Briant and Clyda Teichert; LDS Charities; Cebu Philippines

Dear Family and Friends,  Week #52 9/18-9-24 Monday was the usual morning routine and then a long meeting with some great projects presented. We had to make a visit to Ayala to get a couple items in the afternoon. That evening we had FHE with 19 present. All the senior missionaries were present except the Elder and Sister Cary and Elder and Sister Dickinson. We got to meet the two new Cebu East couples, the Halls who serve on Bohol and the Sorensons who are serving up in Bogo. For the lesson Sister Garner had arranged for Stake Patriarch Lee to come share his story. It was pretty cool. He is Chinese but was raised here in the Philippines. He joined the church as a teenager in 1970 into a branch of 38 people here in Cebu. Now there are six stakes here. Pretty cool! Tuesday was turnover day on Panay Island. We had a 6:00 a.m. flight. Howerever, it got changed to 8:30. That would put us there too late for our first turnover at Badlan National High School at 10:00, so we took the 5:...

Pictures: A picture to help us remember where we parked. Violet is so famous they have a candy bar named after her. The Sisters for lunch at McDonalds and the Elders for dinner at our house.

Dear Family and Friends,   Week #51 9/11-9/17 Several amazing projects were presented again on Monday. It was about a three-hour meeting. In the afternoon Clyda had the three sister service missionaries over. While we worked on projects, Sister Manatad taught the other two how to cut out Kangaroo Tubes. They cut the final bolt of cloth. They had a good time doing it. Clyda is so good to them, and they love her. Tuesday was office work again. All three members of the translation team were at the office. That is a rarity for all five of us to be there at once. We sure enjoy those guys. At noon another gentleman showed up and they needed the conference room, but we needed to go anyway. At one o’clock we met five sister missionaries at McDonald’s in IT Park for lunch. We told Sister Valesquez we would take her to lunch. They created a new zone out of the city zone and so now the Apas area is in another zone. They can’t leave their zone, but we have no restrictions so we went to...

Dear Family and Friends,  Week #50 9/4-9/10 In our Monday meeting 8 projects were presented. We presented our project for Dr. Vicente F. Gustilo Memorial National High School. It is a high school in Cadiz City, Negros Occidental. They have almost 8,000 students and more than 250 teachers. It is a 7-12 school. They run 3 sessions a day. They have 66 locked secure classrooms and 16 open air classrooms. The teacher we have worked with on this project, Genard Gomez, is a member of the church and has been wonderful and patient to work with. We are providing for them a health clinic, TVs, printers, a copy machine, and stand fans. The health clinic had nothing, and with that many students you better have something to assist when kids are sick or injured. We are providing a bed, water cooler, air conditioner, (so when they come in from heat exhaustion you can cool them off), computer to keep track of all the patients, a table, and a chair, and medical supplies. Then for the classrooms, ...

Hello Family and Friends,   Week #49 8/28-9/3 Monday was slow. It was a national holiday so no meeting and no FHE that night. We did some work on projects and that was about it. When the Manila office is closed then we don’t have much communication. Clyda did some sewing on Kangaroo Tubes and I read a book. On Tuesday the kids started school again. However, in many places in the Philippines the new Typhoon is affecting that. Many schools did not start in the Luzon area and In the Eastern Visayas. A lot of flooding is going on in Panay. However, we had a great day. Our long-awaited Canyoneering with the Koyles, the Taylors, and Sister Jepson arrived. Other couples were invited but were too busy to go. We had started planning this back in June. The Cebu Temple is closed for a month, so the Koyles and the Taylors are making the best of it. We met at the templex at 5:00 a.m. and headed out. We had a crazy driver. We were all in a van. I thought for sure the driver was going t...

Dear Family and Friends,   Week #48 8/21-8/27 Monday morning started off great with our turnover at My Bonita Home for Girls, Inc. It is located up in the mountains outside of Bacayan. It was a long turnover with several segments, snacks, and later lunch. Another group was participating, Zonta. They have adopted the Home and help out in all kinds of ways. It is fun to see a group of ladies that are present for these young, abused girls and help in all kinds of ways. They shared a program of dancing and singing, of course we are in the Philippines. There were a lot of members of the church present. Mary Ann Balen, in charge of Family Services for the church in the Philippines, flew down from Manila. Our dentist Merlyn Matthews was present along with Marilou Cardenus, and Erma. Annie Rineva MC’d the event. All these ladies are part of the Stake Self Reliance group and especially over Emotional Resilience. It was a great event and very satisfying. We gave the “Home” the furnish...

Dear Family and Friends,  Week #47 8/14-8/20 On Monday five projects were presented. Afterwards we drove out to My Bonita Home for Girls to make sure we knew where to go and to see how long it will take to get there next Monday for our turnover. On the way back we stopped at Landers to buy a few items. At home we picked up the laundry and after a wonderful baked potato dinner Clyda ironed. On Tuesday we were up at 3:30 a.m. to leave at 4:00 for the airport. We had a 5:45 flight to Iloilo. The Peters picked us up at the airport at 7:00. We headed to Calinog. President Quimba met us at 9:00 at the church. We then headed to the mountains to visit Supanga Elementary School. It was sad. They had a school with two buildings. One is pretty nice. A year ago, after a lot of rain one of the buildings slid off the mountain. They now have six makeshift classrooms made out of bamboo for walls and metal roofs with dirt(mud) floors. It is really sad. They have some solar panels for electricity...