Training and a costume ball

Amlan branch YM reading their new Liahonas

WE are so sorry to have left it this long since we posted.  Any other time our reason has been technical problems, or something tangible like that.  This time, our excuse is less tangible, but no less real, and as I expound on the excuse, it will serve also to catch you up on what we are doing these days.

In the early part of our mission, we worked hard and were physically and emotionally spent at the end of each day.  We spent time every day traipsing around, visiting in homes, helping in crises, organizing community service projects and teaching. Some evenings we were home by dinner, but others we were out late, teaching a family.  Just as some of those efforts tapered down—the families we were working with had been sealed in the temple, the area was recovering from the calamities, the organizations we’d been working with were running along ok—we were called home for Melvina’s funeral.  When we returned, we both had a really hard time getting our footing again.  Before, we hardly had a moment to plan our next move; everything just kind of presented itself to us and we did it. We kept time out for personal study, and even got some exercise in on occasion, but we just kept going till we dropped.  Yes, there were choices, but usually the choice was which of several things we should do, not drumming up things ourselves.  But when we came back from America, we felt done.  And it was daunting thinking of starting over and wondering where to start.

Up close these look like cherries growing out of the trunk

From further away, is it a fungus or what??

But that lasted for about a week. Soon we were engaged in a very different chapter of our mission.  We had done a little training in the other district, Dumuguete, before our US trip, but now we really started in earnest, by commission from our Mission Pres. and under direction of the District Pres.  Because of our experience in Tanjay District, and our intimate work with the branches here, we have learned a lot, and so we have been training in Dmgt. district in a much different, more encompassing and we hope more effective way.   But, and here comes the excuse:  we are having to do a ton more prep than before to keep up with all the training. And prep time is what we used to use for blog time.  We prep in the evening or in the day during a chunk that isn’t scheduled, and that is when we were sometimes able to write a blog post. Before our schedule was more fluid—we planned ahead, but often ended up not knowing what we would be called on to do.  Now, we schedule far in advance, and our schedule is more predictably solid, but when we are not scheduled, we are preparing.

Oh and we added an Institute-type class that we are teaching weekly in Tanjay Branch. We are teaching Church History and Doctrine and Covenants—which also requires more prep than had we chosen one of the other standard works or if we were not team teaching, which requires more coordination time.  We are having fun with it.

But excuses are mostly ridiculous, since we make time for what matters to us, and we are now repenting. We just can’t promise a weekly blog, but we will try to do better.

Training is boring to talk about, but very exciting to do.  So bear with me as I tell of our exciting work of late. We'll start back in Tanjay again.  Elder Cropper was made the 1^st Counselor in the Tanjay District months ago, and I the District Auxiliary Training Specialist.  These callings allowed us to engage on district and branch levels, but in reality, it limited Elder Cropper’s training opportunities. He had real duties in the District.  He would train for a few minutes in each District meeting he was in, but those meetings had agendas that had to be carried out.  He could make corrections on actions taken in those meetings, and get a little training in in the process, but his focus could not really be training. At the Branch level, we could visit and observe, but then too he would train less and counsel more.  I did much in training in the branches we visited in conjunction with the district RS, YW and Primary leaders, and he too would meet just for training in a certain quorum presidency or other, but it seemed very slow as we worked our way through each branch and each organization therein.

In Dmgt. However, we have no administrative duties, so that is very different.  But the biggest difference is that Dmgt District is actively making specific plans and goals, and steps toward goals in their efforts to become a stake by next year.

So we started at the top and did some training with the district President and the presidency. Then we focused on 2 branches and had 3 trainings in each over 3 weeks’ time, training their leaders on Welfare and on their roles and purposes, and on working together in Councils.  Then we had a big training with all the district auxiliary leaders, AND THEY ALL CAME!!  Then I oriented with the new District Primary Presidency, who all came.  Then we trained in the District Branch Presidents’ Welfare meeting.  So, in very short order we have been in front of a lot of people, some several times, and they have just been so appreciative.  We keep them over the hour and a half we promised, then they ask for more and schedule for us to come back.

Some of the branches in Dumuguete are a little more affluent then Tanjay, but still most of the branch leaders don’t have internet access and so they can’t get all the many tools that are taken so for granted by us.  They are lucky if they have the training pamphlets that can be ordered, or the forms that are referred to in the manuals they do have. So to them, like in Tanjay, training from a live person is like a drink of water to a thirsty guy.  They so want to magnify their callings, but they just have not been taught how.

Our mission president and his wife have SIX DISTRICTS under them!!  That’s in addition to  the 155 missionaries and all their needs and instruction.  So Pres. Schmutz  acts in many regards as the Stake president for those six districts—doing all the first time temple recommends, the patriarchal blessing interviews, the setting aparts and releases for all the missionaries who come and go from each district, the District conferences (which he trades off with the local area authority).  Anyway, the point is he and his wife have little time to train, other than the twice a year they are in each district for their bi-annual conference. That’s where we are trying to help.

District Pres.  Look at the great flowers

tables and ladies all decked out

Rio has nothing on these folks

the co-MCs kept everything moving and fun

The most fun part of this new focus is that right after our first meeting with the District Presidency, they invited us to a costume ball that night—the first such event in the district.  It was an EQ and RS party for adults, held at a local hotel near the district center, and it was so

lively and fun and beautifully prepared, organized and attended.  We told them that if Stake-hood was granted based on a great fun had by all at a costume ball, then they would be a stake already.

winner of the costume contest

the finalists

They had the Young Women watching kids at the district center, so parents could come from far, get their costumes on, drop off their kids, and head over to the ball.  And they came in droves.  Hope you like the pictures. 

We still feel like Amlan Branch and Tanjay District are our home here in the mission, and miss spending as much time with them, but we still have lots to do in both places.  Time is just going by too fast.