Briant and Clyda Teichert; LDS Charities; Cebu Philippines

Dear Family and Friends,  Week #26 3/20-3/26 The Huffs and Haynes continue to light it up with projects. They are doing some amazing things. It is fun to see the variety. This kind of stuff is right down their alleys, and they are good at it. They have projects helping hospitals, EMS, Fire Stations and Fire Fighters, Clean Water projects, Literacy projects at schools and in Stakes, and the list goes on. It is impressive! Last Monday night we had FHE with our mission president, President Augustin. It was a wonderful evening in their beautiful home. They hosted us for a wonderful meal, then a lesson, then games, then treats. We had a good time. It was a going away dinner for the Woods and a welcome for the Heaths. The Heaths are from Cottonwood. He is the new medical advisor for the mission replacing Elder Woods. Elder and Sister Woods have been here for 6 months. They are now going home for a month. Then they are coming back to Manila for two years where he will be over 11 ...

Dear Family and Friends,  Week #25 3/13-3/19 Monday was another office day, working on projects, attending our TEAMS meeting with Manila. That gave me a headache as a project was presented by one of our superiors where we are not donating any materials or supplies, and yet we have been told that all we do is donate materials and supplies. I’m confused. I’m terrible at communicating and even worse at listening and understanding. After two hours and many questions by other colleagues I was glad to leave the meeting. I turned off my computer and left the room. We had made a commitment to drive the Tidwells to the airport. They had been here over the weekend and had a meeting at the same time as ours. Theirs didn’t go as long. They were waiting for us. We took them to the airport and checked some things out there like long term parking and the international terminal so we will be ready for Olivia’s arrival. We are so excited to have Olivia and Quincy!! Then, we headed to th...

Dear Family and Friends,  Week #24 3/6-3/12 Of the ten projects that weren’t complete when the Huskinsons left, we now just have one to finish. There were only a few things to do on most of them. We have been working on preparing projects ourselves for quite some time now. Well, last Monday we finally presented two projects that we have developed, and they both were approved!!! Oh, HAPPY DAY!! One is to give TVs, printers, and a sound system to a school in Cayos, Dumangas, Iloilo. We will provide 12 TVs, one for each classroom that doesn’t have one. Most of our committee aren’t in favor of my philosophy on this. However, it got approved. I think they just feel sorry for us. Here in the Philippines, the high school kids stay in the same classroom all day. The teachers rotate between classrooms. So, if I’m a biology teacher and teach 6 periods a day, I will rotate through six different classrooms. In visiting schools, I had found this out. The rest of the committee had no...

Dear Family and Friends,  Week #23 2/27-3/5 Congratulations to the Cokeville Girls Basketball team on a great tournament and placing third at state. Too bad about losing by 1 in the semi-final game to the eventual state champion Upton Bobcats. However, great job coming back and whipping a team for third place that they had two close games with before. That shows a lot of character. It was fun to see the girls get after it. The boys had a good year also but losing in the third place game at state. Good luck to Mylie and the Mt. View Buffalos this week at state. At last Monday’s meeting we were introduced to four ladies that represent a charitable organization called “Watts of Love”. The have small solar panel lights, that you can strap around your neck or head. You wear it like a necklace, in front or on your back during the day so it can charge. Then at night you can keep it around your neck or wear it around your head to give light to whatever you are working on. They wan...

Dear Family and Friends, Week #22 2/20-2/26 Last Monday evening we had our Senior FHE. The sister that gave the lesson is an older Filipino Sister that has lived most of her life in Sandy, UT. She works in the office of the Cebu East Mission. She was raised in the Philippines. She was born here in Cebu and then raised in Manila. Her family migrated to the U.S. after high school. She went to college in the U.S. and married and lived there. However, she went on a mission as a young lady. She came back here to the Philippines and served in the third mission establish, Davao, on Mindinao. Manila mission 1967, then Cebu 1973, then Davao 1975. She gave some great insights into the LDS and U.S. history of the Philippines. There are now 23 missions. Davao Temple will be the 4th to be dedicated and should happen before we leave. The Urdaneta is soon to be finished. Anyway, she talked about how after WWII it was required in all schools to speak English. That was out of gratitude to th...

Dear Family and Friends,  Week #21 2/13-2/19 It is a beautiful day in the Philippines. It has been a good week. Monday of course was meetings and office work. In the afternoon the Koyle’s and Taylor’s took us to Lander’s to get groceries. Our refrigerator was starting to look a little bare. We hadn’t been for 3 weeks. Tuesday was a virtual meeting along with the others on the LDSC team. We were learning about “Single Drop for Clean Water”, another relief organization we partner with. They are really good. They help with delivering water to schools and communities, etc. We provide the materials, and they organize the labor, the engineering, and most importantly the training for the beneficiaries. The people need to be taught what it takes to have the project be sustainable. Without that training the project almost shouldn’t be done. Otherwise, it won’t continue to work for the people. It was a very good meeting. It was encouraging for us to help out on water projects for...

Dear Family and Friends,  Week #20 2/6-2/12 We had a good week. The only downer was not getting an email from Connor in Chile. I guess he had a real busy day. We look forward to hearing from him each week. He is having a great mission with all kinds of neat things going on. We love his growth in the gospel and his strong testimony. We are proud grandparents. Missions are hard, like life, but they bring great growth in ways that only a mission can. The ups far outweigh the downs. Through our trials and discouragements, we are truly being blessed. We finally got our passports back and now we can go get a drivers license. It has been 5 weeks now without being able to drive. I hope I can still remember how to drive in this traffic. I pray we won’t ever get into an accident here. Brother Colipapa is taking us to get the licenses on Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday are full. Thursday is also full. On Monday we had a full day with meetings and office work. Then in the evening we ...