Memories of a Mission – Page 15 – "We will work for the glory of our Lord"

The Manzo’s Wedding

Monday, November 8, 2004

This morning was a very eventful morning. We left the apartment at 7:00 to go to Rizal to help Rolley Manzo and Elsie Hicap get married. We got there right at 8:00 but the lady we needed to talk to hadn’t arrived yet. We told the people that were working in the registrar’s office that we had two people coming in that were expecting to be married when they got there. They tried to tell us that they couldn’t and also gave us a lot of bureaucratic garbage. We told that that we’d talked to their boss two weeks ago about it and that the boss said it could happen. To say the least we were getting really scared. We’d told the Manzos that if they’d just come than they would be married but now it was looking like it might not happen. We waited until 9:00 and the Manzos arrived, still no boss. We were getting more and more scared because if they didn’t actually get married then the whole expensive trip of the Manzo family would be wasted and they wouldn’t be able to come again because it was too expensive. By this time, Sis. Manzo, Rolley’s mom, was rather upset with the people in the registrar’s office and we were also upset. We left her there to deal with them and went up to talk to the mayor. She told us that she’d do it if the other office would release the paperwork. When we went back to the other office the boss had finally arrived and things were looking up and we started to have hope that the marriage would go through today. They got all the papers in order finally and Rolley and Elsie finished with their coaching session. We had to sit through a long talk with the boss of the records office about how this was irregular and the only reason she was doing it was because we were two “guapo” Americans. We finally got them to release the paperwork and the Mayor married them “hangang saw akas ng buhay ninyo” (‘till death do us part.”) We were so happy that it actually went through! We’ve worked so hard to get this to happen that it was great to finally see it happen. We went back with them to the mountain and had a good celebratory meal. We really were blessed that it went through. I realize that there is no way that it would have happened if the Lord hadn’t intervened[1].

Us with the mayor in Rizal after the Manzo’s wedding

Sister Siscar and Bro. Manzoand me on the hand tractor

Elder Cox on the Hand Tractor

Rollie and Elsie Manzo after their wedding back up in the mountain

At the Manzo’s Wedding Feast

The Wedding dinner in the mountains

[1] When we got up to the mountain and saw the huge meal they had prepared to celebrate the marriage, we were even more thankful that it had gone through. They had quite literally “killed the fatted calf” (in this case a goat) and had a huge celebration set up. It would have been awful if it hadn’t gone through and they had done all that for nothing.

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A visit from President and Sister Beck

Sunday, November 7, 2004

President and Sister Beck along with two APs came to church today with us here in Calintaan. It was a good meeting even if we did have some problems. Bro Oreta taught Priesthood. He did a good job but still just read out of the book. President Beck told us that we should have a teacher improvement training at least once a month. The people, he said need 20% doctrine and 80% practice. He told us this also because we had a baby blessing. They had no idea about how to do it. President Isla was going to have him confirmed a member of the church! President Beck had to step in and help them know how do to it correctly. Sunday school was good. Sis. Maricar Sescar taught and she did an excellent job. She used the blackboard and interacted well with people by asking questions and so forth. She’s a really strong member and is the reason that most of the people from Magsikap have been baptized. Today also was fast and testimony meeting. Both of the assistants, Elder David and Moe, sat up at the “stand” and so I got to translate for Sis Beck. It was interesting but I think I did an ok job. After Sacrament the Becks came and inspected our apartment. We got an A+ on our inspection and so we were happy. I gained a greater love for Pres and Sis Beck today. Having them in church was kind of like being back in church with my parents again.

We had a good day of work today. We got to teach three lessons. Two of them were first which is probably my favorite. We taught one of Sis Pulido’s brothers one and it was a good discussion. On a sort of strange side note, we actually “taught” to our friendly neighborhood cannibal. When we were teaching at Pulido’s home, he just wandered up and stood in the door mumbling strange things. It was hard for me to not just burst out laughing. I kind of feel bad for the man.

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Someone(thing) tries to break in

Friday, November 5, 2004

Last night was a really interesting night. We didn’t have any power and that was one part of it. Also we had a rather scary experience last night. We went to bed early because there was no power and I didn’t want the light to run out if there was an extended brown out. We were in bed about 9:00 and having trouble sleeping because of the heat when it happened. All of a sudden there was noise at the front door. It was somebody trying to break in I’m sure. It was really scary. I was afraid that the person would be armed or something. Anyhow we lit a light and he left, or at least stopped making noise. After we blew out the candle after 20 minutes he was back and just as loud and scary as before. I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night. It was really scary

Anyway, the power didn’t come back on until about 11:00 this morning and so we had to buy water at the tubigan[1] in order to drink. This morning for service we worked in Pres Isla’s field. It wasn’t really hard work but I still got three big blisters on my right thumb. I really wanted to get effective conversion hours in for service but it didn’t happen. We finally got to teach the Viloria family about family prayer and scripture study. It went really well. Elder Pradilla is really good and I liked teaching with him.

[1] tubigan: water shop. Tubig = water and –an is place of.

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Brown out . . .

Thursday, November 4, 2004

Well we are in the middle of a brown out! The power went off about 3:00 in the morning and hasn’t come back on since. It’s so hog! No electric fan or anything! I’m not going to write much because I only have one light and I don’t want the battery to die.

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Cleaning the apartment and dealing with some dalagas

Wednesday, November 3, 2004

Today was P-day again. I got to clean up the apartment a little bit this morning to prepare for Pres. and Sis. Beck’s visit on Sunday. It looks fairly good now. We also had to go into San Jose again because Elder Cox is leaving tomorrow morning for district leader training. My companion now for these few days is Elder Pradilla. He’s from Negros and is really a great Elder. We got a good four hours-worth of work in today and I felt that it went okay. We got some good finding but didn’t get to teach any discussions. It’s a bit intense being in charge of the area and I’m not exactly sure if I like it very much. It’s really nice, however, to have a Filipino for a companion again—at least for a while. Hopefully my Tagalog will jump back up to par after these few days again with a Filipino.

We had a weird thing happen tonight. After we had finished our stats and were eating, a bunch of young women/girls came and sang outside of our gate. I’m not sure exactly what they were singing, but I didn’t want them staring at me. It’s really hard being a white, young, male here. All of the girls look at me and see a huge dollar sign! $ Sometimes I wish that I was just ugly so that no one would want to stare at me. As it is, every dalaga[1] in Calintaan stares at Elder Cox and I every time we go past.

[1] Dalaga: young single woman

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Encouraging us to “lift our eyes”

Tuesday, November 2, 2004

Well I’m sitting here at 8:30, the only one awake in our apartment. When we got back to Calintaan today we went out to try to visit Bro Pudan again. Elder Cox’s leg really started to hurt him and he was having trouble walking. We have to walk through the bukid, rice field, in order to get to Pudan’s house and it really was hard on Elder Cox. We also tried to visit Bro Andales but he wasn’t home, and by that time Elder cox was in so much pain that he could hardly walk. We decided to just come back in so that he didn’t hurt himself. He really is in a lot of pain and I feel bad for him. I just gave him a blessing and how he’s in bed resting.

Riding on top of the jeepeny with Elder Cox

This morning at district meeting we found out that the balanced effort hours are changing again. We used to do 40 hours of conversion, 10 of retention, and 10 of activation in a week. Now it has changed so that we do 50 hours of conversion and 10 hours of combined activation, branch work, and retention. It’ll be really hard to get those hours in but I have to obey before I complain.

On the way back from district meeting we went up to Magsikap, the mountains, to visit our investigators, the Manzos, up there. We’ve been hearing that the whole family up there has been drinking even the members. We were talking with people and we figured out that the people don’t think that drinking is wrong unless the Elders catch them at it. I’m not exactly sure how many, or who exactly, was involved, but we have to fix it. I guess you could classify this day overall as kind of discouraging but also motivating. I really need to step up in all aspects—teaching skills, language, everything.

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Teaching about the family in the cemetery

Monday, October November 1, 2004

Time is so fast! I thought that it was still October! Today is all saints day and so everyone was all over at the cemetery all day. We actually spent about 2.5 hours there talking to people about the plan of salvation. I made a big poster that we tried displaying but it didn’t really attract any adults and so we just left it standing there. We also had made some flyers with a plan of salvation on the back of “The Family Proclamation.” We just walked around the cemetery sharing it with people. It worked pretty well. Some people were really interested and I could tell that they felt happier after we shared with them. Other people, though, just told us they already had religion and that we should try to teach people that didn’t go to church. I felt really sad/upset/angry with them. Part of me just wanted to denounce them right there but then I also felt really sorry that they were so hard-hearted that they couldn’t even accept the truth when it was laid in front of them. It guess you could say that we were fairly successful. I certainly felt the spirit while we were doing it and it was good.

We had sister Pulido teach us how to make authentic Filipino food. She cooked with us over a fire in her outdoor kitchen.

We also got to teach a second lesson, about the Plan of Salvation, to Bro Andales. He still has his problem with alcohol but he still is working on it and we still have hope for his success. We challenged him and his wife to have family prayer and family scripture study every day. It actually start to see faith in his being baptized.

There were sheds for waiting for the buses and jeepneys on the side of the road. We decided to post a copy of “The Living Christ” in each of the sheds. I’m not sure if anyone read them (they were in Tagalog) but they lasted for about 2 weeks before they were taken down.

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Halloween in the Cemetery

Sunday, October 31, 2004

Only in the Philippines will you see people, lots of people, in the cemetery on Halloween Night. When we walked past, virtually the whole city was there. They had big lights set up so they could see and everything. It was crazy! We had our own little celebration here. We bought some Oreos when we were last in San Jose and we ate them all tonight. It was probably way too much sugar but it sure tasted good.

Work wise today was a more productive day than most. After lunch we went out and visited a family just outside of Calintaan on the way to Conselew. We taught an ok, but really long first lesson there. The spirit was there and it was refreshing to actually teach a good full length discussion. We also taught a good/ok first to a family that Sis Alihandro introduced to us. This one wasn’t quite as good. Elder Cox and I decided that we don’t like flirty girls today. Some friend of Sis Alihandro’s came with us to the second discussion that we taught. She was probably about exactly our age and as flirtatious as could be. What made it worse is that we had to follow them across the beach in the dark. The whole way she was just trying to flirt. It was very annoying.

This picture has nothing to do with this post except that it was taken on this day. We made pancakes regularly in this area because they had a great mix we could get. We ate them with corn syrup (that’s all we could find). This day they didn’t turn out so pretty but still tasted ok!

Church today was interesting. Our attendance was only 35, which is the lowest it’s ever been. What made it interesting was that Pres. Isla taught both Sunday school and the combined Priesthood and Relief Society meeting. For the Priesthood we just read some of Alma 5 and people commented as we were reading. For Sunday school we read out of the Priesthood manual about professions. It was a really long time to sit and listen to him talk. Wow it seemed really long.

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Building a lattice and being discouraged

Friday, October 29, 2004

Today was another discouraging day. This morning we helped Bro. Pulido work on building a lattice for some bean-like plants. It wasn’t really hard but it was kind of hot. We ate a good fruit afterwards. It was like an orange but you just open it , each section, and eat the juice packets. It was really good.

These are the lattices we made with Bro Pulido.

After lunch we went out to Conselew to try to visit some part member families. They were all either not there or they hid from us. I don’t understand people here. They just seem to have no care for their salvation. I just feel so worthless sometimes out here. We go all over the place but we never get any quality work done. I’m honestly at a loss of what to do to help this area. I don’t have any ideas. I could just go out and OYM all day but we rarely get any good finding from that. Another problem is that we aren’t allowed to go finding any further than a 5 peso ride from the church. This isn’t really a problem except that every person in that radius has already been taught once or more. They don’t care at all for the greatest possession in the world which is the message of the restoration.

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Perceiving a lack of desire

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Today was a difficult day for me. Part of the problem is that we haven’t taught a discussion in four days and I feel that what little work we do isn’t really effective. For example, today we finally got to watch the “Mountain of the Lord” video with the Pulido family. We had both brother and sister there and also about three non-members/investigators. The video itself was good, of course, but when it finished, Elder Cox just started packing up without making any comment or bearing testimony about temples. We could have got some good finding but we just rushed off after we were done. I really have to push myself to stay motivated and to keep on working when faced with such lack of time and lack of desire from people.

Rice fields that are dry after being cut and are now ready for threshing.

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