Thursday, June 28, 2012
June 28, 2012
Today we set up the projector and speakers to make sure we
are prepared to teach the Planning for Success workshop next Saturday. I had already prepared the power point and
downloaded a video to use during the workshop so now we are ready to go. I was also able to contact three of our
students from San Carlos (2 hour drive from us). We are going to church there on Sunday and
are so excited to meet these young ladies face to face. They will pass the word so we may meet up to
12 of the students we are directly responsible for. It was very exciting for me for talk to a real
person.
We also received our first snail mail from Grandpa
Sinema. It is my birthday card and it
only took two weeks to arrive here. Good
thing Grandpa is a Sinema and does everything early. Our snail mail address is:
Elder and
Sister Sinema
Bacolod
Mission
Galo and
Lacson Street
Bacolod City
6100 Negros
Occidental
We have
learned a few fun facts about Bacolod, Philippines from our Institute brothers
and sisters! Below are the top 10 ways you KNOW you are in Bacolod!
1. If you
hear a medley of dogs and roosters 24 hours a day.
2. When
there are only two seasons: hot and rainy and rainy and hot!
3. When
traffic lanes and lights are only a suggestion.
4. When your
diet consists of rice and chicken or chicken and rice.
5. When Dan
eats Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches for lunch.
6. When a
greeting includes : "How old are you sister?" and that is OK!
7. When the
church is the nicest building in town.
8. When
"brownouts" are the norm (brownout=no electricity).
9.When you
are the tallest people in town.
10. When all
the signs are in English but the spoken language is in Ilongo!
The only two
things we really miss are tomatoes, water
pressure in the shower and no nightly news broadcasts! Actually,
other than being saddened by the extreme poverty of the majority of the
people, this is a wonderful, beautiful place.
I love the Institute students, the young missionaries, and the church
employees here and they love us! They come and say hello and hug us whenever
they see us!
Love to
all!!!
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Sunday June 23
Sunday June 23
Today we went to church in the Bago 2nd Ward. We went there to meet Elder and Sister De Los
Santos and to go over their students with them.
We arrived and thought their ward met at 9:00am as that is the time that
showed on the internet information. Their
ward really started at 8:30 and Bago First Ward met at 9:30. They share the building and the first ward
begins with Sacrament meeting and the second ward begins with Relief Society,
Priesthood and Primary ending with Sacrament.
I noticed that really helped with the children's reverence since they
must be mindful of the other ward meeting and not allow the children to run
around and disrupt the other ward. So as
the church grows priorities of reverence change, which is the natural process
as the members are very respectful of the other wards. In our Magsungay Ward building only one ward
meets so the necessity of reverence is less for the children. As the church grows and the need to share the
buildings grow here in the Philippines, the natural progression will include
teaching the children to understand that reverence becomes more important so
those around us can feel the spirit.
The spirit was so strong in the ward today. I was a little concerned that I would feel
different as I traveled to other wards that I would not feel as touched because
I would not know the members in the wards we travel to. But the saints are the same everywhere. They love the missionaries and think we are
so special. They asked us to give talks
and share our testimony in Sacrament which caught us a bit off guard. Now we know we must be prepared to speak
everywhere we go. I will be an expert in
speaking with no preparation and maybe learn now to be so nervous about
speaking. As soon as the bishop asked us
to speak a scripture popped into my mind that I have always loved and I knew
that I needed to use it in my talk.
The story is that Nephi's father told his sons that they
needed to return to their home to obtain the record of their ancestors. Nephi's brother's grumbled and complained
that the request of their father, and in turn the Lord, was too hard for them
to do. The ruler, Laban, of the place
which the family had fled was not of the same faith and did not want to help
the church in any way so the brothers expected him to deny their desire. Which
of course is what happened but the Lord did open the way for the young men to
return to their family in the desert with the records (that of course is
another story). Although Nephi's
brother's did not want to go and follow the direction of their father and the
Lord. Nephi's response was the following:
"And it came to pass that I Nephi, said unto my father,
I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, as I know that the
Lord giveth no commandment unto the children
of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they shall prepare a way for
them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them" 1 Nephi
3:7.
I likened this story to our life
and our being here in the Philippines. I
have wanted to serve a mission for the church all of my life As a little girl in Primary when I would sing "I Hope They Call me on
a Mission" I felt a burning desire to go on a mission. I knew that my family could not afford to
send me and I would have to wait until I retired to serve. Dan and I saved all of our marriage so we
would have the financial means to serve the Lord. Even though I always wanted to serve, when
the time came, I faced the difficulty of leaving our family and not being able to see them for the 2 years we
have been called to serve.
I love my children and grandchildren more than
anything and love to visit with them and spend time with them. Even when we lived far from each other I
would be able to see them at least twice or three times a year and could just
pick up my phone to text or call. That
is not possible here in the Philippines.
I do not have text capability to the United States, and cannot afford to
call whenever I feel like it. I have to plan and prepare for long distance
calls; we have to go to the mall and buy phone cards and use a land line to
call. Also, the time difference is a
problem. We have to call first thing in
the morning in order to reach our family in the evening at home. And even though I can access Face book at
work, when I get to the office and log into Face book most of my family and
friends have gone to bed.
The analogy then, is that even
though a mission was one of the fondest desires of my heart and something I had
planned for all my adult life, it is still a very difficult thing for me!
Sometimes even though we know what we must do, may want to do, it may still be
a very hard thing to do. But.....If we
have faith and pray and prepare the Lord will help us have the strength to
"DO" the difficult thing.
Also, I know that this is not just difficult for me, I know that all of my family are sacrificing
and supporting our desire. I am so
thankful for all of you and gain strength from you and your prayers. I want to thank you all for your
support! When Paul drove us to the
airport I was so afraid I would lose it and cry buckets of tears, but he being
the great man that he is said," this is a happy thing and we are NOT going
to be sad!" Thank you Paul for your
strength and your faith in your parents.
We so want to be the kind of parents that our children are proud of and
know they can always follow our example, but that day I did not know if I could
be strong enough not to crumble. But
Paul made it easy for me and I do not think he can ever know how much that
meant to me. I love you Paul. Thank you
for your strength, support, and for taking care of our home with the help of
little Faith and now Josh. We could
never do this without you!!!!
So....All this has taught me a
great lesson. When things get tough or
hard, "I can go and do the things that the Lord commandeth" and I can
count on my family to help and support me even when they may not really agree
with what I am doing and may also have to make great sacrifices for me. THANK YOU all. I so love you all.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Work week
June 21, 2012
Today is Friday and it is the end of the office week. I thought I would write about what we are
currently doing. Monday thru Friday we
begin the day going to the office. it is
about a ten minute drive from our house to the Galo Chapel where our office is
located in the Institute portion of the building. Our daily work has mostly
consisted of Dan working on computer related issues and reports. I spend the
most time trying to call our college participants. This can be frustrating as most of the
contact phone numbers are out of service or wrong numbers. I usually talk to only one or two students a
day. We are directly responsible for 67 students in the villages of
Antique (on the neighboring island), Binalbagon, about an hour south of us, Sagay,
San Carlos, and Sipalay. We have not
been to Sipalay or Antique yet but plan on that soon. We also supervise eleven couple service
missionaries (their title) who oversee the other over 200 student
participants. We have only met two of
those couples and will meet another on Sunday.
We hope to meet the rest of them next week. Then we will start contacting the priesthood to
set up the "Planning for Success" class we will be teaching. The first class is July 3rd. We also plan on going to Iloilo in July to
meet the service missionary couples we
supervise there. To travel there we have to take the ferry across the
ocean. On a clear day we can see Iloilo
from our back yard.
Elder and Sister Detal are in Bacolod Stake and they are
also the couple who picked us up at the airport and took us to our home the
first day. They helped us go to the
grocery store called SM and then took us to church the next day. They are a very kind couple and so willing to
help us get settled. They know all but
one of their 30 students. They visit
with each one of them every month and do anything the students need to be
successful. They are so diligent in
contacting their students and can tell us about each one. We are
so thankful for t heir help getting settled and their diligence with their
students.
Yesterday we drove about an hour to La Carlota and met Elder
and Sister Billones. Elder Billones is a
barber and owns his own Barbershop. They
suppervise17 student participants and also know all but one of their
students. The student that they do not
know moved to Manila, The student cannot
be moved off their record until they have a new address for the student. Most of the student's family either do not
know the address or are unwilling to disclose it. The Philippino families are very close and
protective so they do not give our the information until they can really trust
the supervisors. Elder and Sister
Billones speak English very well but at a bit shy and nervous about it.
We are encouraged to speak English mostly so the students
will become fluent as the business of the country is mostly in English due to
the hundreds of dialects spoken across the 700 islands. We have not really been able to continue learning
Ilongo yet, but have the contact number for the tutor and are attempting to
contact her. Once again phone contact is
not the most successful way to reach others.
But we will keep trying and the Detals go to church with Gay the young
woman who will tutor us and will give her the message to contact us
Sunday.
Things move very slow here which I am learning to live
with. It is difficult since I am such a
Type A personality and want things done correctly NOW! I thought I was very patient after teaching
school all those years, but apparently I am not patient at all. Dan keeps telling me to "Lower my
expectations!"
I have surprised Dan though as I have not had one heart attack
about his driving here unlike when we are at home. maybe it is because the traffic never goes
faster than about thirty miles an hour.
The drivers do not follow the lines on the road and just line up at the
few stop lights as many across as they can fit.
Drivers often turn left from the far right lane or right from the far
left lane so everyone goes relatively slow and just play leap frog across every
intersection. Dan expected me to be
screaming and yet unless a small child in near or in the road I am pretty
calm! I am also amazed by that. I have not attempted to drive yet and do not
anticipate that anytime soon.
So this is our work week! Love to all of our family and
friends. We love you!!!
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Road to San
Carlos
Today we
drove through the mountains east to a small village on the other side of Negros
Island from Bacolod. The drive took
about an hour from our home to San Carlos.
As we climbed into the mountain the foliage grew more dense and lush. The ferns grow into trees and give way to
beautiful terraced rice fields and a small stretch of pine trees. Small streams meander through the valleys and
to a waterfall. We did not stop to see
the water fall this time as it started to rain and we will drive there many
times to help the students and leaders that live there. The chapel in San Carlos is huge and by far
the most beautiful building may be even on the whole island. The church must be expecting tremendous
growth there to build such a large beautiful building. Currently it is a
District with branches which is much
less populated than a Stake with Wards.
We also saw
quaint woven homes that took great skill to weave together. Some children had built themselves island
skate boards made of cane formed into a rectangle base with wheels. One group of children used banana leaves to
sit on. Also they had made basketball
hoops using a branch from a tree to fashion the small square back board and
hoop onto. I must say the people are
ingenious and inventive.
After we
arrived home I gave the car a bath and while I was doing that, I began to
ponder the many things I love about the Philippines. The list is in no
particular order:
1. That the
laundry fairy also lives in the Philippines and thankfully the Starks (the
missionary couple before us) purchases a washer and dryer while they were here.
2. That we
are lucky enough to live on the ocean.
3. That we
have a care taker (here they are called the help) who does all the yard work.
Thanks Jing!
4.That our
ward is so loving and friendly.
5. That we
work with the nicest and most hard
working Institute group.
6. That the
Bacolod Institute has currently 74 full time missionaries serving all over the
world!
7. That the landscape here is so lush and green.
8. That most
people speak perfect English!
9. That the
church is very strong and rapidly growing here with these humble, kind people. That
we are blessed to serve a mission here in this beautiful place
10. There is
not dust! I have not had to dust once!
Friday, June 15, 2012
Thursday, June 14, 2012
June 15
I have not blogged this week due to the fact that Monday was
Philippines Independent day and then our boss from Quizon City, (Sir Franco)
Brother Franco Adzincula came to finish our training. We spent Wednesday and Thursday with
him. We are free to travel and introduce
ourselves to all our service missionaries and the Ward, Stake, and District
leaders. The new desk top computer
arrived also and Dan will spend today getting it up and going. Then hopefully we can get and send emails
from our church emails. We are at a loss
as how to fix my AOL account as is seems to be a computer issue not an AOL
issue. I guess AOL does not like
Toshiba. Darn! Some day we (that is the collective
"we" meaning Dan) will figure it out.
He is our tech guy! Our boss, Sir Franco has a portable internet device
called a Smart Bro that we will look at getting to allow us to have internet at
home. It looks like a flash drive. I was
excited to see that. Not having internet
at home is a real drag. Saturday we are
going to drive over the mountains and see San Carlos. I am excited to see more of this island. Next week we will begin setting up times to
visit and meet our people here and assess their needs. I can't wait to meet some more new friends. Here in the office we have Charry and
Madaline to help us with our work. There are also the Institute Director,
President Cobing and the Institute Coordinator President Deyro. We have not really gotten to know them yet as
they both have been traveling preparing for the new semester that has just
started. Yesterday for lunch we went to
Chicken House and had Inasal chicken. It was great! It is a Bacalod chicken specialty. We will go there a lot I think. We have yet to try the "fancy"
restaurant "21". The tables
have table clothes so it must be nice. Maybe
for my birthday we will go. We love you
all and are so thankful for your prayers, love and support. Know we think of you often. Your are in our hearts and our prayers.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
We have
finished our first week of service in our office in Bacolod. Yesterday the maintenance men were paining
the Institute where our office is so we spend the day driving north around the
top of Bacolod to find the chapels were we will be traveling and training. We found many of the chapels and took most of
the day to drive to Sagay and back. That
is about one third of the distance around the Bacolod mission. There were sugar
train trucks all along the way stacked twice as high as the truck bed. One had even had the cane fall forward
covering the front windows of the truck so the driver had to pull over and
reload the cane. That convinced us to
not follow the trucks too closely. We
were amazed at some of the ingenuity of the road workers also. Rather than stand in the sun to direct
traffic, they built small shade structures and used sticks to flip the traffic
signs from "Go" to "Stop"! There are few street signs so
you just have to guess by looking at the maps and where you have passes on the
maps. We had wanted to drive to San
Carlos through the mountains, but could not find the road so we just continued
to travel north instead.
Institute
classes have not started yet so we are
not seeing many college age students yet.
We attend Mansungay Ward here in Bacolod. We will be traveling a lot we have been told
but we have been able to meet with our ward two Sundays and the people are so
kind and welcoming. The children are so
sweet to let the funny white lady hug them and talk to them. I always ask them how old they are and
compare them to whichever grand children are that age. They also like to see the photos I have in my
iphone so even though I cannot use it for phone calls it is getting a lot of
use that way. We have found out we can get calling cards to use on the land
line (home phone) that is very reasonable.
So we will get some and start calling our family in our mornings which
is the night before at home. We love you
all and hope you are doing well. We pray
for you by name each day. Heavenly
Father may get tired of our repetitious prayers, but we believe he will bless
each of you as we serve Him. Keep
smiling!
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
June 5, 2012
Today is the first official day of work. We are in our office BUT do not have any access to the internet due to not having any passwords, we also do not have a phone to make any of the participant phone calls we are supposed to make. So................... We do not know what to do at all but sit here and wait for the phone call from the technical guy in Manila. So far we have not been very successful missionaries at all. Dan has mastered Philippine driving well. We did go to church on Sunday in our home ward, which was lovely, although we understand we will not attend there often do to our traveling. We also have been able to drive to the SM market to do our grocery shopping.
I am very anxious to get to work and accomplish something. I also really wish to contact out family so they do not worry about us, but we are not having any success at any of those things. What a bummer. hopefully we will be prompted in what to do to start the work soon. If we do not find a way to work soon it would seem foolish to just sit here and blog about doing nothing. I know I am whining but there is so much to do and we do not have any access to do the work. I am sad. Hopefully, all will be working soon.
We attended church today in our home ward. It is the Magsungay Ward. It has 570 members, but not that many attend. The people are very warm and welcoming. The children are so precious, but shy. I did get to hold a 3 month old baby girl who was so sweet. The ward building is modern and beautiful. it is two buildings with a foyer. The chapel is one building and the classrooms and offices are in the other building, which is about the same size as the chapel. There is not cultural hall but there is a basketball court on the parking lot. I felt so warm and accepted. We were asked to answer questions and comment in our classes. The spirit was so strong in the chapel and in our classes. The testimonies and lessons are conducted in a mixture of Hiligaynon (Ilongo) and English. The scriptures are not available in Hiligaynon so all the reading is in English so I was able to follow along pretty well. Elder and Sister Detal picked us up at the airport yesterday and took us to do a bit of shopping last evening so we could manage until Monday when we will pick up the car from the mission office. They were also kind enough to pick us up for church and return us to our home after church. We are so thankful for them as we would have been lost without them. Our landlady was at the home waiting for us when we arrived and showed us everything we needed to get by. We are so thankful for her generosity in allowing us to live in her beautiful home. It is beautiful and far above the normal standard of living here in the Philippines. We feel a bit spoiled.
It was a beautiful morning and the rain held off until we made it home from church. We were going to walk after church and explore our neighborhood, but by the time we had had lunch are were ready to go, the rain began. There is a tropical storm hitting the islands and the rain is very heavy. I am glad we were in the house when it started raining because it was not raining one minute and pouring rain the next. I will learn to love the rain! I will, I will. Actually I must or I will be truly depressed. It has rained every day since we have been here. It is the beginning of the rainy season. So far we have not been too inconvenienced by the rain. It has been kind to us. We did not get our bags rained on, or been stuck out in heavy rains, we have been blessed.
Tomorrow we are going to the office and beginning the journey of our work. We are anxious to begin and hope the Starks, who we are replacing have left detailed instructions. Otherwise we will just dive in and learn as we go. We do know we need to contact each student and introduce ourselves and offer any assistance they need. We are ready and willing to go and serve the Lord and his people. We do not have internet at our home or cell phone service so we will have to scope out the contacting our family latter. We do have a land line, so in emergencies we can be reached.
Love to all our family and friends back home. We are thankful for your sweet and generous support. We know you are sacrificing for our desire to serve the Lord. He has blessed us abundantly and thus we desire to bless others. Thank you for your support both emotionally and temporally by caring for each other and our home while we are away. We love you all so very much and will continue to pray for you.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Driver's License
June 1, 2012
Today we became
licensed drivers in the Philippines!
Wow! We had to give a urine
sample for drug testing, be weighed, measured, and had our blood pressure
checked before we paid our fees and voila! We did not have to drive, take a
test, or know any rules of the road.
Bizarre. We met Brother Ardern,
the Area President. He thanked us for our service and sacrifice. He also asked us to thank our children and
grandchildren for their sacrifice in supporting our mission. It was so nice to hear him express
thankfulness for our family. We have
felt such an out pouring of love and support here from the PEF leaders, the
other missionaries, and every person we have met here. They are so thankful for us and we have yet
to do anything. We can't wait to get to
Bacolod and get to work! We have
students who need to be supported and loved.
We want to meet each one and find out what we can do to help them succeed.
We had a short day today even though it started early. We are now resting in the hotel so that we
will be able to wake rested in order to get packed and to the airport. We are so excited to get to Bacolod, move
into our new home, meet our ward members and begin to work. Monday is the first day and we can't wait to
get started,
June 1, 2012
June 1,2012
We are in the office at 6:00 am this morning. I slept horrible with only about four hours
of sleep. Dan got even less. We had to come early because in Manila the
government codes license plates to lessen the congestion on the roads during
rush hour, which we believe is 24 hours a day.
So the Bells had to be off the road by 6:00am and are restricted again
this evening. Anyway we will be lucky to
live in Bacolod because we do not have road restrictions or the traffic of
Manila.
Last night we were treated to a wonderful traditional
Philippines dinner in old Manila. The
restaurant served all traditional Pilipino foods and also had entertainment of
music and dance. We could see mariachi
and folklorico influence and even good ol' American cowboy music was
represented. There is also Asian
influence in the dance and music but most of their influence was in the men's
costuming. We felt very familiar with
the sick and pole dances and the dancing.
it was wonderful to watch. We did
not get home until very late after our driver (Elder Bell) circled in and
around the restaurant three times and
got so far off track it was two hours getting home. Luckily we were able to fall asleep right
away but woke up much too early and will struggle today. We were hoping to go to the temple tonight,
but neither of us are believe we will be functioning after a day of
training.
We have been told we will have a "great"
experience getting our driver's license today.
I will blog about that after we experience it. All we know now is to drink lots of water and
be prepared to wait a long time. Our
internet access is non-existent really so until we get to the airport (I hope)
I cannot post, but as soon as I can I will get that done. We are not having very good luck with any communication
and hope when we get to Bacolod we will have time to figure it all out and call
or email. Love to all our family and
friends. God bless you as you are in our
prayers.
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