Shake Shingles

Filipino's are masters at efficiency in mass transit

Who is driving?? The big screen TV?

Hi-Tech power line work

Can’t think a lot of edifying things to share of late, but we promised to try to get back to weekly, and there are some who actually look for a blog weekly, so I’ll have to come up with something, edifying or not.  As some of you know, Elder Cropper has come down with shingles.  (Why do we say “come down with”? I can see, “is down with”, as in, “down for the count”, or, “down and out”, but why, “come down with?”) Well, regardless or irregardless, he is down, and shingles is the cause (subject/verb agreement becomes a real issue in that last phrase; does shingles begin with a single shingle? Is the disease singular, but the symptom plural?).  According to Melissa, our roving reporter and woman-on-the-street, practically everyone she talks to has had shingles.  According to our internet sources, it can get really ugly and last for literally ever, so the fact that Dean’s has been mild is really a miracle.  He is fatigued, headache-y, then the rash and shooting nerve pain and some skin numbness in patches, but all are on the mild end of what we have been told.  We have slowed WAY down in doing any work, and that is another trial connected to the disease.  We are struggling to stay focused and motivated about our work while unable to do it or plan.  It’s tough.  Although it is true that shingles cannot be passed on, it is contagious in that a person who has not had chicken pox can contract that disease from someone with shingles, so in addition to having to stay home a lot to rest, we feel confined due to possible contagion. But we’ve read that if your sores are healing and covered, it is safe to be around people, so we will teach our class tonight, after he takes lots of ibuprofen and acetaminophen. And we will go on our scheduled trip to Cebu tomorrow.

I guess the edifying part of this is this: when we finally realized what it was, we started on the anti-viral medicine, but it is said to be most effective when started in the first 48, or at most 72 hours, but we didn’t start until 4 or 5 days after the initial symptoms. The missionaries in our area had travelled to Cebu for training, and we were hesitant to call on Elders from the next city, but we did, and they came and gave Elder Cropper a blessing.  I was so proud of them.  They conducted themselves like true representatives of the Savior, and gave the blessing with confidence and power, seeking and gaining the direction of the Spirit. The Elder who sealed the anointing promised a miracle of healing, and we truly feel we have received it.  Like I said, we started the medicine late, but the case has been mild, the pain mostly controllable, and the area affected small. It is still no picnic, but we know God intervened in the severity.

We did take pictures of the sores, but we are going to spare you that experience.  Yuck!!

Okay enough of that. 

Looking up under an Acasai Tree

Does the baby standing up have a child restraint seat?

Mildy interesting language items:   1) In the island group called the Visayas, which cover, I think more than half the Philippines, including the large southern island, Mindinao, the people mostly speak a language called Visaya, though there are other distinct (meaning incromprehensible to each other) dialects with in the region also.  Then, within the dialect of Visaya, is a sub set that has regional differences only—like Scottish, compared to English.  It is called Cebuano. Though Cebuano is a smaller subset of Visaya, it is also more codified/formalized. So, for example, the Book of Mormon is translated into Cebuano, but not into Visaya. 

The National language of the Philippines is called Filipino. (I have no idea why the switch from Ph to F or from one p to two). It was formerly, and is still commonly, called Tagalog. But interestingly, the language spoken by the largest segment of Filipinos in their homes is Visaya. So, at school, the children are spoken to and taught in their mother language (depending on the region), then they study Filipino as a separate subject and English as another separate subject right from grade one.  Imagine! 3 languages in school from 6 years old!!  Unless of course you live in a native Tagolog speaking area, like Manilla, then you are taught in Tagolog, and study the subject of Filippino (same thing) and also study English.

Item 2:  There is no gender in third person in the Visaya language, only singular and plural.  So you can’t say, “give it to her” You can only say give it to siya which means him, her, and/or it or sila which means them.

So, when Filipinos speak English, they have to really work at adding the right gender.  Of course they know the difference between male and female, but in their language, there is no place for it in the pronouns they use, so it's hard to get it straight.  Therefore, we often hear a sentence such as, "the old woman, he said . . ." It's kind of the opposite of Romance languages which have (in my humble opinion) far too much gender--every blessed table and fig is a boy or a girl. Anyway, it does get confusing trying to follow a story where there are several people being told of and the hes and shes are being tossed around, and you're not sure if they are being used correctly or consistently. It's hard to tell if Jane went to school and Mark went to work or vice versa.  And that's when people speak English.

The really big news of the week is that Taylor and Anne will welcome Clara Tilly into the world later today!!  Anne hopes to be delivered of her new little girl in a few hours.  

I'm trying to find what's edifying about us not being there for that, but instead I will focus on the miracle: yet another miracle.

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.

3 weddings, 2 baptisms and an anniversary

Sara remarked recently that it seems every week we post a testimony strengthening experience. It’s true, we have those every week, but then you do too, right?  Granted, some of ours are sometimes pretty action packed, colorful, maybe exotic, so it is easy to write about them, and way easy to recognize them and acknowledge the origins thereof. That’s just one of the blessings of serving a mission.

God really is in control.  It’s true not everything is fast and easy.  Some things take months, sacrifice, pain and concern, but mostly we are so blessed that we get to see astonishingly quick outcomes, miraculous turn-arounds, and huge changes that are only possible through God’s intervention and direction .

To illustrate my point, let me tell you of two baptisms and two weddings all within 24 hours (with reference to a third). These actually occurred a few weeks back, but due to birthday posts, and time constraints we haven’t yet recorded these events here.

Sister B has flare--sequins on her baptism blouse

Back ground to Baptism 1:  Sister B is a single, woman—maybe my age.  She has always been a school teacher and also a farmer—she raises crops like mango, banana, guava, vegetables. In recent years she has had some MAJOR set backs. Her husband, a German man, left her and converted to Islam so he could take another few wives without divorcing her (yes, divorce is not possible here, but polygamy is—if you are Muslim—go figure). Then the relatively nice house he left her in (because the property was hers) got demolished in a flood 3 years ago—one stone wall still standing as evidence of her destroyed life.  She moved farther from the river and built a native house, but it too flooded last year and washed away all her belongings and crops.  Then her work and salary were reduced due to reduced enrollments at the school—the floods have scared families enough in the barangay that they are sending their children downriver to the school on the hill in the central part of town.  Then, she was attending a church, but they stopped fellowshipping her, and failed to hire her for a teaching position there that she was qualified for.

Sis B working with us in her kindergarten

We first met her when we started helping out at the Tambojangin School after last year’s flood.  She is the kindergarten teacher there, and it was her  classroom that had been demolished from typhoon, flood, and earthquake, (another setback) and that we are just finally finishing up.

Zone work project at Sis B's pre-school

The Elders invited her to learn about the church, she was intrigued on many levels—foreigners who spoke Visaya; a whole congregation and a dozen missionaries willing to spend a day helping a school that was not even their own; then missionaries coming back for several more days over the next few weeks to chisel the schoolroom floor down to existing cement and paint walls and doors—serving and working physically with no pay to help others; people in America who actually were providing the funds for the materials and skilled labor.

She wanted us involved as she was being taught, so we all four (us and the full-time missionaries) went and she has been so receptive.  She accepted every commitment, kept them, read everything we assigned, attended church every week, and in a few weeks she was baptized. This time Elder Cropper was the one to perform the ordinance: his first one since we got here. 

Only pic I took at the Catholic wedding.  Notice the date, our anniv.

Background for wedding no 1: Way back just after the typhoon we were doing water delivery runs in the truck.  We took water to a member of the branch who was digging out from a mess-load of mud.  He and his sister were there and very grateful for the fresh water. There was also an American lingering about.  He finally admitted he was from Utah—a very in-active Mormon, dating the sister of this Filipino member.  Well a few weeks ago he and his Filipina fiancée and his very white mother showed up in church.  They invited us to attend the wedding in the Catholic church and the reception here at the resort we live at.  We attended that  Friday. 

Wedding no 1:  The wedding was elaborate: with white calla lilies galore and tons of flowers and ribbon and tulle and candles and matching outfits for bridesmaids and groomsmen. We were the only people there who were not from the girl’s family or friends.  There was even a jazz band right there in the church, soloists, readings, and all the pomp of a wedding and mass, including communion.  There was no doubt of the devotion to Christ and the focus on supporting the couple in their new life together.

The reception too was elaborate.  More flowers, more singers, sit down buffet dinner for 200: the kind of thing that I think is only possible here on our island if there is a lot of debt involved, or a foreigner.  We were very well treated—everything was lovely, and the resort owners (our landlords) and staff did an amazing job, setting up everything under tents because it had not stopped raining for 2 days.  A few minutes into it I asked one of the men I knew, who was connected to the family, if we could maybe use the flowers for the wedding that would happen the next day—a wedding that would NOT be so elaborate. He asked, and it was okayed, so after the banquet, the flowers were delivered to our porch.  I made a bridal bouquet for the bride from several of the lilies, some yellow mums, and a green fabric I had to cover the stems.  It looked really lovely.

SO, background for wedding 2: a few years ago, a single man in his forties, Brother V, a temple going man in the branch, fell in love with a younger girl, Sister C, and tried to get married.  But there were complications with her paperwork.  She needed a written permission from each of her parents. Her dad is dead, but there is no death certificate to prove it.  The process stalled.  Several people, including the former missionary couple and the branch president, intervened, trying to sort it out, but the dad died in Mindanao, where the records are different and hard to access, and even if they went there, there was probably not really a certificate made, and there was nothing to be done but wait till she was 25 which was a few years away and would need no permission.

Well, waiting proved too great a task.  The couple moved in together and soon she was pregnant.  Of course the man had stopped coming to church, feeling more than awkward there.  A few months ago, we tried to get involved, wondering what the problem with the paper work was.  At the same time the Elders sought out the family and started teaching the woman.  She was very receptive to the gospel, understood it, loved it, and wanted to be baptized.  Then her baby was born and it was still not settled with the marriage.  It looked like a dead end.

Now go back in time to another wedding (we'll call it wedding 3 even though it happened first).  It too had been held at Paradise—wedding AND reception—and had been performed by the Mayor, and Elder Cropper had been asked to speak since the groom is LDS.  So, Elder C. and the Mayor at the head table h became best buds, chatting for an hour about everything.  That friendship, along with some colossal community service by church members over the last few months, has completely changed the mayor’s view of Mormons—from a quirky fringe group to a mainstream, valuable contribution to the community.

So, in a climate of friendship with the mayor, we made an appointment to see him about this problem—there’s always a solution right?  We explained the problem and he confirmed the former conclusion—there had to be a death certificate—no way round it.  But then we pointed out that the girl’s mother is re-married, something that is impossible in the Philippines without a dead former spouse (believe me we did NOT delve into what documentation may or may not have been available for that union--maybe it was purchased).  He grinned and said oh then let’s see what we can do.  He called in his head of Social Welfare, asked her what could be done, she said they could have the mother sign an affidavit that the dad was dead, we set up the appointments and found out fees and signed them up for the pre-marriage class, walked them into the office a few days later, with the mom, and soon it was squared away.

Sis C and Bro V getting married at the mayor's office. Sis C with the bouquet

Finally, wedding 2:  There were still sticky moments, two or three times when it looked as if it would fall apart, including a document that had to be produced and filled out at the Mayor’s office, but this was Saturday, and no one was there to do it, so he had to call in his secretary and the document worker and we waited.  But eventually, we stood in the Mayor’s office as he pronounced them husband and wife in front of several witnesses from the branch and from her family. She was carrying the bouquet I’d made of left over flowers, but she was tearfully, joyfully happy, and so was the groom.

Happy family!  Married and baptized.

We hurried from the City Hall back to the church (Elder Cropper shuttling several people in the truck in several loads) where we were now over an hour late for the baptism.  They (Brother V and Sister C) wanted both wedding and baptism to occur on the same day.  Soooo many people were there for Sister C. and for Sister B. and for the wedding celebration that the branch had pulled together for after.

A day to smile about.

Baptism # 1 and 2: The baptisms themselves were wonderful—Sister B was waiting all this time for Sister C and the rest of us, but she was fine with it.  Because the wedding was so late, there were lots of people who had come only for the celebration later, but who ended up being there for the baptisms, and everyone there was able to feel the spirit of the event.  The nervous waiting in the office for the mayor, the years of waiting for the marriage, the sacrifices each woman had made to be there were all forgotten as they each stepped into that font, accepted the name of Jesus Christ and made promises to Him.  Afterward each woman bore powerful testimony of the truth of what they had been taught and accepted, and we cried for joy with them over all the miracles and trials that got them each to this point.

Wedding 2 reception: We were so proud of the branch members. The branch knew the bride and groom’s families had nothing, so they pooled their activity budgets from every organization and called this a branch activity—they set up a food committee, which I helped with (relegated to chopping for hours since I have NO skill in the menus and cooking equipment here) We matched the branch funds to add to the quantity and variety, a couple families added to the menu as they could, the set up looked lovely with the flowers from the night before,  and we had ordered two large sheet cakes. The Branch President pulled off a small ceremony and our Branch nightingale, Sister K, with a voice that should be on American Idol belted out a love song in Visaya. The couple danced, the bride cried.  Everyone celebrated.

That's right, 36 years.  A celebratory lunch.

They didn’t know that in the midst of these 2 days of wedding and baptisms, we celebrated our 36^th anniversary—we even had time for lunch at a restaurant that day. We received not a single well wish from home (I add that as part of our reality here so far away, not as a guilt trip for anyone) but it felt good to share in all this goodness while we thought about our own wedding and life together.