Miyercoles ang 19

Amy informed us yesterday that Aunt Helen died. I am sure of the warm reception she will receive. My mother loved her very much and her son, Kim, will be excited to welcome her. I believe Aunt Helen had sort of a tough life. But, she and her children always seemed to bond and independently live their life. She always seemed shy and quiet and a little, for lack of a better word, inward. I liked her and her children. Tina and Kim were closest in age to me and so we had cousin fun.

Yesterday we attended district meeting. Elder Orr taught about revelation from the BoM. He is assigned in Sibalom. He is from Canada and is "large in stature". We had a good discussion and reports were good from the companionships. 

We went to Sibalom and picked up hymn books and my scriptures. We have been taking hymn books, about 10 at a time for repair. My scriptures were falling apart, I think from humidity, so after seeing what an excellent job the man and his wife did on binding some of the missoinary's PMG's, we decided to get hymn books repaired and I took my scriptures too. I am pleased at the job they did and pleased to have my scriptures back. I hate reading scriptures on the i-pad.

I met with President Villavert at 1:00 and we went over some items to announce at Leadership Meeting Saturday and some plans that he and his counselors might consider to help the District. We struggle so much, especially in the branches and branch auxiliaries. It is overwhelming, and so, while missionaries keeep finding, teaching, and baptizing, the district remains stagnant and stationary. Then, we lose our newly baptized brothers and sisters to inactivity. Praying for help. Trying to be patient. Reading the handbook just clarifies our dilemma.

Today we are hauling chairs to Tibiao for their group meetings. Nothing else on the horizon beside thinking about, and hoping for inspiration. 

Some photos I want to record here:

I finished a quick portrait of Sister Villavert yesterday. I snapped a picture of her last week when she was over practice baking with sister S. She was looking down, with partially closed eyes. She has sort of a classic Filapina look, not so much asian. She is a character. When she was younger and her husband was off to sea, she used to go ride the Ceres bus and preach for money. I think she was preaching Mormonism. . . Funny to me.