Laoag VC Office Open

Laoag,

Ilocos Norte,

Phillippines

20 July 2010

Still traveling to the far corners of Northern Luzon. The past two weeks has found us in Santiago, Isabela and Laoag, Ilocos Norte for the launching of two Employment Resource Services (ERS) Volunteer Centers that will assist members in their search for employment or self employment. With the new Employment Resource Center (ERC) opening in Dagupan it required three satellite volunteer centers to a help our members and only one was operational – Angeles VC. Our visit to Santiago was short and quick to show our support for their launch.

Our assignment over the past month has been to assist Laoag to plan, prepare and host an open house to introduce itself to the community. They had completed some preliminary activities but were not progressing as quickly as was planned by the Dagupan manager so we were asked to evaluate and help. We found they had a good outline and had identified some costs but they were slow to proceed because of funding questions.

As the planning committee went to work everything fell into place – the date was set for July 15. Invitations were designed and delivered to government, academic and business leaders by the committee. The luncheon menu was finalized, caterer found and costs established at 100 pesos ($2+) per plate (this included a very nice buffet meal, salad bar, tables, table settings, centerpiece, chair coverings, etc). A letterhead was designed for the office stationery, banners for the open house were designed and made and the flowers and flower arrangements for the ribbon cutting and entry were ordered.

On July 14, the day we would be returning to Laoag, we were worried because a typhoon was threatening the Laoag region and we wouldn’t be allowed to travel. During the night it had changed directions. Yea! We arrived late on the 14^th to find the Stake Center (VC is located there) and grounds in perfect shape and the members glowing and so proud of all the work they had completed. The cultural hall was all dressed up with tables perfect and the flowers were impressive. We were so happy for them to see the reward of all their hard work and dedication. They accomplished all this with off and on power black-outs the whole day.

The morning of the 15^th dawned sunny and beautiful. We found the committee putting on the finishing touches and they were ready. Their guests arrived and were impressed not only by what they saw but by what this ERS program offered the people of Laoag – member and non-members alike. As the speakers talked they said many positive things about the church and its members and how they influence the community for good. Following the introduction program, there was a ribbon cutting ceremony and tour of the facilities – ERS office, family history and the other rooms of the building. There were plenty of wonderful missionaries in attendance to answer questions about the church.

We had a great lunch with all the dignitaries staying and chatting about the opportunities this office provided the community. It was a wonderful day for the faithful saints of Laoag.

Elder NB & Sister MB

Happy 4th of July

Angeles,

Pampanga,

Philippines

3 July 2010

Happy 4^th of July from the Philippines! Every six weeks we have an Angeles Mission “couple missionary” meeting. This week the couples met on Saturday, July 3^rd for a 4^th of July picnic at Paradise Ranch which is kind of a nature preserve. It is located near Clark Field (where the mission home is located) and it covers many acres in the foothills overlooking Clark. Many improvements have been made to make it an enjoyable place to visit. Volunteers have planted thousands of flowers, plants, bushes and trees which thrive in the Philippines heat and humidity. They also have many different birds in big cages, monkeys and a large butterfly enclosure.

This year has been a record breaking year for heat! Our tour of Paradise Ranch was on a very warm, sunny day and all of us were carrying hats or umbrellas to keep the sun off and we were drinking lots of water.

It is always so special to be with and visit with the other couples and hear about their successes in strengthening and re-activating members. One of the things we love the most about our mission is seeing the hand of the Lord at work every day. It is the little things we see happening that makes his hand obvious.

Our mission President commented that this is the first time he has had enough senior couples to cover every area of the mission. In addition to “inspecting” missionary apartments, we all recently installed Smoke/C.O. detectors in every missionary apartment. The church is very concerned about the health and safety of all missionaries.

We have just completed twenty months – time is flying by!!!

Elder NB & Sister MB

Far North of Luzon

Laoag,

Ilocos Norte,

Philippines

18 June 2010

Wow! More than half way through the month of June and we have been traveling all over. First to Dingalan, Aurora on the east side of Luzon then to Dagupan, Pangasinan on the west side, down to Angeles, Pampanga – central, and finally to the very north – Laoag, Ilocos Norte. We are putting the kilometers on the car this month.

Our work has taken us to teach a group Self Employment in a small branch, meeting with our manager so he could give us a special assignment to help the team in Laoag prepare and launch the Volunteer Center in July, toured an Australian school under development in Angeles that will be able to house and train as many as 15,000 students for work in Australia, and we spent part of three days with the Laoag Team working on what needs to happen to have a successful launch in July. Busy, busy is what we have been and enjoying every minute of it – well except for the eight hour drive to Laoag. The country is beautiful but the traffic is a challenge.

We have been able to do a few other things as well – NB was asked to give a new little house a ‘House Blessing’ (picture above), attended another baptism with a departing missionary and his parents and the best of all, witnessed by closed circuit TV the cultural event and the dedication of the Philippines Cebu City Temple on Sunday, 13 June. What a special event to have President Monson, Pres. Eyring, Elder Oaks, Bishop Burton and others in attendance and to listen to the direction given to the Filipino people and instructions given to us all as we ‘endure to the end’.

While we were in Laoag, we drove to the northern tip of Luzon and walked on the white sand beach of the South China Sea. They are so pretty with the palm trees, warm breeze and hot sun. Honest, all we did was walk on the beach.

The work in great!

Elder NB & Sister MB

Do You Know the Way?

San Jose,

Nueva Ecija,

Philippines

30 May 2010

Last week we returned to “Baler – By the Sea”. We were there about a year ago to teach and train the members in employment skills or self-employment skills. Baler is a road trip over the mountains to a coastal valley on the eastern side of Luzon. The roads are very rough and we are driving our Corolla on these roads – 6 MPH was too fast in some areas. It took us six hours of driving from Tarlac. On the positive side – it is always worth the trip because the scenery is just beautiful. We were so happy to again visit with the Baler members and see the growth – the four little branches we visited before are now organized into a district. You can see that the missionaries have been working so very hard there. The Baler Sacrament meeting was full with hardly a vacant chair to be seen. We enjoyed the spirit and their strong testimonies of the gospel.

On Thursday we were invited to the college graduation of our District President’s son Kirby Nadado. He is such a very fine young man graduating fourth in his “IT” (Information Technology) class. He also received 4 different awards for outstanding performance in developing programs and applications. One thing that is unique in the Philippines is that when someone graduates, a parent walks across the stage with them to receive the diploma. Kind of special! He is preparing and is ready to submit his mission papers.

Saturday we traveled to San Jose, (yes we know the way) Nueva Ecija. We taught the Career Workshop to 50 members from that stake. Of course it is harder with that many people but they were an excellent group and participated well. The booklet we use and the workshop itself are all in English. They all understand English well but they get worried about responding in English, afraid they will say something wrong. After awhile they forget about their worries and the English seems to come to them quite easily. If they stay the whole 8 hours there is a little graduation ceremony at the end and they receive a certificate saying they have completed the Career Workshop. It is great to see how much this certificate means to them. We so enjoy interacting with them at these workshops. They are a loving and delightsome people – we love them.

Elder NB & Sister MB

Baptisms

Burgos, Tarlac

Philippines

9 May 2010

We were privileged to attend 2 baptisms this weekend. One in the church baptismal font and the other in a river, both were just wonderful.

Missionaries were recently sent to re-open Burgos, an area that has not seen missionaries for three years. It is in the Provence of Tarlac and is about a 40 minute drive from our home. The missionaries have been working for a few weeks and had prepared a sixteen year old young man to be baptized. The Branch President also had two children of a part member family ready.

The branch has no baptismal font in their rented building so the plan was to hold the service in the branch building then adjourn to the river about 1 ½ kilometers from the building to perform the baptisms. The spot was identified and prepared earlier to make it deep enough and private enough for our purposes.

The service was conducted with talks by one missionary and a local sister – all in Tagalog which we mostly don’t understand but we can feel the spirit of the service. At the conclusion, everyone loaded into our car, the mission’s pickup truck (driven by Sister Puzey) and a tricycle and then drove to the river. We had to walk a bit down the river bank, we passed 2 Carabao cooling off in the river. Carabao are the Philippines’ beasts of burden similar to water buffalo. The 20 branch members present were so happy to see the three young people baptized in the river by their Branch President and witnessed by the two wonderful missionaries.

Sunday while attending meetings in Cuyapo Branch we were invited to an afternoon baptism for the Branch President’s son Joseph who just turned eight. We joined the branch at the district center (Stake Center) for a very sweet service and witnessed this young man being baptized by his older brother Harold. Joseph has another brother serving a mission right now.

The best part of this service was after the baptism three young primary girls, ages 9, 8 and 6, and Joseph all bore the sweetest and strong testimonies of the gospel. They spoke with such commitment and sincerity. We were so impressed! Had to give each a big hug! It was a great baptism.

Elder NB & Sister MB

Nueva Vizcaya

Dupax del Norte,

Nueva Vizcaya,

Philippines

25 April 2010

This last week we have had another special experience in the Philippines.

We were asked by the Area Humanitarian couple (Smiths) and our ERC Manager to teach “Value Formation” to a group of 45 disabled women and teen-aged girls. There were also a few disabled men included as well. We said sure but what is it? When and where? They said Wednesday and Thursday in Dupax del Norte, Nueva Vizcaya.

Our schedule had us in Angeles training the departing missionaries on Monday and Tuesday but in order to head five hours north for this assignment, we would have to finish a little early. We adjusted the training and left Angeles at 2 p.m. on Tuesday driving the back country roads then over the mountain on semi-good roads to reach the hotel by 7 p.m. There we met the Smiths and got an outline of what was expected for the next two days.

The workshop sponsored by the National Council on Disability Affairs (NCDA) was scheduled to last for 10 days. LDS Charities financially supported the first two days and we were to provide the training. Because the Career Workshop and other material we teach are about eight hours long we decided to break it into two four hour sessions. It was held in a nice, homey resort with good shade and Nipa Hut accommodations for the participants who stayed at the resort.

We were a little apprehensive as we set up our equipment but as we all introduced ourselves to each other we felt their love and desire to learn and improve their situation. You see all the participants had a disability – orthopedic, ocular or auditory. Most were very outgoing and all participated in making presentations as they worked to review their abilities and improve their self-confidence. In the two days we saw a change come over the entire group as individuals talked about what they wanted to do with this new information.

As we closed the second day they all thanked us for sharing this information with them and we felt their spirit and desire to move their lives forward even with their physical challenges. We took group pictures and had fun over lunch before we left for our long drive back home to Tarlac.

Elder NB & Sister MB

Graduation, Mission and Marriage

Paniqui, Tarlac

Philippines

4 April 2010

What a special week this has been. We were invited to two 6^th grade graduation ceremonies – one in Gerona for Kimberly and in one in Cuyapo for Angelique. There is no “middle school” in the Philippines so after the 6^th grade they go directly to High School graduating from there at age 16. Then, if they are lucky and have the funds, they can go to college. Education is very important to Filipinos. Both girls were graduating with “high” honors.

The graduation in Cuyapo was the most interesting – besides 6^th graders they included the kindergarten classes so in total they graduated about 100 students. They gave diplomas, speeches, awards, more speeches and recognition for almost everything you can think of. The hot afternoon sun caused the audience to seek shad wherever they could as the sun moved across the sky. We arrived as it was ready to start and had to leave two hours later for another appointment and they were still giving out awards.

Friday night was a special occasion for us, we were invited to witness the “setting apart” of 5 wonderful young missionaries from the Paniqui District. We spend our Sundays in the branches of these young men and love their dedication and spirit. The next day they entered the Manila MTC for a few weeks of training before going to their missions – two to Manila and three to Naga, Philippines. What great young men they are with strong testimonies of the gospel and a desire to humbly serve the Lord.

On Saturday we were invited to our first “Filipino” wedding. The ceremony itself only lasted about three minutes but the rest of the program lasted two hours. Plus the wedding was an hour late getting started. This is considered normal for most Filipino activities. We love the young couple getting married, Christian and Jennalyn, and wish them every happiness in their new life together.

We were invited as honored guests to attend the wedding reception at the home of the bride. The bride and groom rode with us to her home in our car – the only car in the procession of tricycles and jeepneys. When we arrived they had a crowd of maybe 150 people all seated under canopy tents in their garden area. We were seated at the head table and treated very special – Jennalyn has been a special friend of MBs since we arrived here in the Philippines and it was demonstrated at the reception. The young couple are so in love and we are happy for them.

Elder NB & Sister MB