I am way behind in getting this past week’s blog out. It’s almost time to post the blog for this week! In fact, I wasn’t even going to write about last week, then decided I needed to document a few things. It isn’t every day you get to meet the head tribal leader of the Aeta for an entire region of tribal people. We went up close to Angeles City then up in the mountains with two employees of Single Drop for Safe Water to look into a water project. They hope to get help from the church to bring water to people in the mountains who don’t have water currently. They have to go down the hill to get water in big plastic containers and take it back up to their homes. I always love getting up into the hills. Even though the people here are poor and live simply, they have a much better environment than the poor of Tondo. The tribal leader is an older man who seems quite simple but has a lot of power. He was dressed in a tank top and shorts, but you can tell he is respected. His position is a bloodline position and will pass to his son when he dies. An interesting thing: they wouldn’t let us into the covered court area due to superstitions. This is where they have their cock fights and they consider it bad luck to let foreigners and especially women in there. Another interesting thing: They were having a meeting shortly after our meeting to discuss an upcoming election. Evidently, there were some corrupt people in their tribal government, so they were ousting them and holding elections for new people. A lot of women were hanging around, talking very animatedly. I asked what they were talking about and was told they were really upset because they weren’t allowed in to the meeting! Women have no right to vote up there! I was appalled. They had a right to be upset. I hope that changes soon.

KUNG HEI FAT CHOI

We also sort of celebrated another Chinese New Year. Eastwood has red lanterns hanging everywhere and they had some lion dancers this year. The lion dancing we saw was actually part of a new restaurant opening. They had a band, the dancers, and priests blessing the new place. On Saturday night, our friends, Elder and Sister Johnson invited us over for an impromtu Chinese potluck. Super nice of them. We really admire the Johnsons. She just celebrated her 80th birthday and they are both going strong. He is a bit older than she is and seems to be slowing down, but they are both always up for adventure. She works so hard as a mental health counselor for missionaries and he is a doctor. Great to know them and get to know them even better on Saturday. Then on Sunday, I had a very busy day. I had to teach Relief Society and did a powerpoint for the lesson. You would think I am sick of making powerpoint presentations since we have to do one for every single project we present, as well as our monthly reports, but I guess I am in the mode. And I wanted to share pictures of ward and other church members serving the communities. I am so impressed with the willingness of the people to help out here. After church, we invited Rachael, a new convert from China to our house for dinner. She also brought her roommate and we invited the Bjorkmans to come since they taught English in China for 3 years. Even though it was Chinese New Year, I made a very American meal. Too scary to cook Chinese food for Chinese! It was so fun to show them how to “make” a salad and the pumpkin dessert where you dump the dry cake mix on top of the pumpkin mixture. They don’t cook much, it seems. So here are our Chinese New Year pictures.