21 January 2024 Week #69: Senior Missionary Work Increases
Dear Family and Friends,
We started the week with our daily walk. After gospel study we called Quincy to sing Happy Birthday. Here she is a big two-year-old. We have missed both birthday parties, but we will be there for it next year! It was fun as she held up two fingers and told us she was “two seconds old”.
We presented the Supanga Elementary School cement floors, TVs, and chairs project. It was approved by our Humanitarian Team but we don’t have a Welfare Self Reliance Committee meeting this week so we will have to wait to present it until the 26th. The POs have been delivered in record time for the Anilao Schools project and Cagdarao Elementary project. We will probably have those turnovers in the next 2-3 weeks. Cagdarao is difficult to get to, so they need to be in separate weeks. We also have a trip to Manila again for trainings on February 1st.
At FHE that evening we lead a discussion on quotes from prophets and apostles about the importance of the Book of Mormon. I used President Ezra Taft Benson’s talk from October 1986 “The Book of Mormon-Keystone of Our Religion”. It is an incredible talk with warnings and promises. If we aren’t using the Book of Mormon regularly in our lives, we are under condemnation. I really don’t like to be under condemnation so I will try to use it daily. Then it is filled with fantastic promises to those who read and study it regularly. What a blessing in our lives. I marvel how Lehi’s “tree of life” dream is unfolding right before our eyes. It is sad to see the casualties of those who have left the tree and wandered off to the river and are headed for the great and spacious building. We must hold on to the Iron Rod tightly and stand by the tree like Lehi to beacon to others to come. Don’t leave the tree thinking you can go rescue them or you will get lost. You must stand by the tree. This is different than going in search of the lost sheep. We must find the lost sheep but not by leaving the “tree”.
On Wednesday morning we called Owen to sing to him and wish him a Happy 13th Birthday. That might have been the highlight of our week. He is such a fun young man. We thoroughly enjoyed our almost one hour of one-on-one time with him. He has grown 7 inches in the last year. He has had a very good wrestling season in spite of missing a big share of it with a broken hand. We teased about girl friends since he wasn’t successful blowing out all of his birthday candles. He deflected those kinds of comments onto both of his older brothers. We learned quite a bit about them in the conversation. Of course, he had a couple jokes for us. I must pass them on. “Why should you never trust a tree?” “They are a little shady.” – “Why are elevator jokes so good?” “They work on so many levels.”
On Tuesday and Wednesday it was mission leadership training, so we went to the templex in the late afternoon on Wednesday as things were concluding to see some of our favorite missionaries. It was fun to see Elders Espanoza, Holmberg, Zayas, DuBose, and Sisters Sorensen, Alvez, and Noble. Of course, some of the others we really like didn’t come because they are in Dumagutee and Tanjay.
Also, on Wednesday the Domstadts from the tri-cities in Washington arrived. They will be serving in the Family History Center at the patron housing but living here at Prestigio. Sister Beesley arrived and she will be replacing Sister Garner as the mission secretary. She is 77 and you could never tell it. She is one spry lady. Amazing! Her husband has passed away. Her husband’s grandfather or great grandfather is Ebenezer Beesley, a great musician. He wrote many of the church hymns. You can go to the back of the hymn book and find out all of them. I think it is about 13. Sister Beesley recognized our name right off and said Minerva Teichert painted a painting of Brother Beesley directing a marching band. I have never seen it that I know of. Sister Beesley tells us that she has a large print of the painting in her front room back home.
When we arrived here and replaced the Huskinson’s, Sister Garner was the only other senior here in the Cebu Mission. We now have the Carys serving in San Carlos, the Webbs serving in Toledo, the Taylors and Koyles serving in the temple and living in the patron housing, and the rest of us living in Prestigio Apartments, Heaths-mission health doctor, Welches-English Connect specialists and commissary for the missionaries, Eppersons-housing coordinators, and now the new missionaries. Pretty cool to be around all of these wonderful senior missionaries.
We had the Lahug Elders join us for dinner on Thursday evening, Elders San Ramon and Magasatay. They are good young missionaries. They are both from Luzon. Then after an early dinner on Friday we went to the Taylor’s where Clyda colored Sister Annette Taylor’s hair. We had a good visit and smoothies. Elder Jim Taylor is good at making Mango smoothies and this time he added some strawberries. They were delicious!!
On Saturday we went to the market with the Koyles and Taylors. They have very good produce there. It is always good to join up with them. Afterwards we headed to the office while our apartment got cleaned. Housekeeping cleans every Tuesday and Saturday for us. We are spoiled. We watched Mylie’s game against Pinedale on the big screen with Mylocalradio.com broadcasting. It was a thriller as Mt. View pulled off the win 63-61. We were cheering. Of course, I commented a few times, “pass to target and catch the ball”. It was indeed a big win and fun to watch. Then we watched on demand on the NFHS Mariah’s freshman game where we did all of the commentating. It was fun. We couldn’t get my Ipad to work with the big TV for the wrestling. I don’t know what the problem was so we came home, sat close together on the couch and watched Kimball and Tell wrestle. That was a lot of fun also. We also watched Micah Petersen, Flint Linford, and Clay Teichert. It was a good morning viewing family and Cokeville sports.
They are having “Sinulag” festival going on right now. I’m not sure exactly what that is but it is a huge event here in Cebu. The city is packed. They have a lot of parades, fireworks, etc. We are not supposed to get involved. Thousands of people have descended on the city. Our parking lot and many other places have a lot have banners, etc. strung up. Sister Koyle says it is the children of Israel worshipping the golden calf. I do know in the parades they have a large statue on a trailer and then a lot of people following with horns and drums. Plenty of noise. There has been a lot of monotonous music playing in the neighborhood this week. I will be glad when it is over.
Today was a good day. However, both speakers in church spoke in Cebuano today. But, we were able to partake of the Sacrament, and that is the main reason for the meeting. Later today all of us senior missionaries here in Prestigio (12) are having Sunday dinner together. Clyda is fixing a salad for the event.
Sunday School was very good with a lot of discussion on the tree of life and the importance of doing all we can to hold on to the Iron Rod and stand by the tree. We can’t let the mists of darkness distract us and lead us to other paths and we can’t let the mocking of the people in the great and spacious building deter us from living the gospel and staying on the covenant path. As we listened to “Come Follow Up” on BYUtv today one of the hosts pointed out that the great and spacious building in a painting she had seen had no foundation. That was interesting to me. And it will crumble and fall at the Second Coming. The tree will stand tall and strong and all those that are gathered around it. One of our daughters in our gospel discussion this week pointed out that Lehi didn’t go after Laman and Lemuel, he beaconed to them, but he stayed by the tree. We must hold to the Iron Rod and stay by the Tree!
Holy Habits
Righteous Routines
Lift Where You Stand
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
Week #69 1/15/24-1/21/24
We started the week with our daily walk. After gospel study we called Quincy to sing Happy Birthday. Here she is a big two-year-old. We have missed both birthday parties, but we will be there for it next year! It was fun as she held up two fingers and told us she was “two seconds old”.
We presented the Supanga Elementary School cement floors, TVs, and chairs project. It was approved by our Humanitarian Team but we don’t have a Welfare Self Reliance Committee meeting this week so we will have to wait to present it until the 26th. The POs have been delivered in record time for the Anilao Schools project and Cagdarao Elementary project. We will probably have those turnovers in the next 2-3 weeks. Cagdarao is difficult to get to, so they need to be in separate weeks. We also have a trip to Manila again for trainings on February 1st.
At FHE that evening we lead a discussion on quotes from prophets and apostles about the importance of the Book of Mormon. I used President Ezra Taft Benson’s talk from October 1986 “The Book of Mormon-Keystone of Our Religion”. It is an incredible talk with warnings and promises. If we aren’t using the Book of Mormon regularly in our lives, we are under condemnation. I really don’t like to be under condemnation so I will try to use it daily. Then it is filled with fantastic promises to those who read and study it regularly. What a blessing in our lives. I marvel how Lehi’s “tree of life” dream is unfolding right before our eyes. It is sad to see the casualties of those who have left the tree and wandered off to the river and are headed for the great and spacious building. We must hold on to the Iron Rod tightly and stand by the tree like Lehi to beacon to others to come. Don’t leave the tree thinking you can go rescue them or you will get lost. You must stand by the tree. This is different than going in search of the lost sheep. We must find the lost sheep but not by leaving the “tree”.
On Wednesday morning we called Owen to sing to him and wish him a Happy 13th Birthday. That might have been the highlight of our week. He is such a fun young man. We thoroughly enjoyed our almost one hour of one-on-one time with him. He has grown 7 inches in the last year. He has had a very good wrestling season in spite of missing a big share of it with a broken hand. We teased about girl friends since he wasn’t successful blowing out all of his birthday candles. He deflected those kinds of comments onto both of his older brothers. We learned quite a bit about them in the conversation. Of course, he had a couple jokes for us. I must pass them on. “Why should you never trust a tree?” “They are a little shady.” – “Why are elevator jokes so good?” “They work on so many levels.”
On Tuesday and Wednesday it was mission leadership training, so we went to the templex in the late afternoon on Wednesday as things were concluding to see some of our favorite missionaries. It was fun to see Elders Espanoza, Holmberg, Zayas, DuBose, and Sisters Sorensen, Alvez, and Noble. Of course, some of the others we really like didn’t come because they are in Dumagutee and Tanjay.
Also, on Wednesday the Domstadts from the tri-cities in Washington arrived. They will be serving in the Family History Center at the patron housing but living here at Prestigio. Sister Beesley arrived and she will be replacing Sister Garner as the mission secretary. She is 77 and you could never tell it. She is one spry lady. Amazing! Her husband has passed away. Her husband’s grandfather or great grandfather is Ebenezer Beesley, a great musician. He wrote many of the church hymns. You can go to the back of the hymn book and find out all of them. I think it is about 13. Sister Beesley recognized our name right off and said Minerva Teichert painted a painting of Brother Beesley directing a marching band. I have never seen it that I know of. Sister Beesley tells us that she has a large print of the painting in her front room back home.
When we arrived here and replaced the Huskinson’s, Sister Garner was the only other senior here in the Cebu Mission. We now have the Carys serving in San Carlos, the Webbs serving in Toledo, the Taylors and Koyles serving in the temple and living in the patron housing, and the rest of us living in Prestigio Apartments, Heaths-mission health doctor, Welches-English Connect specialists and commissary for the missionaries, Eppersons-housing coordinators, and now the new missionaries. Pretty cool to be around all of these wonderful senior missionaries.
We had the Lahug Elders join us for dinner on Thursday evening, Elders San Ramon and Magasatay. They are good young missionaries. They are both from Luzon. Then after an early dinner on Friday we went to the Taylor’s where Clyda colored Sister Annette Taylor’s hair. We had a good visit and smoothies. Elder Jim Taylor is good at making Mango smoothies and this time he added some strawberries. They were delicious!!
On Saturday we went to the market with the Koyles and Taylors. They have very good produce there. It is always good to join up with them. Afterwards we headed to the office while our apartment got cleaned. Housekeeping cleans every Tuesday and Saturday for us. We are spoiled. We watched Mylie’s game against Pinedale on the big screen with Mylocalradio.com broadcasting. It was a thriller as Mt. View pulled off the win 63-61. We were cheering. Of course, I commented a few times, “pass to target and catch the ball”. It was indeed a big win and fun to watch. Then we watched on demand on the NFHS Mariah’s freshman game where we did all of the commentating. It was fun. We couldn’t get my Ipad to work with the big TV for the wrestling. I don’t know what the problem was so we came home, sat close together on the couch and watched Kimball and Tell wrestle. That was a lot of fun also. We also watched Micah Petersen, Flint Linford, and Clay Teichert. It was a good morning viewing family and Cokeville sports.
They are having “Sinulag” festival going on right now. I’m not sure exactly what that is but it is a huge event here in Cebu. The city is packed. They have a lot of parades, fireworks, etc. We are not supposed to get involved. Thousands of people have descended on the city. Our parking lot and many other places have a lot have banners, etc. strung up. Sister Koyle says it is the children of Israel worshipping the golden calf. I do know in the parades they have a large statue on a trailer and then a lot of people following with horns and drums. Plenty of noise. There has been a lot of monotonous music playing in the neighborhood this week. I will be glad when it is over.
Today was a good day. However, both speakers in church spoke in Cebuano today. But, we were able to partake of the Sacrament, and that is the main reason for the meeting. Later today all of us senior missionaries here in Prestigio (12) are having Sunday dinner together. Clyda is fixing a salad for the event.
Sunday School was very good with a lot of discussion on the tree of life and the importance of doing all we can to hold on to the Iron Rod and stand by the tree. We can’t let the mists of darkness distract us and lead us to other paths and we can’t let the mocking of the people in the great and spacious building deter us from living the gospel and staying on the covenant path. As we listened to “Come Follow Up” on BYUtv today one of the hosts pointed out that the great and spacious building in a painting she had seen had no foundation. That was interesting to me. And it will crumble and fall at the Second Coming. The tree will stand tall and strong and all those that are gathered around it. One of our daughters in our gospel discussion this week pointed out that Lehi didn’t go after Laman and Lemuel, he beaconed to them, but he stayed by the tree. We must hold to the Iron Rod and stay by the Tree!
Holy Habits
Righteous Routines
Lift Where You Stand
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
Comments
Post a Comment