10 December 2023 Week #63: A Beautiful Christmas Program
Dear Family and Friends,
On Monday morning it was your Sunday evening so first thing we did after arriving at the office was watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. The translation team had called in a couple extras to help as they translated it into Cebuano. It was a wonderful devotional. Let us all enjoy celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ during this coming month.
Typical Monday office work. In the evening we had FHE with 20 of us. Sister L presented the lesson, history of the church and English language in the Philippines. Many of our seniors weren’t here when she presented this lesson last February. For some of us it was a second time around and even better than the first. She is a great lady. Sister Jepson went home on Wednesday, so it was a good time telling her goodbye. She is amazing! She is legally blind but game for all the adventures, even jumping off cliffs while canyoneering. We are looking forward to taking her to a BYU women’s basketball game next year. She is a huge BYU fan.
On Tuesday we met with Brother and Sister Colipapa and headed to Carcar to check out the progress on the construction at Lunas Elementary and Valencia Vocational National High School. Construction is in progress, but we haven’t supplied all of the appropriate materials, so at Lunas things are on hold, and have been for some time now. We met with unhappy construction bosses because they have had workers without materials, so no work is going on. Kenneth, our boss is in Hawaii at his two daughters’ graduation from BYU-H. I sent him a report that certainly wasn’t glowing. It was a long day.
Wednesday and Thursday were just ‘work on project’ days. We have had to change some items on our lists for projects. When that happens, it delays the project by about a month due to purchasing having to get the new items out for bid. I don’t blame purchasing for not liking us.
We went to a session at the temple both Thursday and Friday afternoon.
On Friday President Celocia got married in the Cebu Temple. It was a long time coming. He served with James Teichert in the Naga Mission. President Celosia and his girlfriend dated before the Pandemic. She wanted to go on a mission but then the pandemic began. She waited until full proselyting was going again. As a result, they have waited quite a while for this big event. He is in his fifth-year teaching school. He has been the branch president of the Inabunga Branch for two years now. We are a working with him on a FAITH garden project for his branch.
Saturday Evening the Cebu City Stake had a musical celebration of Christmas. We were skeptical about going. We have been to a couple talent shows. They were rowdy events with people calling out the performer’s names and yelling, etc. while the performance was happening. Sometimes it was so bad you couldn’t even hear the performance. You had no idea if they were any good or not. All you knew was that the screaming girls really liked the boys preforming. This was a performance to be held in the cultural hall and not the chapel, so we were nervous. Their cultural halls are quite large in these two chapels here at the templex. Well, we were pleasantly surprised. Before the performance they had some violins playing. It was supposed to begin at 6:00. It didn’t start until about 6:30. But from 5:45, when we arrived, until the start the violins played and about every 5 minutes the lead person asked the audience to quiet down and then explained proper conduct for a performance like this, no applause, calling out names of performers during the performance etc., just applause at the end of each scene when the lights are dimmed. Amazingly, the audience complied, and it was a great evening. They had a choir, several special numbers that ranged from solos up to about eight performers. They had a great narrator. They told the Christmas story in word and song. It was really good!! They have some talented people in this stake; performers, writers, light people, costume designers, etc. The performance lasted about an hour and twenty minutes. It was very good with the Spirit present. It was an event that you hoped the missionaries had investigators attend.
Holy Habits
Righteous Routines
Lift Where You Stand
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
Week #63 12/4-12/10
On Monday morning it was your Sunday evening so first thing we did after arriving at the office was watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. The translation team had called in a couple extras to help as they translated it into Cebuano. It was a wonderful devotional. Let us all enjoy celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ during this coming month.
Typical Monday office work. In the evening we had FHE with 20 of us. Sister L presented the lesson, history of the church and English language in the Philippines. Many of our seniors weren’t here when she presented this lesson last February. For some of us it was a second time around and even better than the first. She is a great lady. Sister Jepson went home on Wednesday, so it was a good time telling her goodbye. She is amazing! She is legally blind but game for all the adventures, even jumping off cliffs while canyoneering. We are looking forward to taking her to a BYU women’s basketball game next year. She is a huge BYU fan.
On Tuesday we met with Brother and Sister Colipapa and headed to Carcar to check out the progress on the construction at Lunas Elementary and Valencia Vocational National High School. Construction is in progress, but we haven’t supplied all of the appropriate materials, so at Lunas things are on hold, and have been for some time now. We met with unhappy construction bosses because they have had workers without materials, so no work is going on. Kenneth, our boss is in Hawaii at his two daughters’ graduation from BYU-H. I sent him a report that certainly wasn’t glowing. It was a long day.
Wednesday and Thursday were just ‘work on project’ days. We have had to change some items on our lists for projects. When that happens, it delays the project by about a month due to purchasing having to get the new items out for bid. I don’t blame purchasing for not liking us.
We went to a session at the temple both Thursday and Friday afternoon.
On Friday President Celocia got married in the Cebu Temple. It was a long time coming. He served with James Teichert in the Naga Mission. President Celosia and his girlfriend dated before the Pandemic. She wanted to go on a mission but then the pandemic began. She waited until full proselyting was going again. As a result, they have waited quite a while for this big event. He is in his fifth-year teaching school. He has been the branch president of the Inabunga Branch for two years now. We are a working with him on a FAITH garden project for his branch.
Saturday Evening the Cebu City Stake had a musical celebration of Christmas. We were skeptical about going. We have been to a couple talent shows. They were rowdy events with people calling out the performer’s names and yelling, etc. while the performance was happening. Sometimes it was so bad you couldn’t even hear the performance. You had no idea if they were any good or not. All you knew was that the screaming girls really liked the boys preforming. This was a performance to be held in the cultural hall and not the chapel, so we were nervous. Their cultural halls are quite large in these two chapels here at the templex. Well, we were pleasantly surprised. Before the performance they had some violins playing. It was supposed to begin at 6:00. It didn’t start until about 6:30. But from 5:45, when we arrived, until the start the violins played and about every 5 minutes the lead person asked the audience to quiet down and then explained proper conduct for a performance like this, no applause, calling out names of performers during the performance etc., just applause at the end of each scene when the lights are dimmed. Amazingly, the audience complied, and it was a great evening. They had a choir, several special numbers that ranged from solos up to about eight performers. They had a great narrator. They told the Christmas story in word and song. It was really good!! They have some talented people in this stake; performers, writers, light people, costume designers, etc. The performance lasted about an hour and twenty minutes. It was very good with the Spirit present. It was an event that you hoped the missionaries had investigators attend.
Holy Habits
Righteous Routines
Lift Where You Stand
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
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