. These two new restaurants have made this one busy place. The other one is Sizzler’s, but not like the USA Sizzlers. They feed you on a hot plate where the food is just finishing up being cooked, and the food sizzles as you stir it together and eat it. We will try it out one of these days also. They have only been open a month, so in a couple of months we will give it a try.
On Wednesday a couple arrived to serve as MLS(member leadership support) missionaries. They were supposed to arrive at 5:00. Sister Garner and Sister Heath were picking them up at the airport. We knew that it would be an hour drive at that time of day. Clyda was smart and figured on something simple and quick. Sure enough the new couple, Elder and Sister Cary, from Dallas, Texas arrived at 6:15, then a half hour to get all of their bags so they arrived here at about 7:45 for dinner. Sister Heath gave Clyda a heads up when they left the airport. We figured another hour and then 10-15 minutes to get them checked in to their room. Clyda did a great job of timing and we were ready with tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches with bananas and mangos for dinner. It was wonderful and fun to get to know them. They have lived in Dallas close to one of their daughters the last two years. Prior to that they spent their lives in Littleton, Colorado. He sold real estate. Their backyard neighbor for twenty years has been James Dean from Anchorage, Alaska. When the Deans go to Alaska they often stay at Lila’s Bed and Breakfast. For those who don’t know, Lila is Clyda’s sister and lives on the Oberg Farm property. The Dean family had a few boys with similar ages to the Oberg girls. With the church and one stake the Oberg girls got to know many of the boys from Anchorage.
The next night, Thursday, another couple arrived. Elder and Sister Epperson from Los Alamos, New Mexico, northwest of Santa Fe. They are also MLS missionaries. They were a day behind because they made a quick trip to see a 93-year-old mother in Washington before they flew out. The same routine with a delayed flight, but Clyda was well prepared with the fruit and tacos that night. We had the Heaths and Sister Garner both nights also. So seven of us on Wednesday and nine of us on Thursday. They seem like great people and are anxious to serve. The mission president is out of town, touring the mission and trying to get a feel for the place. Remember, he just started on July 1st. He has had 7 zone conferences trying to get to know his 180 young missionaries. He has been on the go. He will get back tomorrow and then be able to prayerfully assign these two new couples. The Dickinson’s who were only here for 6 months and served in the Toledo District loved it so much they are returning for 8 more months in August. They want to see it through for Toledo to become a stake. They have a couple aging family members, so that is why they only came for 6 months so they could return to take care of the elderly. Just about a month before they finished one of the elderlies died. The family told them they could now stay, they could take care of them. They went home to help out, and then asked if they could return. It has been approved by SLC and the Cebu Mission, so they will return. They of course want to return to Toledo. The other two districts in the mission are both on Negros. San Carlos and Tanjay. So we will see where these two couples get assigned.
On Friday our Sibunag Fire Station proposal passed the WSRC. We were excited. However, the committee want us to upgrade the motorcycle, so now we are waiting for a new bid on a better bike. Then we have to add that to the budget and then get it approved. We had this problem once before and ended up delaying the project by about 4 weeks. We hope that won’t happen here.
Saturday was a good day at the market with the Taylors and the Koyles. Then a little time at the office. We are preparing to present our project for Floro T. Bongco Farm School on Monday. We are excited about this project because of it being a farm school. We hosted the four sister missionaries for dinner. Clyda prepared a lasagna and roasted vegetables. It was delicious. We had a good time with Sister Ramos and Sister Alvey from our ward and the sisters from the Apas Ward, Sister Valesquez and Sister Simmons. They are doing well.
Today’s meetings were really good. With the Sacrament meeting focused on repentance. Then Sunday school was about Stephen, his commitment to the Lord, and Saul’s conversion. As I watch people come from all over the Philippines to the temple I am reminded of the Prophet Joseph’s words: “the Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecution may rage, mobs may combine,…calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent…” (History of the Church, 4:540). And it is and surely will. Nephi prophesied, “And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw.” (1 Nephi 14:12) This is the stone cut out of the mountains without hands and it is rolling forth. Hang on!
For those that didn’t read this, or this far, I don’t blame them. This letter/journal is long and boring. However, if you did read this letter/journal then we would love to hear from you. How are you doing? What are you up to? What are members of your family doing?
Holy Habits
Righteous Routines
“Lift Where You Stand”
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
Week #42 7/10-7/16
On Monday we presented our Sibunag Fire Station proposal to the Humanitarian Committee. It went well. The fire station wants a motorcycle and a chainsaw so they can get down trails where cars can’t go. They have responded to a few of these where they have gone on foot. If they had a motorcycle, they could have gotten there faster. They also want a 20” chainsaw to carry on the bike for cutting down limbs. We didn’t know if this would fly with the committee or not. It did! The people at the fire station work 7 days for 24 hours. Then they have the next week off. They live in a hot room, so we asked for a window air conditioner and a ceiling fan.
Spent the remainder of the day working on computers, on past projects, present projects, and future projects. It is like doing a research paper that will never end. They do end, but it is a lot of gathering information, developing it, and then narrowing it down for the presentations.
We finally got the PO, go ahead for the “My Bonita Home for Girls” project. It was approved about 3-4 weeks ago. We can now move on it. We are excited about it. Next to the Tres Reyes solar project it has been our second favorite project. On Saturday the vendors made their first delivery. They will deliver the rest of the items on Monday. Then it will take a couple weeks to get the electricity and plumbing done for the kitchen. The girls will need to paint, and then they will put the furnishings in place. Then we will have a Turnover. It will be great!
We went next door to Kuy’s Lechon for dinner. They have been in business for about 3 months now. This was a first for us. We had sweet and sour chicken with garlic rice. They have a big menu. I’m pretty picky so I might not try anything else there, but I had heard about this. I gave it a try and would do it again. It was good.
Tuesday was off to the office. After about an hour and Clyda not being able to get Dell to connect to the internet, the D was changed to an H and Clyda went home to do some deeper cleaning in our apartment. She took it out on our rug. They don’t have a vacuum here. So, she rolled up the rug, banged up and down on the floor, swept it up, and did it again. Of course, then she needed to dust the whole apartment. It was all good. She was at the apartment and I was at the office. It worked out fine for both of us. I’m not sure Dell survived.
Our AC in the front room and kitchen is not working. In the later afternoon, when I finally dared go home, we went for a walk to cool off. We headed for the temple grounds. We ended up meeting some people from Tacloban. That is the one mission we have that we have not been to yet. We met a couple, Elder and Sister Balorio, who had on missionary name tags. As we visited, we found out that they are a senior service couple in charge of wheelchairs in their mission. It was fun to get to know them. We now have a contact if we head that way. Their daughter and husband were in on the conversation with his. This couple were taught the gospel first in 1986. In 1991 they were taught again by Elder Joshua Heiner and Elder Meyer. This time they said they were willing to pray and ask, and they got their answer and haven’t looked back. Five of their six children were baptized with them, the sixth was only 6 years old. Brother Balorio got to baptize her two years later. That was the daughter that was with them when we were visiting. Their six children are all married and active in the gospel. They count that as a real blessing. One daughter and family live in Virginia. The rest are in the Philippines. One by Manila and the rest fairly close to home, Tacloban. It is another mission where a temple has been announced.
We recovered from the morning’s frustration to end on a wonderful highlight of the day, getting to meet these fine people. To get here they had a two-hour bus ride, an hour wait at the port, a six hour ferry ride, and a half hour taxi to get to the temple. They hit two sessions and their youth did baptisms. On Wednesday they would do two more sessions, the youth would do more baptisms and then head home. They will come again next year. There was about 30 in their group. On Thursday another group, about the same size, again from Tacloban arrived and did the same thing on Thursday and Friday.
Wednesday was a shopping day. We were low on a lot of items, so off to Landers we went. We returned with plenty of groceries, but not enough. We couldn’t find some items. We unloaded, shelved, and then headed to Familia, the store in downtown Cebu, for some more thread. It was another hour wait, but I had a parking spot so all was well. Clyda successfully, and stress free, got the thread she needed. It is amazing how once you have been and done something, the next time it is so much easier with some familiarity. However, we don’t want to have to go there too often. We stopped at Robinson’s Galleria to finish our shopping for the items we couldn’t get at Landers. We scored, finding the items here that we couldn’t get at Landers. We were nervous getting back home because our parking lot is crazy from 11:30-2:00 with the lunch rush at Kuy’s. However, we were able to get into our parking spot. We have one reserved for us. It isn’t marked handicapped, but we are, and we are grateful that our security guards save it for us. Sometimes, though the lot is so full that the driveway might have 3 or 4 vans parked in it. On this day the driveway was free. We came home one time with 4 vans in the driveway. We just had to find another place to park for a while. These two new restaurants have made this one busy place. The other one is Sizzler’s, but not like the USA Sizzlers. They feed you on a hot plate where the food is just finishing up being cooked, and the food sizzles as you stir it together and eat it. We will try it out one of these days also. They have only been open a month, so in a couple of months we will give it a try.
On Wednesday a couple arrived to serve as MLS(member leadership support) missionaries. They were supposed to arrive at 5:00. Sister Garner and Sister Heath were picking them up at the airport. We knew that it would be an hour drive at that time of day. Clyda was smart and figured on something simple and quick. Sure enough the new couple, Elder and Sister Cary, from Dallas, Texas arrived at 6:15, then a half hour to get all of their bags so they arrived here at about 7:45 for dinner. Sister Heath gave Clyda a heads up when they left the airport. We figured another hour and then 10-15 minutes to get them checked in to their room. Clyda did a great job of timing and we were ready with tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches with bananas and mangos for dinner. It was wonderful and fun to get to know them. They have lived in Dallas close to one of their daughters the last two years. Prior to that they spent their lives in Littleton, Colorado. He sold real estate. Their backyard neighbor for twenty years has been James Dean from Anchorage, Alaska. When the Deans go to Alaska they often stay at Lila’s Bed and Breakfast. For those who don’t know, Lila is Clyda’s sister and lives on the Oberg Farm property. The Dean family had a few boys with similar ages to the Oberg girls. With the church and one stake the Oberg girls got to know many of the boys from Anchorage.
The next night, Thursday, another couple arrived. Elder and Sister Epperson from Los Alamos, New Mexico, northwest of Santa Fe. They are also MLS missionaries. They were a day behind because they made a quick trip to see a 93-year-old mother in Washington before they flew out. The same routine with a delayed flight, but Clyda was well prepared with the fruit and tacos that night. We had the Heaths and Sister Garner both nights also. So seven of us on Wednesday and nine of us on Thursday. They seem like great people and are anxious to serve. The mission president is out of town, touring the mission and trying to get a feel for the place. Remember, he just started on July 1st. He has had 7 zone conferences trying to get to know his 180 young missionaries. He has been on the go. He will get back tomorrow and then be able to prayerfully assign these two new couples. The Dickinson’s who were only here for 6 months and served in the Toledo District loved it so much they are returning for 8 more months in August. They want to see it through for Toledo to become a stake. They have a couple aging family members, so that is why they only came for 6 months so they could return to take care of the elderly. Just about a month before they finished one of the elderlies died. The family told them they could now stay, they could take care of them. They went home to help out, and then asked if they could return. It has been approved by SLC and the Cebu Mission, so they will return. They of course want to return to Toledo. The other two districts in the mission are both on Negros. San Carlos and Tanjay. So we will see where these two couples get assigned.
On Friday our Sibunag Fire Station proposal passed the WSRC. We were excited. However, the committee want us to upgrade the motorcycle, so now we are waiting for a new bid on a better bike. Then we have to add that to the budget and then get it approved. We had this problem once before and ended up delaying the project by about 4 weeks. We hope that won’t happen here.
Saturday was a good day at the market with the Taylors and the Koyles. Then a little time at the office. We are preparing to present our project for Floro T. Bongco Farm School on Monday. We are excited about this project because of it being a farm school. We hosted the four sister missionaries for dinner. Clyda prepared a lasagna and roasted vegetables. It was delicious. We had a good time with Sister Ramos and Sister Alvey from our ward and the sisters from the Apas Ward, Sister Valesquez and Sister Simmons. They are doing well.
Today’s meetings were really good. With the Sacrament meeting focused on repentance. Then Sunday school was about Stephen, his commitment to the Lord, and Saul’s conversion. As I watch people come from all over the Philippines to the temple I am reminded of the Prophet Joseph’s words: “the Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecution may rage, mobs may combine,…calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent…” (History of the Church, 4:540). And it is and surely will. Nephi prophesied, “And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw.” (1 Nephi 14:12) This is the stone cut out of the mountains without hands and it is rolling forth. Hang on!
For those that didn’t read this, or this far, I don’t blame them. This letter/journal is long and boring. However, if you did read this letter/journal then we would love to hear from you. How are you doing? What are you up to? What are members of your family doing?
Holy Habits
Righteous Routines
“Lift Where You Stand”
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
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