The second convention will be held in Cebu on July 18th. We have been working on this for weeks with each developing their separate presentation materials. Jenee and I each have two presentations. I will be speaking of Stake Self-Reliance Centers and their functions as well as PEF-TOF (Perpetual Education Fund - Technipreneurship/Organic Farming. Jenee will be talking on the new Leaders Guide and the various reporting forms in the Self-Reliance program. I have made power point presentation for both Jenee and my presentations.
Friday 6:30am we headed out for the airport. You never know what the traffic will be like but this morning it was light and it only took us 35 minutes to get there. Our flight did not leave until 8:50AM so Mary Ann bought us all a little breakfast then we sat around waiting. We flew from Cebu to Manila then from Manila to Legazpi, arriving at 1:30 PM. This was a miracle in that a typhoon was in the area and Mary Ann said we were very lucky that the plane took the chance to land with the winds and heavy cloud cover. She said we would need to pray that we would be able to leave the island 1 1/2 days later, Sunday! We checked into the hotel then went to the other hotel where we were holding our training to set up the room.
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| Breakfast Time |
The hotel we were staying at was OK until we got in bed. A new,real comedy: the bed had no sheets just a comforter and the mattress was covered with hard plastic, so the "fitted Sheet" kept sliding off during the night.
We got up Saturday morning, had a little breakfast of scrambled eggs & toast & mango juice and then set out for the meeting. We had 100% attendance which made Mary Ann quite happy. Each of us took our allotted time to make our presentations. We pretty much kept to the schedule; after lunch we got ahead and since some were showing signs of fatigue Elder thought we could finish early. His business meeting experience differs in that he was not thrilled to play 2 hours of games. His presentation was the last followed by Sister Darby with her games. The first game, set up similar to Family Feud in that the first person from each team to ring the bell and answer the question got a point and got to sit down. The 1st team finished with all players taking a turn, won. Everybody enjoyed themselves. Sister Darby started another game and as time passed by it seemed as the game just went on and on. It was a role play with one person chosen randomly to come up front and have to tell all they knew about S.R. info as if they were one of diff. members of the stake or ward S.R. committee. Probably should have ended with the first game! This was our practice session before our big convention which is coming up on the 18th. I think just a very few changes will have to be made.
After we concluded the convention and group pictures were taken the 4 of us drifted off into the sunset and went sight seeing for a while before we stopped and had dinner.
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Friday July 10th we needed to travel by boat to Tagbilaran, Bohol to attend a PEF training Saturday morning by Brother Franco Advincula from Manila. The typhoon was showing itself now in Cebu, raining on and off for three days and today the wind was blowing so the sea was turbulent. Elder got an e-mail while still at the office, from the Halladays in Bohol at about 10AM saying they heard that the boats were not running due to the weather. So he called Oceanjet and they said that the 2:00 PM boat was sailing and nothing after that due to the weather. He ran downstairs, took a taxi to the ticket office only to discover that there was a snake line that seemed a mile long. He got in line at 10:20AM and at approximately 11:40AM he got to the ticket window to discover that only 20 tickets were remaining. What a blessing Sister Halladay had sent him that message just in time!
Due to the weather it took us 3 hours instead of the regular 2. The sea was choppy but not too bad. We were greeted by our dear friend and chauffeurs, the Halladays and we went straight to the hotel and checked in. After that we headed out for the "Bee Farm" resort for dinner on the shore, a favorite place of the Halladays and Pres. & Sister Tanner. It is located on the neighboring island Pangalo. Pangalo is the vacation spot on Bohol. Some of the nicest and most expensive beach resorts are located on this island. Maybe one day we will venture to stay there. The drive is just across the causeway. We had a wonderful dinner sitting next to the ocean listening to the waves rush against the shore, enjoying the breeze along with good food and good friends.
Saturday we were up at 7 AM to get breakfast, eggs toast, mango juice and Jenee's fave - fried Spam! and down to the ticket office so I could get our return tickets. We got to our 9:00 AM meeting on time but we were disappointment in its content. It was the same PEF fireside review with no real training on the issues everybody is dealing with. Maybe we've been trained by the best already - Mary Ann, and knew all the material he covered. A bi-District S.R. training by us, we thought had been arranged, but found out it hadn't, so we sat around waiting for our time to get to the pier and return home. While killing time Jenee decided to clean the chapel so we all pitched in. At 2:30PM the Halladays drove us to the pier and dropped us off. The ride was smooth, no bad weather and we even arrived home as scheduled even after departing 30 minutes late.
In between all this and our other traveling assignments we are trying to clear out the office so we can close down the Cebu Self-Reliance Center on the 31st for good. Trying to get organized the best we can before walking out the door. The FM Group will take the building at that time to bid out all the remaining furniture and fixtures. Each of us has selected chairs, desks, filing cabinets and assorted items to take to our apartments since we will be working out of them beginning August 1st.
FINALLY our Big Convention is near. We have been putting together binders with all our presentation materials for each Stake/District attending. Mary Ann is so EXCITED to say the least about this convention. We have added a few items but we are set and hope for a great attendance.
Friday is a holiday so we took part of the day off to get rested and prepared for our BIG SATURDAY Convention. We will be meeting with all the attendees at 5:30 for dinner at the Terraces at the Ayala Mall and to ensure that they all got checked in at the beautiful Quest Hotel close to both our office and the mall.
Well, Saturday is here and we were so pleased that once again we had a 100% attendance to the convention. Both the Cebu and the Cebu East Missions were well represented.
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| Entire Group |
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| Cebu East Mission SR Spec |
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| Cebu Mission SR Spec. |
We were fortunate to have Tony San Gabriel, the Area Self-Reliance Director in attendance as our key note speaker. He is the Stake President of one of our stakes and his wife serves as the Stake SR Specialist. They are such great people!
Tony and Gail have been working together ever since we arrived in the Philippines. Tony is heading up the Organic Farming program specifically the piggeries. Together we have helped two farmers convert from regular pig farming to organic and are working on several more. He mentioned that in the near future we should have the endorsement of the Church Welfare Department to move forward on developing corporate piggeries throughout the Philippines. We have several groups of members in Bogo as well as Bohol that are serious about this project.
After Tony concluded we began our training with each of us taking our allotted time to make our presentations.
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| Sister Mary Ann SR Manager |
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| Jenee SR Missionary |
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| Sister Darby SR Missionary |
We provided binders for each Stake group which provided most all the information and forms from all of our presentations. They really liked the material and it opened a lot of dialogue as the presentations proceeded.
One thing about the Filipino people is they love to eat. During the day we had two breaks as well as lunch and each "snack" was a meal consisting of the famous Filipino food RICE CHICKEN, VEGETABLES and FRUIT, empanadas. By the time we concluded, dinner was the last thing on our minds.
To end the convention Sister Darby got everybody involved in her games which brought everybody together in a fun way. Below is a team building game of Mary Ann's using open drainpipes and a ping pong ball. The teams had to relay-progress from point A to Pt. B without dropping the ball.
All in all the training was better than expected. Maybe we had more fun because we and Sister Darby knew "our peeps" at this convention. Everybody participated with questions and answers that helped all in attendance. As the Cebu Self-Reliance Committee we felt they left the convention much better prepared in their callings and more than anything we were all understanding our responsibilities as a group, with all promising to open, read, and answer their emails from us!!! Hopefully the future will show positive results as we continue to enlarge the Self-Reliance work here in the Philippines.
July 25th - 26th Tagbilaran on the Island of Bohol. We got on the Oceanjet boat at 9:20AM for our customary two hour drive to Tagbilaran but due to some mix=up with the passenger count the boat did not depart until 10:45. We had a small window of time before the Tagbilaran District Priesthood Session of District Conference , so our dear friends the Halladay's picked us up and we got a light lunch at one of the bizillions of bakeries on the streets, making it to our meeting on time.
Elder Ardern the Area President was in attendance along with President Tanner the Cebu East Mission President. This was to be an eventful weekend as the District was being transformed into a Stake, #96 in the Philippines and the 1st Stake on the Island of Bohol.
During the Priesthood meeting, President Ardern conducted the training session. He had written on a large board the attendees' suggested 10 items of concern to discuss.
He started with Sacrament Meeting attendance then went on to Temple Recommends then to Self-Reliance. He asked Elder Perez the Area 70 to say a few words on that subject then approached me and asked if I would join him up front. He asked who I would like to talk to and I said all the Branch Presidents. I then laid out my concept that the BP's have only two choices when it comes to those members in poverty. First choice is to keep them on the Welfare Rolls with all the negative ramifications or Secondly get them to participate in The My Path to Self-Reliance and the Self-Reliance Initiative.
Together we both addressed the importance of Identifying and Inviting those members who are in need of self-reliance. I then emphasized the importance for them to complete (before attending the Devotional) the "Life Plan", a self-evaluation worksheet I developed to have them prepared to come ready to improve their lives through the Self-Reliance groups.
Together we took about 10 - 15 minutes on the subject; I had no idea that we would have this opportunity but are so thankful for the inspiration of Elder Ardern to cover this most important topic.
At 4:30 PM we then attended the adult session which as always was inspiring. Afterwards the Halladays' and us went to dinner and then to our hotel for a night's rest.
Sunday up early as conference started at 10AM. We got there by 9AM to insure that we had a good seat. I needed to visit with the District President to get some computer transfer paper work signed. With the closing of our Model Self-Reliance Center 6 computers from the center were divied out to those districts and stakes who have been the most successful with their self-reliance activities.
At the Sunday session of Conference, the Tagbilaran District was dissolved and the Tagbilaran Stake was organized. Five of the 9 branches were changed into wards while 4 remained districts under the supervision of the Stake. It was a momentous occasion after years of hard work by the priesthood leadership as well as the members and missionaries.
The District President, President Galotera was called as the Stake President with his current counselors called to the same position in the Stake. Of the 5 branches made into wards, 3 had new Bishops called and one still in the making. The four smaller branches remained as branches until their growth qualifies them to be a ward.
The Conference was outstanding in every aspect and our trip this weekend was worth every moment. For me it was a highlight of my mission, something I had needed for my own sanity. Being with the Brethren was a pick me up extraordinaire, especially having the opportunity to participate with Elder Ardern during the Priesthood session.
At 2 PM we got on the boat to return home, tired but elated over the events of the weekend.
We will return home with a week to close the Self-Reliance Center so we have some work ahead of us. We will be back to Bohol on Saturday for a My Path Devotional in Calape.
July 30 - Well, it has been a busy week getting everything moved out of the Model Self-Reliance Center. We were able to get enough office furniture and supplies to set up and furnish our spare room to become our office in the apartment. We are set and ready to move onward.
As you can see July has been quite a month and August is beginning to show signs of the same. That is ok with us, it keeps us busy in the work - far better than sitting in the office day after day. This is exciting, necessary work that the loving people of the Philippines so need!
