When I tried to come up with a title for this week’s blog post, I couldn’t really focus in on any one thing. Hence the title- borrowing from our Hawaii years. It really was a mix of many things. It was generally a slower week- we didn’t travel much until Thursday and Friday. So let me start with something that actually happened last week but I wanted to save it until now. We had a unique opportunity to attend a turnover of donation to a major hospital here in Manila- PGH. They are a very large teaching hospital and LDS charities donated a human milk pasteurizing machine. This has been in the works for about a year, so it was wonderful to see it come to fruition. The Leiningers were asked to put this project together and for the donation ceremony, Elder Bangerter and his wife as well as many others from the Welfare Services arm of our church here were in attendance. We not only met with the doctors in pediatrics and OB/GYN, but we also met with a doctor that won the equivalent of the Nobel Peace prize here in the Philippines for her work with abused women and children. It was so humbling to see Elder Bangerter minister to the doctors and humbly represent the Savior in this work. It was equally humbling to meet with all the doctors who are so dedicated and give so much to their work. At the end, we went with a couple of doctors to actually see the maternity ward and the NICU- hence the hospital gowns.

A Little R and R

On Friday night we had our normal senior couples outing to a restaurant in our Eastwood area. I chose a place that is purported to have good Mexican food, but it was so loud out there and there wasn’t a large enough table for us, so we migrated over to an Indian restaurant. This proved to be very quiet, great food and a little too fun! As you can see from the video, Elder Huff was asked to join in with the belly dancers at the end of our meal. He got into it a bit much! Elder Leininger also had to dance, but he was much more subdued about it- more like a missionary! Hope we don’t get deported!!! Then on Saturday, after finally getting our internet fixed (wahoo!!!!) we went with the Leiningers to the Aquino Wildlife Park. It’s a green space here in the city. Much appreciated. The little girl here really brought joy to us that afternoon. She and her family are church members that we happened to run into. At first, she was super shy and afraid to see the animals, but when we saw her later, she was jumping for joy and was so happy to see us and talk about the animals! Made me miss my grandkids!!!

MOA Signing with Mabuhay Deseret

On Monday, we had our MOA (or memorandum of agreement) the legal document stating our donation, with Mabuhay Deseret. We just donated a larger than normal amount of money that is to be used for the lenses for their patients that they find when they do their vision screenings. Mabuhay is one of our favorite foundations to support. They do so much good! When we were there, it was “casting day”. This is where the clubfeet patients receive their casts, or recasts from the Orthopedic doctors. When you think that this usually takes around 10 to 15 recasts, that’s a lot of time these doctors are willing to donate. There was an adorable four month old baby there whose mother recognized me from a vision screening three months ago! Mabuhay referred her baby to come in for a consult and to receive help for his club foot. So this was their first casting! What are the odds that this would happen right when we were there for the signing. God is certainly in the details! We also got to do our “handprints” on the garage wall. Mitt and Ann Romney’s prints, David Archuleta’s, other well known people as well as senior missionaries who have helped in the past have their prints on this very wall. Melody Ledesma, the country director, said when the wall needs to be repainted, they just paint around the prints. Must be challenging!

As I said earlier, we didn’t really have to travel until Thursday. We first went up to Angeles to meet with the Stake President there. His stake, and especially his ward has done some amazing things to help their members become self reliant. They had a Start and Grow Your Own Business class with 30 members and I think all of them now have successful businesses within a very short time period. The secret is mentoring and helping them to problem solve. Oh, and digital marketing!

Then we went to Olongapo where we spent the night (actually in Subic Bay, which used to be the largest naval base in Asia and a very sinful place) and met with Samuel, who was going to take me to some tribal schools. On Friday we also met with our area welfare and self reliance manager for this area, Ryan. He felt it wasn’t safe for me to go to the tribal schools (sigh) so instead, we drove up to another elementary school that had requested some new comfort rooms (bathrooms). It was soooo difficult finding this school. Our Waze navigation didn’t seem to have a clue and we kept getting stuck on these very narrow roads. We finally made it there when a local woman volunteered to jump in our car and show us the way. Frustrating! But it was fun, as always to meet with the school staff and as you can see from the picture, I met a new little friend. She was so cute and it also made me homesick for my grandkids!

Finally (I promise) we went to Lubao to the Upward Bound Business School graduation. This is a program that was founded by Steve Gibson, who also started ACE here in the Philippines. ACE is a business program to help returned missionaries and other members become successful entrepeneurs. The Upward Bound program is for nonmembers and in this case, it’s mostly farmers and their wives. As you can see from the following pictures, it is mostly women this time. They learn to help their husbands have a successful farming business as well as a side business if they want. Everyone seemed happy to receive a certificate, maybe the only time they have ever been to a graduation of any kind. They had motivational speakers (in Tagalog) from barangay leaders, and other successful people. It was long, but good for them to experience it. I don’t think we will turn this into any sort of project, but it was good to support them.