Week 11--September 6-12, 2015
Part of Tom's responsibilities will be to give a presentation on finances and budgeting to the arriving missionaries. He wanted to use a program from Dave Ramsey where you have an envelope for each expense category. You put your budgeted amount in each envelope and take money out as you need it. When the envelope is empty then you can't spend any more money from that category. Hopefully, it will help the missionaries learn to budget their money.
We had Xavier and the missionaries to dinner on Sunday. Left to right: Xavier Henry Zamora, Sister Pader, Sister Talalima, Sister Harrington, Elder Harrington. Picture taken in the atrium area of the Redwood Apartments where we live.
When we arrived in Bustos on Saturday the Jones took us for tour of the area. Bustos is a rural, agricultural area in the Philippines north of Quezon City. This man was leading his batangas (cattle breed closely related to Brahmas) down the road and stopped to let us take a picture.
Instead of rolling fields of grain there are fields of rice. A beautiful picture.
Is an-n-n-n-y body home? The goat was on the front porch of this house and appeared to live right there as there were goat droppings all over the landing.
We stopped at one house that had several bacas staked beside his house. He was kind enough to let us take a picture. There was a mother with her new baby. Tom started to walk toward the mother and she quickly let him know to stay away from her baby.
This carabao is a domestic water buffalo found in the Philippines. The rope is put through the nostrils of the carabao so it can be controlled by the owner.
This is the home of two families in the Bustos branch surrounded by rice fields. The two families that live here planted the rice and later will harvest it. It is ninety days from planting to harvest. A very humble home.
The two families who live in the home above. They share common outside walls with a wall separating the two homes. There are twelve people who live in the two homes. They get to Church by all of them loading on to the trike that is owned by one of the families. The man on the right and his two children were there visiting when we arrived.
As we drove around we saw many bacas in the fields. The white birds are cattle egrets which eats the ticks and flies off the batangas.
We stopped at Jollibee for dinner. A first for us since arriving here. Jollibee is a Filipino multinational chain of fast food restaurants headquartered in Pasig, Metro Manila and is popular here in the Philippines. They serve spaghetti with hot dogs that is a typical Filipino dish. You can also have chicken with rice but they do serve hamburgers with fries.
Left to right: Sister Jones, Sister Harrington, Elder Harrington, and Elder Jones. By the way: Elder Jones grew up in Blackfoot.
A picture of us with Jollibee.
Saturday evening we helped with a Family History youth activity. There about 15 youth plus several leaders. We helped them sign up for Family Search accounts. It was a very successful evening.
There are some pots with soil on our balcony so Tom has decided to try his hand at gardening. On Monday, he planted cucumber seeds and by Friday they had already come through the soil. This picture was taken on Sunday. They got a great start, but there is so little sunlight on them each day we still don't know how they'll do.
Monday, Sept. 7, we walked to SM Mall to purchase a few things at the grocery store. There was Christmas music playing. Christmas here goes on for four months. Tom visited with President Bertin and he has decided that he is not going to have Tom not do all the tasks he had originally been assigned. Tom is going to focus on finances and make sure he knows all the tasks that are involved there. In the evening, Tom decided to go back to the office to finish printing the envelopes Sister Bertin uses for going home medicine for the missionaries. The medicine is a precautionary measure against any internal parasites that the missionaries may have picked up while serving here. The office is only about three miles away but due to the heavy rain and flooding the traffic was especially dense and slow and it took him over an hour to get there.
Tuesday we attended the Fairview Zone Interviews meeting. We discovered that you can't rely on "Sister" Google to give you the correct directions. President and Sister Bertin each gave a short message to all the missionaries and then he started the interviews. While the interviews were going on the APs, Zone Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders each conducted a workshop. It is amazing to watch these 19-21 year old missionaries teach. The future of the Church is good hands. After returning to the office, Garnalee received more training on the baptism records. It is important to have several checks to make sure that each baptism is turned in and recorded. An interesting side note: While reviewing missionary orders Tom ran across a name tag for "Sister" Algar. The only missionary we know with the name of Algar is an Elder who is an AP to President Bertin. When asked him if there had been a mistake in the order he quickly said, "No, it was to be Christmas gift for his younger sister." When Elder Algar's older brother returned home from his mission he gave his name tag to Elder Algar hoping to motivate him to go on a mission. It worked! What a great idea.
Wednesday, was another day Garnalee spent working on baptism records. Tom spent most of his day working with Elder Campbell on receipts and reimbursements.
Tom had some follow-up financial training with the Area Office Financial Director through Web-Ex on Thursday.
Friday Tom found a new favorite place to buy chicken. It is called "Chooks To Go" that sells a whole rotisserie chicken for P210 which is $4.48. We traded cars with the Broadheads, who were coding today, so they could take some fans to the repair shop. Tom worked on his first mail run order with Elder Biggs. After we arrived home we walked to the mall to buy some things. When we came out of the store there was a heavy down pour. We decided to go see "Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials." We had recently watched the "Maze Runner" on TV and thought the sequel would be good.
We drove to Bustos on Saturday to do a Family History activity with the youth of the Bustos Branch. Again we discovered that "Sister" Google's directions are not the best. We drove along on a narrow road at a turtle's speed for an hour before we got to the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX). It took us two hours to go 35 miles. We followed the directions Sister Jones had emailed to us after we got on the Expressway and the trip went much smoother and faster. We followed Elder Jones' directions back home. All went well until we missed a critical off ramp for Mindanao Street. In the US when you miss an off ramp you simply get off at the next off ramp, cross over, and get back on going in the opposite direction. Not so in the Philippines. Off ramps are infrequent and overpasses almost nonexistent. So the adventure began. It was dark and raining hard and we both got disoriented. A trip that should have taken under two hours took three. Final analysis, our day was both wonderful and dreadful!
As we drove around we saw many bacas in the fields. The white birds are cattle egrets which eats the ticks and flies off the batangas.
Left to right: Sister Jones, Sister Harrington, Elder Harrington, and Elder Jones. By the way: Elder Jones grew up in Blackfoot.
Monday, Sept. 7, we walked to SM Mall to purchase a few things at the grocery store. There was Christmas music playing. Christmas here goes on for four months. Tom visited with President Bertin and he has decided that he is not going to have Tom not do all the tasks he had originally been assigned. Tom is going to focus on finances and make sure he knows all the tasks that are involved there. In the evening, Tom decided to go back to the office to finish printing the envelopes Sister Bertin uses for going home medicine for the missionaries. The medicine is a precautionary measure against any internal parasites that the missionaries may have picked up while serving here. The office is only about three miles away but due to the heavy rain and flooding the traffic was especially dense and slow and it took him over an hour to get there.
Tuesday we attended the Fairview Zone Interviews meeting. We discovered that you can't rely on "Sister" Google to give you the correct directions. President and Sister Bertin each gave a short message to all the missionaries and then he started the interviews. While the interviews were going on the APs, Zone Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders each conducted a workshop. It is amazing to watch these 19-21 year old missionaries teach. The future of the Church is good hands. After returning to the office, Garnalee received more training on the baptism records. It is important to have several checks to make sure that each baptism is turned in and recorded. An interesting side note: While reviewing missionary orders Tom ran across a name tag for "Sister" Algar. The only missionary we know with the name of Algar is an Elder who is an AP to President Bertin. When asked him if there had been a mistake in the order he quickly said, "No, it was to be Christmas gift for his younger sister." When Elder Algar's older brother returned home from his mission he gave his name tag to Elder Algar hoping to motivate him to go on a mission. It worked! What a great idea.
Wednesday, was another day Garnalee spent working on baptism records. Tom spent most of his day working with Elder Campbell on receipts and reimbursements.
Tom had some follow-up financial training with the Area Office Financial Director through Web-Ex on Thursday.
Friday Tom found a new favorite place to buy chicken. It is called "Chooks To Go" that sells a whole rotisserie chicken for P210 which is $4.48. We traded cars with the Broadheads, who were coding today, so they could take some fans to the repair shop. Tom worked on his first mail run order with Elder Biggs. After we arrived home we walked to the mall to buy some things. When we came out of the store there was a heavy down pour. We decided to go see "Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials." We had recently watched the "Maze Runner" on TV and thought the sequel would be good.
We drove to Bustos on Saturday to do a Family History activity with the youth of the Bustos Branch. Again we discovered that "Sister" Google's directions are not the best. We drove along on a narrow road at a turtle's speed for an hour before we got to the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX). It took us two hours to go 35 miles. We followed the directions Sister Jones had emailed to us after we got on the Expressway and the trip went much smoother and faster. We followed Elder Jones' directions back home. All went well until we missed a critical off ramp for Mindanao Street. In the US when you miss an off ramp you simply get off at the next off ramp, cross over, and get back on going in the opposite direction. Not so in the Philippines. Off ramps are infrequent and overpasses almost nonexistent. So the adventure began. It was dark and raining hard and we both got disoriented. A trip that should have taken under two hours took three. Final analysis, our day was both wonderful and dreadful!
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