Piano Students Rule!

It's interesting how both your dad and my skills are so useful here in the Philippines.  (We are sure our call to the Philippines was an inspired one.) Your dad's assignment to be in charge of member records couldn't have been a better fit for him. I feel so blessed to have found my niche by teaching piano lessons. There is such a need for pianists here. 

I have wanted to create this post honoring my piano students for quite some time, but I keep forgetting to take pictures of all of them.  I will post what pictures I have and add the rest later. 

Here are a few of my students.  I love them all to pieces!

Meet Roane Purificacion. She is an eighteen-year-old college student. She really isn't one of my students, well, I did give her one lesson. But I am proud of her progression just the same.  Here is her story:



Cute Roane in the Institute...Bandaid and all.

I first noticed Roane as she was "playing" the piano for sacrament meeting in the Laoag 3rd Ward.  I typed "playing" in quotes, because all she did for prelude music and congregational accompaniment was push the "play" button for recorded accompaniments.  After sacrament meeting when everyone had left the chapel, she started playing some very beautiful music.  I asked her why she hadn't played for sacrament meeting, being such a good pianist.  She said she was too nervous and too afraid of making mistakes.  I gave her a little pep talk and challenged her to play just one hymn for sacrament meeting the following Sunday. I told her we would attend her sacrament meeting the next week to hear her play.  As promised, we attended her sacrament meeting the next Sunday.  She nervously noticed me in the congregation and kept her promise by playing "Choose The Right" for the opening hymn.  After the meeting I praised her lavishly and then challenged her to play two hymns during sacrament meeting the next Sunday.  One of the missionary sisters in her ward reported to me that she had played......one of the hymns being "Choose The Right" again.  But that's ok! At this point I got a little nervous, wondering if I was pressuring her too much, so I backed off by not attending her sacrament meeting the next week....not wanting her to go inactive because of pushy Sister Eddington. The sister missionaries told me that the next Sunday Roane spoke in Church.  The topic of her talk was "Developing Your Talents".  In her talk she mentioned me by name....how I was encouraging her to continue developing her piano talents.  Wahoo!  I was so relieved! 

A few weeks ago I bumped into Roane in the Laoag Institute of Religion.  The first thing she said to me was, "Sister Eddington, I played all four hymns in sacrament meeting last week!"  It makes a person proud!

Next is a picture of talented Patricia Catubay.  Patricia is twelve years old and is a very accomplished pianist. She is only able to practice the piano on Saturdays and Sundays since she is away at school during the week.  Since I have assigned her to learn "Fur Elise" by Beethoven, she has devoured the piece....even to the extent of having the first part memorized.  She played prelude for stake conference last Sunday.  A very smart and ambitious young lady.



After her piano lesson, Patricia is waiting in Bishop Catubay's office (who is her dad).





 

Michelle Formantes is a twenty-four-year-old college graduate.  She is the youngest of eight.  One of her brothers is the bishop of her ward.  What a cutie! She loves to play the piano.  When she is feeling low, she lifts her spirits by playing on her keyboard.  She is always smiling and fun to be around.  She was able to find Natalie on Facebook.  Natalie told her to give me a hug from her, which she did.  Her hug almost made me cry! 

Cute Michelle at the Laoag Stake Center piano



Then there is Rizalino Tabarejo.  His nickname is "Dimples". I wonder why?  He has a HUGE personality.  He is an eighteen-year-old college student, majoring in engineering.  He has three sisters.  His father is the bishop of Laoag Ward 3.

Play, Rizalino, play!





Lastly is Ceder Jan Libron. He is one of my Piddig students.  We drive about 35 minutes each Saturday night to give both Rosecelle and him piano lessons. (I forgot to take Rosecelle's picture that night.  Picture pending.)  Ceder is a fourteen-year-old high school student.  He wants to major in engineering when he goes to college.  Ceder and his parents joined the Church when he was ten years old.  Pressure is on for the Piddig students to play well enough to accompany the hymns sung in sacrament meeting.  No one in Piddig plays the piano.  The keyboard sits silent every Sunday, except the Sunday Elder Eddington and I attended their branch.  They roped me into playing for sacrament meeting that Sunday.

 

Ceder playing the "dusty" Piddig keyboard.

I was giving lessons in the Institute each Friday until all the students stopped showing up.  Why should I stick around, right?  Then out of the blue, I noticed I'm back on the schedule for class registration this week.  What? Why wasn't I consulted?  The institute secretary said the week after I quit going, the whole group showed up wondering where I was.  Duh! So I'll give them a second chance. But I'm watching them! One false move and I will join Elder Eddington in his Family History class, where  I was going to be helping in the first place.


Since having taken these pictures, I have started giving lessons in San Lorenzo to about fifteen young people, some on Friday evenings and the rest on Saturday mornings.  They are so appreciative of the lessons. They are always in the Church parking lot waiting for Elder Eddington and me to arrive. Last week I got a military salute as we rolled in. They are a devoted bunch of kids: practicing at home and practicing on my keyboards while waiting their turn for a lesson.  Even when it isn't their day for lessons, they come to the meetinghouse to practice on my keyboards while I'm there.  They humor me by acting excited to choose a musical sticker as a reward for having practiced all week. I will take pictures of all of them very soon.

We are both finding great satisfaction in being able to share our talents with the people in the Philippines.  We love them all.  Hopefully my piano students will be accomplished musicians by the time our mission is completed, if they aren't already.

Love, Elder and Sister Eddington

Enjoying The Vistas

To the casual viewer, it appears we are on an extended vacation. However, if you will recall, President Hinckley gave some sound advice when he told us to "enjoy the vistas on the trainride of missionary life."  So we are.  (I kind of took the liberty to add the "missionary" part myself.)

With that piece of prophetic advice, Elder Eddington planned an out-of-town member records weekend.  Yesterday (Sunday) we traveled north, starting our journey at 6:30am. We spent time instructing a newly-called member-records service missionary. We also collected different member record reports from various sets of missionaries along the way. In exchange for these records, we gave the elders containers of homemade cookies, which they love.  The elders made the deal:  "your homemade cookies in exchange for our records." Homemade cookies are nonexistent in the Philippines.

"Cookie Grandpa" should now be called "Cookie Elder"

Keep in mind that the roads on the northern part of the island are narrow and with a lot of curves.  It is especially hard to drive on these roads after dark.  They are not lighted and half the time, the cars, tricycles, bikes, motorcycles, and jeepneys aren't lighted either.  Drivers of vehicles that do have headlights, seem to think it's time to turn them off when encountering oncoming traffic. To make things worse, there are tons of pedestrians walking on the sides of the roads after dark who seem to always be dressed in dark clothing.  Knowing this, and knowing that Monday was our "p" day,  don't you agree, we had no choice but to stay overnight in a beach-front hotel? So we did, arriving at our hotel at dusk, which is about 6pm.

The next morning we got up early so we could be on the beach to watch the sunrise.  There were too many clouds to see much of a sunrise, but as we predicted, the scene was breathtaking.  We also predicted we would be the sole occupants of the beach, since it was so early in the morning, as well as it being the off season for tourists. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the exception of the ever-present dog population, which we should have known would be there, we thought we were alone on the beach.

 

 



 That's when we noticed a distant activity occurring at one end of the beach. A line of people seemed to be playing some sort of "tug-of-war" game....or were they? (I had the camera setting on "zoom". So these people appear closer than they were.)

 

 

 

Soon after, we saw the same thing happening on the other end of the beach.  Another line of people were pulling on a rope that extended into the water. (The line of people is barely visable close to the bottom of the hills.)  And then the boat in the picture was launched.

 

The light dawned.  We were in the middle of a fishing activity.  The nets had been placed in the water the night before, and both ends were being pulled to shore....by, what seemed, a whole community of people. 



Each of the fishermen had a rope tied to his/her waist.  When they had backed up as far as they could go, they would unhook their waist rope from the net rope, walk to the front of the line, which was close to the water, rehook their rope, and continue pulling.

 

 

 

 

Your dad was itching to help....but controlled himself.

 

 

As both lines of people were pulling the ropes in from the ocean, each line was moving closer to the other line. The boat that had been previously launched was at the head of the net.  (It is barely visable in the picture below.) It was tied to a buoy in the middle of the net, so it was able to come to shore along with the net.  Two men were standing on each end of the boat, yelling some sort of directions to the line pullers.  It would be interesting to know what they were yelling.

 

The net started appearing out of the water, with fish stuck in the net.

Some of the young boys began retrieving the fish that were stuck in the net.

At the head of the net was attached a tube-shaped bag where the catch of the day had been channeled. This bag was literally alive with wiggling fish. The fishermen all seemed pleased with the amount of fish they had netted.

And then the task of straightening and folding the net began.

So much for a private stroll on the beach.  But what an interesting morning!

I didn't know where to fit this next picture, but the clouds are too gorgeous to go unnoticed. "Look at the clouds! No one is looking at the clouds!" Sorry Nana. I couldn't resist.

Pictures of our hotel.

Our return trip took us past these windmills at Bangui.  For some reason I always think of the Brocks when passing through this area.  Don't ask me why.

A hedge of plants lines the highway forever! For some reason I always think of Grandma Eddington when passing through this area.  Don't ask me why. (FYI: She has this same plant growing on her hearth in her family room.)

We are enjoying our mission train ride.....including the vistas.

Love, Elder and Sister Eddington

Interesting Structures

This is the first home we helped build.  It is a house of love and caring.  Members of the ward built this for a new family that just moved to the area.  It looks humble, and it is, but it is bought and paid for.

Some plans just don't work out.  There are tons of buildings with rebar sticking out.  The old scripture of counting the cost before you begin comes to mind.  There appears to be a lot of "foolish" builders who didn't count the cost.  Many of them are/were working overseas and sending money home to build "mansions."  Somehow the plans fell apart and the buildings were never finished.  This courtyard is being reclaimed as a Dragon Fruit "plantation." 

This "reverse" project is another house of faith.  The owner of the water station is a recent convert.  He needed capital to repair some pumps, which he didn't have.  He prayed about it and received the inspiration to sell the metal on the roof.  This included the roof of his house, which you can't see to the left.  The business is still struggling, but he still believes that things will work out.

This is the second floor of a members's home that burned.  Elder Demars and I spent some time helping them.  Please, any of you who are in the construction business or building inspectors, do not look too closely and I'm not giving out addresses.  They have some interesting ideas about bracing and construction standards.  Again, the members are helping pay for and build the repairs. (The owner thinks his college-age son's laptop caused the fire.) (I'm thinking faulty wiring.)

It's a little hard to see, but this has been an interesting remodel from the day we arrived.  We drive by it every day.  They simply built a new house around the old house. Everything on the second and third floor is new and the back wall is about 10-12 feet outside the old back wall.  Underneath the roof, they simply took off the old roof, left the walls and put a new roof on top.  (This is a doctor's home and office.  Business must be getting better.  The sign out front always says "The Doctor is In.")

This is the mystery structure.  Anybody care to guess what it is???? (I have the neighborhood gossip, but I'm not telling just yet; and no, it is not a cell tower.)

When President Felt set us apart as missionaries, he said that my father, who died at 50 and was the consumate DIY person, would be with me on the mission.  I know he would enjoy being here, but I'm not sure he would approve of some of the work.  There is a term here, 'puede na', which means 'good enough'.  They use it a lot for a lot of things.

If anyone enjoys helping others, this is a great place to be and they appreciate even the most basic help.

Please comment on what you think the mystery structure is and we will see how close you come.

Elder Eddington

Helping Hands Strike Again



About a month ago, a member's home in Vigan had a devastating fire. It completely destroyed the second floor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a month of fund raising, the rebuilding project began.  Twice last week we tackled a two-hour drive to Vigan so your dad could help with the rebuilding project.

Progress on the burnt-home project

Two master carpenters (We hope!)

 

So, once again, Sister Demars and I were left with nothing to do, but......GO SHOPPING!  Wahoo! I must admit, the second trip to Vigan was my idea.  I hadn't had my fill of shopping.  But help was still needed on the house project, so Elder Eddington agreed to take the trip.  He is willing to do anything to help me get my shopping fix without his having to participate.  Elder Demars feels the same way about shopping as your dad, so Sister Demars was having shopping-withdrawal symptoms, too.  Sister Demars calls me her best shopping buddy in the mission. That's because I'm her only shopping buddy in the mission.  I feel the same way about her.

 

Before my first and only calesa ride. Sorona looks all fresh and ready.



After the ride: poor little Sorona looks worn out.

Sorona was all sweaty and puffing.  She is definitely not used to hauling around large Americans. 

Vigan is a tourist city.  The shops on Heritage Street are all preserved from the past....having a definite Spanish flair.  The inside of the shops are all paved with Spanish tiles.  Really cute.  Calesas are the only form of transportation allowed on Heritage Street.

 

 

 

Sister Demars said, "Only one second to rest, Sister Eddington.  Move it, move it, move it!"

While waiting for Sister Demars to look at some items for sale on an outside table, a poor little dirty and hungry kitty kept meowing at me.

 

Poor little Kitty Meow-Meow

I couldn't stand hearing her pathetic pleas for help, so I went to a nearby bakery and bought her some pork rolls.  When I approached her with the food, she was afraid of me, and retreated back into her pipe home. I placed the rolls inside the pipe and left.  Checking back later, she was eating.  Poor little thing.  Maybe she finds enough food in the garbage container by her pipe home.

 

"Salamat for feeding me, Sister Eddington."

 

We visited a pottery shop in another part of the city.  They dig the clay for their pots right out of the ground where they throw the pots.  Foot power is what is being used to spin the platform under the pot....no electricity used in this project. This pot was formed in less than five minutes.

 

 



 

Two guilt-free shopping days spent in Vigan! How fun! Any more burnt-home projects for Elder Eddington? Please?

 

Love, Elder and Sister Eddington

 

Miracle Sunday

We attended the Sunday sessions of general conference in the Paoay Meetinghouse earlier today.  What an impressive sight!  The chapel, cultural hall, and stage were filled to capacity with wonderful members of the Church.  I did pretty well with the whole experience until we stood to sing "Called To Serve".  I choked up even before the first line was sung, just like I did when all those strong-in-the-faith missionaries sang this same hymn in the MTC.  I was overwhelmed with the sound of so many faithful saints singing together in their Filipino accents. What beautiful people.  I wish I had a picture of the adorable baby two rows ahead of us.  Absolutely adorable with her dark eyes and brown skin.  Her mom had fixed her hair so cute....the top layer pulled on top of her head in a floppy topnotch that stuck straight up in the air.

In talking with the ex-president of the stake in between sessions, he mentioned he had the same emotion as I during the hymn.  He referred to this as being another evidence of "The Miracle of The Philippines".  This phrase is often used here.  It really is a miracle that in just fifty short years the Church is so established in the Philippines.

Inside courtyard of Paoay Meetinghouse

Between conference sessions, I couldn't resist taking the picture of Elder Ione, ex-football player for New Mexico and the Batac Stake President, President Galapia. I told Elder Ione if I had the ball and I saw him coming towards me, I would just politely give him the ball.  Then I asked him how many guys he has "killed".  He said, "That's the name of the game!"  Elder Ione's younger brother also plays for New Mexico, on a football scholarship.  He will temporarily return to Samoa in December to spend time with Elder Ione when he returns home from his mission.  However, with the change in missionary ages announced during conference, Elder Ione said his mother is not going to allow him to return to the states.  He WILL go on his mission.  It sounds like Samoan mothers and Jewish mothers have a lot in common.

Samoa and the Philippines meet

During afternoon conference, four of the cutest young children sat by Elder Eddington....the father being in the row behind us.  Elder Eddington had previously printed off Elder Scott's talk concerning family history.  He let the kids read the talk as Elder Scott spoke.  They followed the whole talk.  He then gave them a four-generation group sheet to fill out, which they did.  They consulted with their father once in a while, but did a good job.  After conference was over, I gave them each a Jesus sticker for being so reverent.  I had no idea what I had started.  Kids came out of the woodworks wanting a sticker.  I was notified that a young women's group was waiting in the foyer for me to come out so they could each have a sticker.  I gave them each a Jesus bookmark, thinking that was more on their age level, which they happily accepted, but they still wanted stickers.  So stickers they got.  I didn't know it would be that easy to be so popular.  Another wonderful day in the Philippines.

Love, Elder and Sister Eddington