Domingo the 11th of Mayo
Mother's Day here in the Philippines

We are up getting ready for church. Today we will go over to Sibalom to visit there. We look forward and hope to see Dunito and his family. We hope they will come, but it has been raining hard and we wonder if the river will be too high to cross. It was up about a foot last time we forded the stream and visited them. That was almost two weeks ago.

We have been wondering what the heck we are doing here. The food is killing us. We have decided to eat at home and seek all the American food we can find in the markets and maybe some seafood, for me. Sister S. is not a seafood fan.

There is a definite lack of communication in the church here. They do not calendar, but spring meetings on you the day of, or maybe one or two in advance. Tough to plan. Maybe they don't really want us to come . .
There is supposed to be an Antique Zone Conference sometime this week. It will be a surprise.

We are going to Iloilo after watercolor class in the morning. We have got to get some filters for the Ranger and get the oil changed. We are over several hundred kilometers and that bugs me. We will go to the stores and look for Campbell's tomato soup and the like.

I did have a good meeting yesterday afternoon with President Gindap, the missionaries, one of president's  counselors and the branch mission leader yesterday. We are proceeding with Elder Ardern's instruction to go rescue/bring back the low hanging Melchizedek priesthood men in the branch and we are adding some prospective elders as well. I went over the handbook and doctrine and committed them to going to visit. We are meeting again today to companion-up and assign names. We will go to the Lord with our plan, pray, then go and do. Our meeting was the highlight of the last few days.

Sister S. went to a sort of unorganized visiting teaching seminar and Mother's Day planning session. She was not terribly impressed. The District Relief Society President stood up front and with chalk, put up the statistics for each of the branches in the District. The sisters in the congregation dutifully wrote down all the stats. The stats are terrible, so we wonder why kick a dead horse. Why not follow the handbook and do something about the stats. It is the same with the priesthood. We went all through this at priesthood meeting last Sunday. But,if she says anything, sisters get very offended. She is working through that. Tough couple of days for us.

We drove to the port and just sat and looked out for a while . . .

Typical fishing trawler. Most of the fishermen are running very small one or two-man boats. This one goes out and stays a few days at a time. They were getting ready on deck for another trip. The guy in the water is walking/swimming out and around laying a net to catch fish for himself. He circles back and hauls in the net. 

A few minutes before the approaching rain storm hit. It rained hard, but did not cool anything off, just added humidity.

5:57 pm in the Philippines. It has been a good day. Sibalom had a fine Mother's Day program for Sacrament meeting. The YM and YW sang and were very good. The Young Women leaders talked about mothers and motherhood. It was a really good program, best I have ever seen.

Deunito and his family attended and sat with us. I think they enjoyed the day at church. Then, Deunito taught Elder's Quorum. He did well and I was so proud of him.

After church Sister S. and I drove them out to the barangay. The first stream of water that we usually drive through to get to the river was too deep for the pickup, so we dropped them off and they got their river crossing clothes at the sori sori store in the barangay and we parted.

This afernoon I met with the PEC regarding our visiting list and was asked to go with the Branch Pres. and his 1st counselor to visit Brother Copertino. He is another great guy type guy and I really liked him. I was the one who got to do all the talking for some reason. I told him the Lord had identified him to us as one to visit and asked him why he thought the Lord had picked him. He told us he had no idea.

I told him that it was because of the Lord's great love for him and there was really nothing he could do about that, the Lord simply loves him and it won't change. And, I told him that he was needed by the Lord to come build the church in San Jose so it could become a stake and have some permanence.

He said he will come, but we are going to follow up on Saturday and try to insure he will come Sunday. I will not get my hopes up, but this guy wears a CTR ring and is a powerful individual, not heavy . . . more like a smaller, lean, running back. I sure hope he comes back into activity at San Jose. We are praying for him.