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

March Moments

TarlacCity, Tarlac

Philippines

21 March 2010

March has been a busy and productive month. The high-light for us was the marriage of our daughter Holly and Tom Clark in the Salt Lake Temple. We could not be there physically but we were there in spirit and felt happy all day. It helped that we received cell phone photos soon after the ceremony. We are so proud and happy for them as they start their life together.

This month our assignment has been to train all the SEC’s (Stake Employment Committee) in the Angeles Mission – six stakes and seven districts. Working directly with ERS Angeles Volunteer Center managers, we completed the training and also advised them on ways to improve their reporting. We are also charged with helping the committees register on ldsjobs.org. This has been a challenge because of the lack of availability of personal computers. We have enjoyed visiting stakes and districts and will return periodically to see how they are doing and what we can do to help them.

Like most “Senior” couples, we have the responsibility to inspect the apartments of the young Elders and Sisters in both Paniqui and Tarlac Zones – fourteen apartments. The Sister’s apartments are always very clean and tidy. The Elders need a little more encouragement but generally they do well. One Sister complained because the termites were eating her bed frame. One Elder said that they have “ghosts” that live upstairs. (Of course he was smiling as he told us this).

Our mission wanted to re-open an area (about an hour’s drive from our house) that had been closed for three years and asked NB to find and prepare a house for missionaries. We found a house then contracting with a local brother to make repairs and paint the inside. We were happy when all work was completed and the local branch finished the final cleaning. The house was occupied by two elders during this last transfer and they are happy to be in such a nice house.

This week we are helping at the new ERC in Dagupan – we have been re-assigned to this office from Makati. They are planning the launch and grand opening in mid April and we will be hand-delivering personal invitations to local community and government officials. The ERC managers and volunteer staff are so excited to have this office open and we are also excited to be part of this new office!

Elder NB & Sister MB

Career Workshop

Tarlac City

Tarlac, Philippines

28 February 2010

We are enjoying our assignment as Employment Specialists. Sometimes we wonder about the sweet and fun people we teach, we don’t often get to hear the end of the story – if they were successful or not.

Last Feb. 2009, we were asked by our Employment Resource Center (ERC) office to help teach the Career Workshop to about 1,000 graduating seniors from the Angeles University Foundation. It took us and another team about 4 weeks. AUF is basically a Catholic university with classes beginning with prayer at the start of each day. We were not sure how the students would feel about “Elder and Sister Costley”. We tried to make the workshop fun and tailored to the needs of someone graduating in a week! Among other things, the workshop prepares them for job interviews with confidence building exercises and mock interviews. One thing that we left in our presentation was all the quotes from our prophets with scriptures to match that we normally use when we are teaching members. It was so wonderful to watch their faces when Elder Costley read this quote from President Hinckley, “The Lord would want you to be successful, He would. You are his sons and daughters. He has the same kind of love and ambition for you that your earthly parents have. They want you to do well and you can do it.” (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, 1997, p.614). Their faces would just light up, it was a great sight. We encouraged them to involve the Lord every step of the way in the job seeking process.

As you can well imagine, we had a lot of fun working with these well educated students – nurses, medical technicians, media students, computer technicians, teachers, etc. We enjoyed talking with them after class and wished them all good luck.

Last week we were in a mall in Angeles and a young lady said “Sister Costley, do you remember me last year from AUF?” She was so cute and she went on to say that she got a job teaching English to Korean students. She thanked us so sweetly and we were so happy for her. It just made our whole day.

On Sat. Feb. 6th, we gave the Career Workshop to a group of young adults here in the Tarlac Stake. Then last week we received notification that one of the young men attending the workshop was starting a job in Manila the following day. We were so happy for him. These young adults are so sharp, we just love them and we feel blessed to be here. Once in a while we like to hear the “end of the story”.

Elder NB & Sister MB

Taught by Children

Tarlac City,

Tarlac,

Philippines

15 February 2010

Yesterday we enjoyed a wonderful Stake Conference in Tarlac. It was a very spiritual and uplifting meeting although it was 3 hours long – sitting on hard wooden benches even made it seem longer. One of the speakers told about a special boy named Jake, who was intent on honestly practicing the principle of tithing that he had just been taught in Primary. Jake’s mother gave him 10 pesos each day as he left for school for his expenses. He lived too far from school to come home for lunch so the money was to be used to buy lunch and he also needed to save 1 peso to pay for a boat ride to bring him across the river at the end of the day. Jake decided to pay his tithing from the 10 pesos he received each day (10 pesos is about $0.20 cents in the U.S.). When Jake would get home from school, he would proudly give his mother the 1 peso he had saved and she would hold it until he could pay his tithing to the Bishop on Sunday.

One day at school, Jake realized that someone had stolen his 10 peso coin. He was so sad, he hadn’t missed one day of giving his tithing to his mom. He felt in his pocket and discovered he still had 1 peso that he had not spent the previous day. After school, Jake was very late getting home. His mother was starting to worry when Jake arrived, hot and tired. He told his mom about the stolen coin but instead of taking the boat across the river with his only remaining peso, he had decided to walk the long way home so that he could still pay his tithing! Did we mention – Jake is 6 years old.

Our children can teach us many things by example if we will but watch and listen to them after we teach them correct principles.

Another uplifting story was about a young man who is now eleven. Two years ago his area was closed to missionary work due to a shortage of missionaries. The elders were removed but the small branch continued under the direction of the branch president. A month ago the mission was able to reopen the town and sent two elders back to teach the people. The first Sunday the missionaries attended the branch this young man eagerly approached them and asked if he could be baptized. He told them he had been attending church since the elders left and had not missed one Sunday in two years. The missionaries were so excited about him and asked him if they could meet his parents – now the whole family is being taught the gospel.

Elder Lesa pictured above with Pres. Puzey is one of the missionaries working with the family.

Elder NB & Sister MB