Thursday, March 28, 2013
Kela Flor
March 28,
2013
This has
been a special week for us and for one of our PEF participants. Kela Flor graduated from La Salle University
with a bachelors of Psychology. She is a
wonderful, talented young woman. Her
parents are PEF Church Service missionaries and have their own special
story. So to begin at the beginning of
the journey, the Flors married after they both graduated from college. Elder
Flor graduated in law enforcement and became a police officer. Sister Flor graduated with a degree in
elementary education yet her desire was to be a stay at home mom and raise her
family (we have found that is an oddity here as the women are the ones with
professional careers normally). The
Flors quickly had a son Prim, and a daughter Kela. After several years they were thrilled to
have twin daughters and five years later they were blessed with their youngest
child, a son. Shortly after their son's
birth, Elder Flor suffered a stroke.
Although he is now able to work as a security guard for the department
with only minimal wage reduction, he was unable to work for quite a while, he
worked on his rehabilitation. His
balance and strength in his legs have severely suffered although he was able to
eventually return to work, his wife had to go to work to support the family and
once he returned to work help pay for the medical bills. Thankfully she had an education and was able
to find work as a teacher quickly. Their
children rallied around to help with their father, the meals, the cleaning,
laundry, and helping care for Sister Flor's mother who also lives with them and
is disabled.
The family
is such a joy to watch and spend time
with as they glow as they share each moment with each other. Prim, the oldest son has served a mission and
is in school to become a civil engineer.
He is engaged to a lovely young woman who is close to becoming a
doctor. Prim is also a teacher at the
Institute of Religion. The twins are
twelve and the youngest son is seven.
Dan and I
have only been here nine months and thus have not been of any help with Prim
and Kela and their PEF applications, but have grown to love them and their
parents. Surprisingly, though we were
invited to Kela's college graduation party. We were thrilled to attend but
could not believe we were one of those invited as the small group included
family and friends and Kela's Bishop and her seminary teacher. The party was in a private room in L' Fisher
Hotel, the nicest place in town, but also the most expensive. Tuesday evening we were even more impressed
when we arrived to find out the party was also a dinner! The family also had planned to provide a
wonderful program to honor Kela. The
program began with a wonderful musical number by one of the twins and her
cousin singing, with Prim and another cousin accompanying the girls on their
guitars. This was followed by dancing by
Kela's youngest brother (of course he danced Psy's Gangum Style phenomina). He
did a great job, but the amazing thing was to watch Prim (remember Prim is just
the big brother), beam with pride as he videotaped his little brother. If one did not know, one could easily assume
Prim to be the dad, with his eyes lit up like Christmas. After that performance, the twins and one of
the girl cousins, joined the dance doing the "Harlem shuffle". The end of the program was a ceremony where
Kela's Dad placed Kela's Cum laude medal around her neck. Now all this was wonderful, but the sweetest
thing was the honor and spoken thanks expressed by every speaker and member of
the family for the support Dan and I had provided. Now, I remind you we have only been here nine
months and have done little more than visit their ward, make monthly contacts
with Prim and Kela, and support their parents
for their service to PEF. I do
not think I will every understand how the people here love us and treat us as
if we are angels. We are just ordinary
people and at home are only the couple who were previously divorced so not
really capable of any great service or importance. Here we are angels and are loved and
cherished. I continue to be amazed by
the attitudes and love of the members here.
I always feel so special and loved no matter where we go or what ward we
attend. We are kissed in greeting on our
cheeks and couple times kidded on the
backs of our hands out of love and respect.
I just can't imagine how we would be greeted if we were important.
Finally, to
end this narrative, I want to tell about the most spiritual and wonderful part
of the story, (right can it get any better). Kela had interviewed a couple of
weeks earlier for a dream position with a great company here in Bacolod. During the interview, Kela was asked if she
would be willing to work the night shift.
She enthusiastically assured the interviewer she would work day of
night. Then she was asked if she would
be willing to work on holidays, to which she replied she would. She was asked if she would work
Saturdays, again she assured the interviewer she would work Saturdays and
happily give 100% on any shift, holidays and Saturday. Then came the question Kela had worried she
would be asked. Would she work on
Sunday. Kela did not hesitate to answer
that she was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and
thus could not work on the Sabbath as she attended church with her family on
that day and could not break her commitment to the responsibilities she
performed at church on Sunday. We were
so proud of Kela and her courage, and prayed fervently with her parents that in
the very competitive job market here in the Philippines, that Kela would not be
eliminated from consideration for living her religion. You can imagine our joy
and Kela announced that she had just earlier received the news that she had
been hired to her desired position. She also thanked us for including her in
our prayers and said she knew that she was hired due to the faith and prayers
of her family and Dan and I. I was so
thankful for the answer to those prayers and wept for joy to be included in
this wonderful family's lives, celebration and announcement of Kela's
success. I will always be thankful that
our Father in Heaven is mindful of his children, that he loves us, that he
answers prayers, and that we have been blessed to serve here in the Philippines
among these humble, faithful, loving, happy people. Even when their lives are so difficult and
hard, they are thankful for their blessings and see good and joy in everyday
events and blessings. I hope I take home
the ability to love life and family rather than physical things, as taught by
these great saints.
Monday, March 25, 2013
March 26, 2013
We teach English
Conversation class and the Planning for Success workshop which is a requirement
prior to making an application for the PEF loan. We also are responsible for
contacting all the PEF participants monthly. The good news is we have three
missions of participants but two of those missions have local Church Service
couple missionaries to do the contacts and visits for us leaving only about 200
for us. The real difficulty is finding the ones who have dropped out of school,
stopped paying their monthly commitments and as a result usually go inactive.
Thankfully that number is only about 30 and we continue to search for them via
ward/branch leaders, internet, Facebook, and going to their last known address.
In reality there are no addresses here in the Philippines though. They live in
barangays(groups of shacks) and we can just ask if anyone knows them and then try
to find them. We have never found anyone that way. I hope before we go home we
find one that way. The most successful way is Facebook. I am so thankful for
technology. I use it daily!! Well I use it when it is working. The Internet,
electricity and water, etc. often goes on the blink and we are left waiting for
it to resume. That is when we do the street searching because we just can't
bring ourselves to sit in the hot office (part of the Institute) and wait. Our
third mission was just added to our area of responsibility in February and we
will be visiting the leaders after Holy week (we are told everything closes
down here then). The mission is two large islands with the second largest
metropolitan area after Manila. We live in a fairly large city called Bacolod,
but it is very rural. I am excited to spend time in a real city. When we have
gone for training in Manila I have loved it. There are real stores, malls,
transportation and a more modern landscape including high rise buildings,
unlike where we live. We will train the priesthood leaders there and beg them
to call church service couple missionaries to assist in the PEF locally. The
Philippino couples rarely can afford to serve couple missions (I have only met
two) so the couples love being called, set apart, get real badges, and serve a
real mission while they live and work in their own homes. These couples visit
all the wards in their stakes to keep in contact with their students and that
lightens my burden some. My contacts now cover about 7 larger islands. Prior to
getting the new mission we would get to those islands in rotation seems once
every three or four months. We expect to spend weeks in the new mission getting
the service missionaries called and trained. We are excited about the new addition
to our work.
It is summer now in the
Philippines so the Institute is quieter and there is less energy here as all
the students are off enjoying their time off school and Institute. I have to
say I love this weather. It is much less humid so we do not walk around
sweating all the time. The Philippino's think it is terribly hot, but it is so
nice to have a little less humidity. Of course we are desert rats, so it is not
our normal to live in this humid climate.
We have many new
missionaries arriving ever couple of weeks. The Philippino missionaries only go
to Manila Mission Training Center for two weeks and then are sent to their
missions. Due to the lowering of missionary age requirement, the other couple
missionaries are finding and furnishing apartments like crazy. In fact they
have set up at least twenty new apartments in the last two months alone. They
expect that to slow down a bit now. We are not part of that work and do not
have to do apartment checks for cleanliness or do any of the moving of
missionaries luckily due to the call of PEF. Our Bacolod Mission has 4 other
senior couple missionaries that do the normal senior missionary work. Iloilo Mission
also have 4 senior couples other than ourselves. Since we have not been to Cebu
Mission we do not know how many they have. That mission will be split in July
making our mission responsibility four total missions. We are hoping we get all
the service missionaries set up before that split, but do not know for sure if
that will happen.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
March 2013
We have been in the Philippines now nine months (my husband
says we are in our 43rd week of missionary service) and it is now officially
summer here. I actually notice it is a
little less humid (thankfully) so I am not sweating to death. This last week our mission area was expanded
to include the Cebu Mission. So...our responsibility will include the six
islands: Negros (where we live), Panay and Guimarus (called the Iloilo Mission)
and Cebu and Bohol and Siquijor (which are currently the Cebu Mission. In July it will be split into the Cebu and
Cebu East missions. The mission president in Iloilo (President Pacaduan) will
complete his assignment in July and we will have a new mission president there
and in the Cebu West Mission. I can't
believe the growth of the church here.
It is so exciting to be a small part of that history. We are excited to
add the new missions because it will give us the opportunities to travel more
to new places and there is a temple in Cebu that we can attend.
Last week the church announced the creation of 58 new
missions including the four in the Philippines.
Two of the wonderful priesthood brethren we love and work with, have
been called to be mission presidents here.
One is President Torres, who is currently the Institute Director in
Iloilo. President Balledos, is currently serving as the Employment Resource
Center Director for Cebu. We were not
surprised by their calls as they are great men and will be great mission
presidents. They will both be missed in their current positions though.
This last weekend we were in Iloilo to visit with the
Pablero couple and attend church there.
The passage on the ferry over was so rough I spent most of the one hour
trip (on the fast ferry: Supercat) in the comport room (bathroom). I was a mess.
After I finally emptied my stomach the steward offered me "white
flower" and a cotton ball and told me to hold the cotton ball soaked in
"white flower" under my nose and I would not vomit anymore. I wish he had given that to me previously,
because it really did work and now I carry a small bottle of it in my purse for
rough seas. One the way home there were
about five people sick and provided with barf bags, but thankfully I was not
one of them as I now know a preventative measure. Usually when we go to Iloilo
we take our car on the slow ferry and it takes two hours. I am so thankful we were on the fast ferry as
it would have been horrible to be sick for two hours. One was bad enough.
I am also very
thankful that the travel to Cebu is by air (40 minutes) otherwise it is an two
hour drive across the island, six hour ferry ride and another hour drive into
the city, so Cebu Airlines will be our way of travel and we will have to rent a
car. The first few times we travel there
we will probably have to stay at least a business week and two weekends to meet
all the priesthood brothers and ask them to call senior service missionaries
for us. Then we will have to go again to
train them all. It is so very
exciting. The senior couples we already
work with are so thankful to be able to serve missions here in the Philippines
as they probably will never be able to afford to serve senior missions
otherwise. As a service couple missionary the couples live and serve in their
own stake or district, living in their own home and they continue to work their
full time jobs. What a real blessing that is for them and their families. They also do not have to be senior couples
(they can and many do have young children).
Today we began teaching the second batch of Planning for
Success for the June school start date.
We think we will only have two classes both in Bacolod (one on Tuesday
morning and one on Saturday). That will
be less stressful than driving twice a week to give the classes. We also have service missionaries starting to
teach the same workshop and we will sit in on a couple of them to give the
couples support. I am so grateful for the service missionaries who truly
lighten our load. They help teach the
workshops, make monthly contacts for us in their areas and support the students
locally. I know there is no way I could
contact all the students in our five missions without their help. With their help I am only responsible to contacting
100 of the 400 participants we have currently.
Cebu missions have 172 participants currently and they will be mine to
contact monthly until we have service missionaries there locally called and
trained. I love the interaction with the
participants as many have become very close to us and are doing so well with
their educations. I bet I will have as
many Philippino Facebook friends as I do American before my time is over
here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)