Don't Take Our Car!

We are believers in the United Order....I guess in theory only! There is a new senior couple coming to the Laoag Philippines Mission in a few weeks.  Only problem is, there is no car available for them.....anywhere...between here and Manila.  We keep bracing ourselves for the announcement from President Barrientos: "Elder and Sister Eddington, since the new senior couple's mission  assignment covers such a large area, cough up your car, please!" Elder has his response all prepared: "That will be fine, President. We will trade our car for a ticket back to Utah." But we don't think it will come to that since we had a great brainstorming session with President the other day.  My suggestion was to buy the new couple a tricycle. 

Not this kind of tricycle

THIS kind of tricycle

Great way to get around....and great gas mileage.

President Barrientos had his own suggestion: kuliglig! Awesome idea! For those of you who don't know what a kuliglig is, read on.  A rice farmer uses a kuliglig like a rototiller.  It  aerates the muddy soil in the rice fields.

After a hot and tiring day in his field, the farmer just hooks the kuliglig up to a trailer, and he has an instant commuter vehicle.

President quickly vetoed his own idea: "A kuliglig would go too slowly."  I thought it was a MARVELOUS idea.  It would match the pace of senior couples. (Any idea is better than giving up our car.)

A few days after our brainstorming session with President, Elder Eddington came up with a brilliant idea! It is heads and shoulders better than the tricycle or kuliglig idea: A JEEPNEY!  GENIUS!

Elder was really thinking: "Not only would it be great for weekday travel, but it could be The Mormon Express.  A great way to give members rides to Church on Sundays!" 

Then I joined in on the brainstorming: "It could be SO very tricked out with things like:

A great thought-provoking title":

Elder added: "The Mormon Music Channel could be playing beautiful music":

I suggested adding some classy custom curtains with the following design:

 

 

And of course, the hood ornament of all hood ornaments:

We can't wait to tell President Barrientos our new plan! ANYTHING that will allow us to keep our car!

Very Wet Baptism

What a difference a week makes! There was an abundance of water for this Saturday's baptism:
                       

Sister Agustin invited us to attend this baptisms-in-the-river event on Saturday.  We couldn't pass up the invitation.  The Vintar Branch meets in a newly-renovated home. The members of the home gave it up to the Church to be used as a meetinghouse. The displaced family is living in a smaller shelter behind their remodeled-home-turned-meetinghouse.



Baptismal candidates were 15-year-old Beverly, niece of the Branch President, 12-year-old Mark, son of an less active father and nonmember mother, and 8-year-old Alyanna:

 

When we arrived, we found the relief society sisters behind the meetinghouse cooking up a storm! Apparently this is common practice for the Vintar Branch whenever there is a baptism.

Sister Agustin on the right.

Hazel Joy Agustin, the oldest in their family.

With the beginning of the baptismal program being over,

we walked to the river for the "baptism proper" to use their terminology. It was no simple walk:

down bamboo ladders:

 

across parched fields:

over the dry, sometimes sandy, sometimes rocky riverbed. (This is full of water during the wet season.)

And past scary cows: (This one started walking towards me when I stopped for the picture. I didn't know if she was friend or foe. Was she wanting a free-food handout from me, or was she going to protect her baby by taking me out? I didn't wait to find out.)

 

Final Destination: a cute bamboo shelter facing onto the river.

 

 

One of the three baptisms.

 



 

 

Drying off after the baptisms.

 

Poor Alyanna was nervous in the river at best. But when the baptizing elder kept walking her out into deeper and deeper water, it was close to being a deal breaker for her.  The water was almost shoulder high to her by the time the elder stopped wading.

 



Wet Alyanna staying warm wrapped in a red towel after her baptism

For some reason I thought of Nana when I took this picture.
 

Sister Agustin and "Homeless-but-now-has-a-meetinghouse-sister"
 

After-baptism spread

 

I took this picture just because she's so cute! (Pierced ears and all!)

 



As we were leaving, I asked the elders to let us know when there would be another baptism so we could attend.  Come to find out, the family of the above-adorable-toddler will be baptized on February 16th.  We'll be back! Cookies in hand! (By the way, Elder's cookies were a hit.)

Love, Elder and Sister Eddington

Dry Baptism

It started out to be a normal Saturday.  I had a few piano lessons scheduled for the day and then a baptism to play for.  Elder had a ward/district clerk-training meeting planned and scheduled for later in the day.  Before we left for the stake center, we received a text from the elders who were having the baptism.  They said it was a weird request, but would we bring a bucket with us? All the way to the stake center we kept speculating what they were going to use the bucket for....a visual aid for a baptism talk? ..... to catch water from a leaky roof? What?  It was even more puzzling when Elder Soriano met us at the meetinghouse door looking like this:

It seems upon arriving early to set up for their baptism, Elder Soriano and Elder Balbin found the baptismal font dry, dirty, and full of litter.  Not good!  Since the water faucet to the font was locked, they immediately texted the facility management dude, (who should have had the font already filled,) to bring the key. But he didn't return their text.  So being resourceful elders, they started filling the font the only way they could: bucket brigade. 

They filled buckets from the men's CR, (I didn't think it was appropriate to take that picture). From outside faucets:

from the custodial closet (on the right),

and even ran a hose from another outside faucet through a window above the font:

I had to add the "Relief Society Touch" to the occasion.  The elders were too busy with water duty to think of little extras. Elder and I gave the temple picture to Sister Morales as a baptismal gift. (Notice the water still running in through the window.)

Elder Soriano was quite the quick-change artist.  From this:

To this:

Needless to say, the baptism started an hour late.  The baptism candidate, Sister Morales, is the wife of a member.  When Brother Morales started getting active in the Church again, Sister Morales became interested in taking the lessons from the missionaries.  The rest is history.  Her mother-in-law, Sister Morales, is the stake family history consultant.  Your dad works in the family history library with her on Saturday afternoons while I give piano lessons.  She is very thrilled that her daughter-in-law is now a member and her son is back into activity. 



Elder Balbin, Brother and Sister Morales, Baby Morales, and Elder Soriano 

  "All's well that ends well", I suppose. But the facility manager dude did promise to have the font filled with water ready for next week's baptism.  If it doesn't happen, I told the elders to tell him, "Sister Eddington said, 'heads will roll!'" I know, I know, big talk from a lowly and the smaller-half-of-a-senior-couple missionary.

Love, Elder and Sister Eddington

Squeaky Wheel With Laurel's Name On It

After being prodded by Laurel, (see comment in "New Year's Eve To Beat Any New Year's Eve"), here it is. I know we haven't created a post for a while...with good reason! I am out of ideas, unless you want to know how many cockroaches we have killed the last few days.  How about how many laps we are jogging/walking these days?  Maybe how many mosquito bites we are itching at the moment?  Perhaps how many chickens Elder Eddington has almost or has hit with our car lately? (Not a pretty subject, I might add.) Well, certainly you wouldn't want to know how many times each night we are awakened by our neighbor's (or maybe neighbors') barking dog(s), would you?

I have wracked my brain, and this is the best I can come up with.  (There are a few baptisms we will be attending in the near future we will be posting about.)  But for now, here goes.

As you may remember from past posts, I have been crocheting edges on baby blankets to be donated to a local hospital. I needed an inhouse project to keep me busy while Elder Eddington works on the computer doing member records. 

By the way, I've dreamed up another project: we will be honoring birthdays of less actives in some of the Laoag Wards.  I have made custom birthday cards with the message: "The end of the world is quickly approaching, so you'd better get back to Church...and fast!" (Kidding.) But they do have a scripture-based message along with a scripture. Along with the card, we will give CTR rings to the younger members and framed Manila Temple pictures to the adults.... maybe even some homemade-by-Elder-Eddington cookies.

To make the hospital donation more worthwhile, we add some baby outfits and sometimes diapers to the package, so one lone blanket won't look so puny. The hospital staff in turn gives our offering as gifts to some of the parents of the newborns as they leave the hospital.... especially targeting the "indigents", as they call them. They make sure the recipients of the blankets know that the blankets are handmade by members of the Church.  We hope it is good p.r. for the Church.  Ethyl in Customer Care is very familiar with us by now, as is Gilbert the head nurse of the hospital...who, we found out yesterday, has a baptism date of March 2nd!! The elders have been teaching him for a few months now.  He is an awesome man!

Last month some of the relief society sisters in the Laoag Third Ward took some blanket kits I had compiled and crocheted edges on the "pranela" (flannel). Speaking of "flannel", the clerks in the material department see me coming and always ask, "More pranela?" Anyway, last week when we were making another hospital delivery of four of the blankets of which the relief society sisters had crocheted, Ethyl said, "I have something for you."  It was a cute picture of the parents of the first twins born in the Laoag City General Hospital (see below).  They are dressed in the outfits, hats, and mittens we had previously donated.... and are lying on two of the blankets we had given.  It is amazing how small newborns are, especially Filipino babies. And then you throw in the fact that they are twins... the outfits totally drowned the poor things! Their mittens are about the same size as their heads! What a sweet gesture on Ethyl's part to give us this picture.  We were so touched.

But the story continues.  That same day when the mission office elders returned our car after having taken it for an oil change, we showed them the above picture.  Elder Knowles said, "We know the parents!  We just visited them for the first time a few weeks ago.  The father is less active and the mother is a nonmember."  What a small world.  I told Elder Knowles to tell the father he'd better start going to Church or we'll go to their home and take the blankets back! (Kidding, of course.)

So there you have it, Laurel! Another post to, hopefully, keep you happy for another week.  Next week's subject: "How To Kill A Cockroach In Five Easy Steps!"

Love, Mom

New Year's Eve To Beat Any New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve was pretty wild around here.  The noise started well before midnight, but built to a a midnight crescendo of noise that was unreal!  The missionaries were to be in their apartments by 6pm, and for good reason.  What they call firecrackers here, are like bombs in the states.  It is said that the hospital emergency rooms are busier this night than any other.  People lose fingers, hands, arms, etc. from the firecracker bombs they set off.

Sorry for the bad videography, but not only was it hard to see in the dark, but I was in my nightgown, trying to stay hidden from the masses of people in the street.  (I didn't really break mission rules, since I was behind our wall and still in our yard.)

By 12:30 all was quiet.  Even the dogs had quit barking, probably from exhaustion.

We expected the noise to start up again on the night of January 1st.  But all was quiet except for one lone firecracker-setter-offer guy who seemed to be walking around the block lighting firecracker bombs as he went. Then all was quiet again.

An Act Of Kindness That Needs To Be Told

A few months ago our family asked if they could send money to support a Sub-For-Santa project. We were very touched with the offer.  When we saw how much money they had collected, we were very humbled.  What a wonderful family!

We have hesitated to tell the world of their generous act, not wanting them to receive only the "glory of men" and "have no reward of their Father which is in heaven." (see Matthew 6:1-4) But then the light dawned: THEY wouldn't be doing the telling, WE would do the telling.... so their heavenly reward is safe.

Below is a letter we sent to our family. 

"Dear Family,

Thank you again for your generosity in meeting some of the Filipino families’ needs.  It has helped bring the Spirit of Christmas into our December.  Also, thank you for helping fill my need for shopping.  I was having shopping withdrawal symptoms and needed a healthy shopping fix. But it meant muscling my way through large throngs of Christmas shoppers who live by different crowd rules than Americans.  But we won’t go there! I don’t want to ruin the spirit of this letter.  :(   However, the clerks were very friendly, helpful, and fun.  J

 We divided your resources among two wards.  The Bacarra Ward requested clothes for four of their needy families.  T-shirts and basketball-type shorts for the boys, t-shirts and plaid shorts for the girls, plus a few dresses.  In addition to the clothes, we bought each of the children either a small activity set of some kind or a board game.  Hmm, does “Snakes And Ladders” sound vaguely familiar?  How about “Scramble”?

 

 

 

 

 

The baby received diapers, a new outfit, and a xylophone to drive his parents crazy.  Each of the mothers was given a new blouse.  The men were given a new polo shirt…. And one of the men received a new pair of shorts. Each family received a framed temple picture. I also made 3 of the families flannel kits consisting of a flannel board, a flannel nativity set, a flannel Bible story, and some Book of Mormon flannel stories. The fourth family didn’t qualify, since their only daughter is 16 years old.  We gave her a head flashlight and lots of extra batteries to help her study after dark. They have no electricity.  She studies by the light of a candle.  BUT they DO have a cement floor! The relief society president and the Bacarra elders helped us deliver everything on Friday.  They carried the gifts to the houses while your dad & I hid in the car.

 Bishop Agustin of the Laoag 4^th Ward requested that six of his poorer families received food.  We bought them canned tuna, large bags of rice, cooking oil, canned pineapple, boxes of milk, laundry detergent, soy sauce, and pancit noodles.  We also threw in temple pictures. We delivered their goodies on Saturday and drove, and drove, and drove some more!  I didn’t know there were so many rice fields on the outskirts of Laoag!  I wish I had taken my camera to take a picture of Bishop Agustin and Sister Agustin picking their way through a rice field on their way to make a delivery…Sister Agustin with a 10 kilo bag of rice perched on her head.  They would both return to the car all sweaty and puffing, while your dad & I sat all calm, cool, and collected.

 Both the Bacarra Ward deliverers and the Agustins reported how appreciative everyone was of their gifts.  What a rewarding couple of weeks.  I hope I have conveyed enough details of the whole experience to help you feel the same spirit of giving that your dad & I feel.  You are such a great family!  Thank you again, for making 10 families very happy.  We love you very much!

 All our love,  Dad and Mom"

 

We have the most unselfish, loving, kind, Gospel-living family ever! We love them and miss them very much.

 

Elder and Sister Eddington

 

                    

It Makes A Teacher's Heart Proud!

Teaching piano lessons to the members of the San Lorenzo Ward has been very fulfilling.  There have been a few dropouts but for the most part the group has been appreciative and dedicated.  I continue to forget to take their pictures since lesson days are very hectic with so many students to process.  However, Saturday was a special day for two reasons:

Special-Day Reason #1: Nicolle, one of my piano students was baptized!  He came in contact with the Church when meeting and talking with the elders on the streets in the San Lorenzo area a few months ago.  The elders then introduced him to me, since Nicolle wanted to take piano lessons after seminary class on Friday evenings.  It was a great experience getting acquainted with Nicolle.  He's a wonderful fifteen-year old. He goes to John Paul's home (another of my piano students) to practice his piano lessons on John Paul's keyboard. 


Gawapo group left to right: John Paul, Elder Lorenzo, Nicolle Buticas, Elder Robles, and Nicolle's seminary teacher Angelo Rafol (John-Travolta-Suave, according to Laurel)



Add another piano student, Jeffrey, to the group

So far Nicolle is the only one in his family who is a member of the Church.  The elders informed us at the baptism that Nicolle's father is now interested in taking the missionary discussions.  Exciting news!



 

Nicolle's younger brother and father

Some other baptismal attendees

Special-Day Reason #2: Noreen Agustin has made her piano debut...again, only better than ever! On several occasions Noreen has gotten teary eyed as she expressed her gratitude for being able to have piano lessons.  She told me how she had prayed that somehow she would be able to take lessons.  Before piano lessons with me, she attempted to play for sacrament meetings, only to have one of the members tell her to stop playing in Church.  Apparently her playing was pretty horrific!  She was hurt by the member's blunt disclosure, but complied.  By faithfully attending lessons and with a lot of dedicated practice, her playing is improved to the point that now she successfully plays in Church.  For the last two or three weeks she has played in sacrament meeting.  Recently she played for a funeral. Her new-found talent is greatly needed in the San Lorenzo Ward.  The ward members are so impressed and complimentary of her improved piano skills.  Her latest accomplishment was to play for Nicolle's baptism.  She received two thumbs up from me!

Noreen playing baptism prelude with her proud mother listening. Or is she texting? We'll go with listening!



Playing her on-loan keyboard, which hopefully will be Noreen's to keep!

Noreen was SO excited when I announced to her last week that she had officially completed the Keyboard Course and could apply to keep the borrowed keyboard she has been practicing on in her home.  Her mother loves hearing her practice and will often sing along while Noreen practices.  Noreen has expressed how having a keyboard in their home has brought her mother and her closer together. Noreen has a brother on a mission in the Ogden, Utah Mission.  He is currently serving in Kaysville.  All three joined the Church seven years ago.

 

When driving back to our apartment after the baptism, I commented to your dad what a very rewarding day it had been.  I very frequently steal the slogan from Save More, a grocery/variety store in Laoag Centro and am heard to say: "Happy to serve!"

 

Elder and Sister Eddington