23 July 2023 Week #43: Learning Our Way Around
Dear Family and Friends Week #43 7/17-7/23
On Monday we presented our Floro T. Bongco Farm School project to our Humanitarian Team. It was well received. Next to Tres Reyes and My Bonita Home this has been our favorite project. It is on Negros Occidental near Escalante City. They have a huge garden where all the students participate. They want all their students to graduate being able to garden, so they can always have food on the table. FAITH. The vegetables raised are used to feed the malnourished kids and the excess is sent home with them. However, our project is just providing them with all kinds of science lab equipment, so they can do experiments instead of just read about them. They have been great to work with. They have 463 students from grades 7-12. They have 4 science teachers with 3 being members of the church. The teacher we have worked with on this project is Dolly Salazar. Her husband is the stake executive secretary. They have one little girl. Dolly has been great to work with. Clyda and she have had to do a lot of back and forth to make sure we got the correct lab equipment.
After our meeting was office work. We worked on the MOAs for Sibunag Fire Station and My Bonita Home for Girls. A MOA is harder to do than a DOD requiring more details about our responsibilities and the donee’s responsibilities.
After a late lunch we headed to Hippodromo Elementary School to check up on the Humanitarian Experience group. One of the adult chaperones is Brett Miller from Lindon, UT. She sings in the tabernacle choir. We will be watching closely for her. She seems like a great lady. Her oldest of 4 children, a recent high school graduate, was with her. Her husband had tough duty back home with the other three children visiting his folks in Florida. She smiled as she said that. It is fun to see these young people come on these adventures. That is the fourth of six groups that will be coming. The fifth group has now arrived.
That evening was a quiet peaceful Monday night at home with dinner being a baked potato with all the trimmings. Yes, it was loaded! The rest of the senior missionaries joined Elder and Sister Parker for their 40th wedding anniversary dinner up on the mountain at “LaVie in the Sky”. We didn’t go because of our Monday meeting with Kenneth. Then he never called. So, we could have gone. Oh well.
Tuesday, we spent the morning at the office. We enjoyed a nice visit with Jeffrey and Aaron from the translation team. They are great guys. We sure enjoy them. They are busy translating the new “Preach My Gospel” into Cebuano. Next up for them is the 2024 “Come Follow Me” manual.
In the afternoon Clyda used Sister Heath’s sewing machine and sewed some Kangaroo Tubes. We kept a hundred or so for her to do for stress relief. I found Brother Pedrosa and had him give me a Habal Habal ride to Don Sergio Osmena Sr. Memorial High School. It is another site where Rise and Rebuild are working with these young American volunteers. I needed to take a Formal Request from the Lahug schools to Clark Rafada, chief building engineer for Rise and Rebuild. He was at this site today instead of at Hippodromo Elementary. It was quite a long ways from here. I was having to tell Bro. Pedrosa where to make all of the turns. It was fun that I knew where to go. A couple months ago I would have never dared do that. Clyda and I went there a couple weeks ago. I was amazed I could remember how to get there. I usually can’t even remember my name. We celebrated with Taco Tuesday. It never fails to satisfy.
Wednesday was a long office day. Clyda did great with a job she doesn’t even like, doing the monthly reports for Jairus and Kenneth. There are two reports, one is a word document and another one is a power point. She knocked off the word document in flying colors. It takes quite a while, but she did great. She still did some sewing in the afternoon.
The Wednesday morning had started off great. As we entered the temple complex gates at 5:35 a.m. we met with Bishop Reno Penero, President Quimba, and Pres. Quimba’s son, and a few others from Calinog. They were heading out to get breakfast. They were here to take President’s son and another young man to get their endowments as they are heading on their missions. That was fun to run into them. Fifty minutes later as we were leaving the complex, they were returning so we saw them again.
On Wednesday evening we had the Carys and the Eppersons over for dinner. We had another Baked Potato Bar meal. The Carys have now headed to San Carlos. They will be a great blessing to that district as MLS missionaries. I am so impressed with these couples. The Eppersons are staying here. They will do a lot of traveling and making sure the missionaries are living in good conditions. It is something that has been badly needed. Some of our missionaries have had some pretty ugly conditions to live in. Brother Epperson is a building contractor. So, if he can’t fix it up, he will find them a different place to live. Plus, they want them to live in standards a lot closer to American standards than Filipino standards. The Americans are going to love them.
Thursday started off great with the normal exercise, scripture study, shower, and breakfast. Clyda then gave Elder Cary a haircut. It was fun to visit with him. The Carys served a Humanitarian Mission in the Adriatic North Mission and lived in Montenegro. They have four daughters. One lives in Dallas, TX and they moved there a couple years ago to be around them. They have four grandsons on missions right now with one more grandson and a granddaughter that will be leaving this fall. They are excited to be serving at the same time as these six grandchildren. Pretty cool. The Carys both grew up in Littleton, CO. Yes, they know all about Ralph Moody and Little Britches, Man of the Family, and more. A fun visit!
Then off to the office to develop the power point report. It should take about an hour, Clyda says. However, when you only do it once a month, it is hard to remember how it all works. It took about 4 hours. It was a rough morning for Clyda. Good thing the passport is hidden. I can and did help her with it, but I am slow also. We finally got it completed. It is amazing how much you can sweat in an air-conditioned room where sometimes you need a jacket to keep from freezing. That afternoon we went to a special 4:30 session at the temple. It was so nice to get away from everything and relax in this beautiful temple.
Guess what we had for dinner, yes, baked potato medley! It was delicious!
Friday was a short walk because of our 7:30 WSRC meeting. Clyda did a great job presenting the Floro T. Bongco Farm School project and it passed in flying colors. There were 7 projects passed. A lot of good is happening here. We left the meeting early, remember it is a zoom meeting for us with Manila. We headed to the templex to meet up with the Colipapa’s and Clark Rafada from Rise and Rebuild. We then went to the Lahug High and Elementary School. They have 9,000 students and CR problems. We will partner with Rise and Rebuild to get them a new septic tank, repair CRs, and a new water line. It will be a nasty job, but someone has to do it. I’m glad I won’t be on the end of the shovel for this one. The meeting went well. It will take quite a bit to get it all done. Hopefully, we can get right on it so it can be completed before school gets started back up on August 28th. This is a project connected with an old project done there in 2019 and still has money in the budget. If there is enough, and I think there will be, then we don’t have to make a new project and go through that long process. That is what the Kangaroo Tubes and Pojo Fisherfolk projects are. We like those, that we can do without having to go through all the paperwork.
As we returned home for lunch at about 1:00 it was so crazy packed that we couldn’t get into the parking lot to our reserved parking space. I dropped Clyda off so she could go do some shopping at JY Square. I went back down to the templex to park the truck. I visited with a young Filipino mother pushing a baby in a stroller. She was excited. They had just arrived from Iloilo and on Saturday morning she would be getting her endowments and they would be sealed as a family. Then I met her husband. He looked American and so did the guy he was talking to. It turns out the are from Ukraine. They both spoke good English. The father of course is a member of the church. They were getting sealed on Saturday. He teaches math online to English speaking youth. He has lived in Iloilo for three years. That is where they had met. The other young Ukraine man lives here in Cebu. He is not a member of the church. He had corresponded with this other guy and came to Cebu from Ukraine two months ago. He is teaching English on line. I think I interrupted a gospel discussion as they were pointing to Angel Moroni as I approached them. A fun experience for me to meet them.
By the time I arrived at our apartment Clyda was home from shopping. We had some lunch, then I did some computer work and Clyda did a little sewing. At about 4:00 we headed down to the templex to get the truck. We met up with several missionaries as the new missionaries had arrived and transfers were taking place. Sister Simmons was transferred to Talisay. It was kind of sad to see her leave. We have grown to love her. It is funny how you latch on to people you have some kind of connection with. She and Sister Noble of course are our favorite sisters, because not only are they great young ladies and missionaries, we connected with Sister Noble because of the connection with James and Melissa Faustino and the with Sister Simmons because of the connection with Vern Jay and Kerry Brady. They are solid young ladies. The fall of 2024 they plan on rooming together at BYU. They have both been to school there and will return. Sister Noble is from southern CA, and Sister Simmons is from Park City, but her family has moved to Florida. So, we have invited them to Cokeville, “Land of the Free, and Home of the Brave”, for Thanksgiving. They said they are coming. It is easy to say now. We will see.
By this time, it was about 4:45 and the Carys and Eppersons had just finished up with some orientation. They asked if we wanted to join them for dinner. Sister Garner joined also, and we went to Italianis. It was delicious and we got to learn a little bit more about those two new couples.
Saturday was a trip to the market at Marco Polo with the Koyles and the Taylors. This time they had a van and drove. The market was buzzin’ and we found some great fruits and vegetables. Then to the office for a couple hours. We came home and then headed to Mandaue to a food preservation presentation. It was good. The bishop’s wife was there and spoke great English. She is from Dumaguete and knows Leo and Yet-Yet. The presenter, a young shy new member of the church that is going to culinary school didn’t want to speak English. The bishop’s wife thought it would be a good thing to have her present. There were only a few of us. She made Kimchi. She made the paste and then we had some Kimchi. It was good. Clyda got the recipe. This was done in the kitchen, and we were able to do a lot of interacting with the group. A lot of laughing and a good time along with learning something new. While we were there 6 missionaries arrived with two being Americans, one from Seattle and one from Idaho Falls. The one from Idaho Falls is Elder Bateman. Markell Bateman is his father, a Star Valley graduate, and Marlowe Bateman is his grandfather. This is in the Cebu East Mission so Elder Bradshaw arriving on October 13th will probably meet both of these Americans. We stayed way to long so had to battle traffic on the way home. We made it there in about 20 minutes and it took an hour to get home. We hadn’t had lunch, so we were hungry for a great dinner. Clyda made a new recipe for her, one she got from Sister Welch, Chicken Enchilada Casserole. Oh boy, it was delicious! We get it again for Sunday dinner. We are excited for that.
Sunday has been wonderful with a great morning of a lot of gospel learning, tabernacle choir, and some family visits. Church was great and that delicious dinner is about ready, so I think I will bring this to a close. Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum discussion was centered on Elder Vern P. Stanfill’s talk, “The Imperfect Harvest”. It was a great discussion about doing our best and Christ will make up the difference. It reminded me so much of Elder Fred Frishknecht. Dave Clark and I both got to serve with him. He was a special ed kid, but not severe. He had a hard time reading and learning. He was allowed to come on a mission because he had read the Book of Mormon and had a testimony of it. We got to spend 4 months together. He struggled trying to teach and do door approaches. Finally, I just did the teaching and the door approaches. However, when we taught, ,he always bore a powerful testimony of the truths taught and the Holy Ghost accompanied his testimony. We were in an area where we split up with stake missionaries six night a week. They were concerned about him not being able to teach. I told them to just read the lesson and then let him bear testimony, the Lord will do the rest. It was great to watch and witness that this is the Lord’s work and he will make up the difference for us, “the weak and simple” and his gospel is covering the earth. In the four months I spent with Elder Frishknecht I was a part of seeing more baptisms than I was a part of the other 20 months of my mission. Elder Frishknecht and the Lord were a great team. The Holy Ghost always bore testimony of the truth with Elder Frishknecht as the mouth. This is the Lord’s work. We are “the weak and simple” and we get to see it lead to Christ’s second coming and the Millennium. How blessed are we. Holy Habits, Righteous Routines, “Lift Where You Stand.”
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
On Monday we presented our Floro T. Bongco Farm School project to our Humanitarian Team. It was well received. Next to Tres Reyes and My Bonita Home this has been our favorite project. It is on Negros Occidental near Escalante City. They have a huge garden where all the students participate. They want all their students to graduate being able to garden, so they can always have food on the table. FAITH. The vegetables raised are used to feed the malnourished kids and the excess is sent home with them. However, our project is just providing them with all kinds of science lab equipment, so they can do experiments instead of just read about them. They have been great to work with. They have 463 students from grades 7-12. They have 4 science teachers with 3 being members of the church. The teacher we have worked with on this project is Dolly Salazar. Her husband is the stake executive secretary. They have one little girl. Dolly has been great to work with. Clyda and she have had to do a lot of back and forth to make sure we got the correct lab equipment.
After our meeting was office work. We worked on the MOAs for Sibunag Fire Station and My Bonita Home for Girls. A MOA is harder to do than a DOD requiring more details about our responsibilities and the donee’s responsibilities.
After a late lunch we headed to Hippodromo Elementary School to check up on the Humanitarian Experience group. One of the adult chaperones is Brett Miller from Lindon, UT. She sings in the tabernacle choir. We will be watching closely for her. She seems like a great lady. Her oldest of 4 children, a recent high school graduate, was with her. Her husband had tough duty back home with the other three children visiting his folks in Florida. She smiled as she said that. It is fun to see these young people come on these adventures. That is the fourth of six groups that will be coming. The fifth group has now arrived.
That evening was a quiet peaceful Monday night at home with dinner being a baked potato with all the trimmings. Yes, it was loaded! The rest of the senior missionaries joined Elder and Sister Parker for their 40th wedding anniversary dinner up on the mountain at “LaVie in the Sky”. We didn’t go because of our Monday meeting with Kenneth. Then he never called. So, we could have gone. Oh well.
Tuesday, we spent the morning at the office. We enjoyed a nice visit with Jeffrey and Aaron from the translation team. They are great guys. We sure enjoy them. They are busy translating the new “Preach My Gospel” into Cebuano. Next up for them is the 2024 “Come Follow Me” manual.
In the afternoon Clyda used Sister Heath’s sewing machine and sewed some Kangaroo Tubes. We kept a hundred or so for her to do for stress relief. I found Brother Pedrosa and had him give me a Habal Habal ride to Don Sergio Osmena Sr. Memorial High School. It is another site where Rise and Rebuild are working with these young American volunteers. I needed to take a Formal Request from the Lahug schools to Clark Rafada, chief building engineer for Rise and Rebuild. He was at this site today instead of at Hippodromo Elementary. It was quite a long ways from here. I was having to tell Bro. Pedrosa where to make all of the turns. It was fun that I knew where to go. A couple months ago I would have never dared do that. Clyda and I went there a couple weeks ago. I was amazed I could remember how to get there. I usually can’t even remember my name. We celebrated with Taco Tuesday. It never fails to satisfy.
Wednesday was a long office day. Clyda did great with a job she doesn’t even like, doing the monthly reports for Jairus and Kenneth. There are two reports, one is a word document and another one is a power point. She knocked off the word document in flying colors. It takes quite a while, but she did great. She still did some sewing in the afternoon.
The Wednesday morning had started off great. As we entered the temple complex gates at 5:35 a.m. we met with Bishop Reno Penero, President Quimba, and Pres. Quimba’s son, and a few others from Calinog. They were heading out to get breakfast. They were here to take President’s son and another young man to get their endowments as they are heading on their missions. That was fun to run into them. Fifty minutes later as we were leaving the complex, they were returning so we saw them again.
On Wednesday evening we had the Carys and the Eppersons over for dinner. We had another Baked Potato Bar meal. The Carys have now headed to San Carlos. They will be a great blessing to that district as MLS missionaries. I am so impressed with these couples. The Eppersons are staying here. They will do a lot of traveling and making sure the missionaries are living in good conditions. It is something that has been badly needed. Some of our missionaries have had some pretty ugly conditions to live in. Brother Epperson is a building contractor. So, if he can’t fix it up, he will find them a different place to live. Plus, they want them to live in standards a lot closer to American standards than Filipino standards. The Americans are going to love them.
Thursday started off great with the normal exercise, scripture study, shower, and breakfast. Clyda then gave Elder Cary a haircut. It was fun to visit with him. The Carys served a Humanitarian Mission in the Adriatic North Mission and lived in Montenegro. They have four daughters. One lives in Dallas, TX and they moved there a couple years ago to be around them. They have four grandsons on missions right now with one more grandson and a granddaughter that will be leaving this fall. They are excited to be serving at the same time as these six grandchildren. Pretty cool. The Carys both grew up in Littleton, CO. Yes, they know all about Ralph Moody and Little Britches, Man of the Family, and more. A fun visit!
Then off to the office to develop the power point report. It should take about an hour, Clyda says. However, when you only do it once a month, it is hard to remember how it all works. It took about 4 hours. It was a rough morning for Clyda. Good thing the passport is hidden. I can and did help her with it, but I am slow also. We finally got it completed. It is amazing how much you can sweat in an air-conditioned room where sometimes you need a jacket to keep from freezing. That afternoon we went to a special 4:30 session at the temple. It was so nice to get away from everything and relax in this beautiful temple.
Guess what we had for dinner, yes, baked potato medley! It was delicious!
Friday was a short walk because of our 7:30 WSRC meeting. Clyda did a great job presenting the Floro T. Bongco Farm School project and it passed in flying colors. There were 7 projects passed. A lot of good is happening here. We left the meeting early, remember it is a zoom meeting for us with Manila. We headed to the templex to meet up with the Colipapa’s and Clark Rafada from Rise and Rebuild. We then went to the Lahug High and Elementary School. They have 9,000 students and CR problems. We will partner with Rise and Rebuild to get them a new septic tank, repair CRs, and a new water line. It will be a nasty job, but someone has to do it. I’m glad I won’t be on the end of the shovel for this one. The meeting went well. It will take quite a bit to get it all done. Hopefully, we can get right on it so it can be completed before school gets started back up on August 28th. This is a project connected with an old project done there in 2019 and still has money in the budget. If there is enough, and I think there will be, then we don’t have to make a new project and go through that long process. That is what the Kangaroo Tubes and Pojo Fisherfolk projects are. We like those, that we can do without having to go through all the paperwork.
As we returned home for lunch at about 1:00 it was so crazy packed that we couldn’t get into the parking lot to our reserved parking space. I dropped Clyda off so she could go do some shopping at JY Square. I went back down to the templex to park the truck. I visited with a young Filipino mother pushing a baby in a stroller. She was excited. They had just arrived from Iloilo and on Saturday morning she would be getting her endowments and they would be sealed as a family. Then I met her husband. He looked American and so did the guy he was talking to. It turns out the are from Ukraine. They both spoke good English. The father of course is a member of the church. They were getting sealed on Saturday. He teaches math online to English speaking youth. He has lived in Iloilo for three years. That is where they had met. The other young Ukraine man lives here in Cebu. He is not a member of the church. He had corresponded with this other guy and came to Cebu from Ukraine two months ago. He is teaching English on line. I think I interrupted a gospel discussion as they were pointing to Angel Moroni as I approached them. A fun experience for me to meet them.
By the time I arrived at our apartment Clyda was home from shopping. We had some lunch, then I did some computer work and Clyda did a little sewing. At about 4:00 we headed down to the templex to get the truck. We met up with several missionaries as the new missionaries had arrived and transfers were taking place. Sister Simmons was transferred to Talisay. It was kind of sad to see her leave. We have grown to love her. It is funny how you latch on to people you have some kind of connection with. She and Sister Noble of course are our favorite sisters, because not only are they great young ladies and missionaries, we connected with Sister Noble because of the connection with James and Melissa Faustino and the with Sister Simmons because of the connection with Vern Jay and Kerry Brady. They are solid young ladies. The fall of 2024 they plan on rooming together at BYU. They have both been to school there and will return. Sister Noble is from southern CA, and Sister Simmons is from Park City, but her family has moved to Florida. So, we have invited them to Cokeville, “Land of the Free, and Home of the Brave”, for Thanksgiving. They said they are coming. It is easy to say now. We will see.
By this time, it was about 4:45 and the Carys and Eppersons had just finished up with some orientation. They asked if we wanted to join them for dinner. Sister Garner joined also, and we went to Italianis. It was delicious and we got to learn a little bit more about those two new couples.
Saturday was a trip to the market at Marco Polo with the Koyles and the Taylors. This time they had a van and drove. The market was buzzin’ and we found some great fruits and vegetables. Then to the office for a couple hours. We came home and then headed to Mandaue to a food preservation presentation. It was good. The bishop’s wife was there and spoke great English. She is from Dumaguete and knows Leo and Yet-Yet. The presenter, a young shy new member of the church that is going to culinary school didn’t want to speak English. The bishop’s wife thought it would be a good thing to have her present. There were only a few of us. She made Kimchi. She made the paste and then we had some Kimchi. It was good. Clyda got the recipe. This was done in the kitchen, and we were able to do a lot of interacting with the group. A lot of laughing and a good time along with learning something new. While we were there 6 missionaries arrived with two being Americans, one from Seattle and one from Idaho Falls. The one from Idaho Falls is Elder Bateman. Markell Bateman is his father, a Star Valley graduate, and Marlowe Bateman is his grandfather. This is in the Cebu East Mission so Elder Bradshaw arriving on October 13th will probably meet both of these Americans. We stayed way to long so had to battle traffic on the way home. We made it there in about 20 minutes and it took an hour to get home. We hadn’t had lunch, so we were hungry for a great dinner. Clyda made a new recipe for her, one she got from Sister Welch, Chicken Enchilada Casserole. Oh boy, it was delicious! We get it again for Sunday dinner. We are excited for that.
Sunday has been wonderful with a great morning of a lot of gospel learning, tabernacle choir, and some family visits. Church was great and that delicious dinner is about ready, so I think I will bring this to a close. Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum discussion was centered on Elder Vern P. Stanfill’s talk, “The Imperfect Harvest”. It was a great discussion about doing our best and Christ will make up the difference. It reminded me so much of Elder Fred Frishknecht. Dave Clark and I both got to serve with him. He was a special ed kid, but not severe. He had a hard time reading and learning. He was allowed to come on a mission because he had read the Book of Mormon and had a testimony of it. We got to spend 4 months together. He struggled trying to teach and do door approaches. Finally, I just did the teaching and the door approaches. However, when we taught, ,he always bore a powerful testimony of the truths taught and the Holy Ghost accompanied his testimony. We were in an area where we split up with stake missionaries six night a week. They were concerned about him not being able to teach. I told them to just read the lesson and then let him bear testimony, the Lord will do the rest. It was great to watch and witness that this is the Lord’s work and he will make up the difference for us, “the weak and simple” and his gospel is covering the earth. In the four months I spent with Elder Frishknecht I was a part of seeing more baptisms than I was a part of the other 20 months of my mission. Elder Frishknecht and the Lord were a great team. The Holy Ghost always bore testimony of the truth with Elder Frishknecht as the mouth. This is the Lord’s work. We are “the weak and simple” and we get to see it lead to Christ’s second coming and the Millennium. How blessed are we. Holy Habits, Righteous Routines, “Lift Where You Stand.”
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
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