So, Naga is a city in Southern Luzon. This isn’t in our actual area, but since we are working on the Literacy Projects with Kenneth Lee (our supervisor now) we got to go outside our area. There were no flights available to Naga, so we had to fly to Legazpi then drive four hours up to Daet where we were actually needing to go for a Stake Literacy Project. I was able to rediscover how car sick I can get when sitting in the back of vehicles. The two hour ride from Legazpi to Naga was in a van, and we were sitting way back, so that was bad. Naga is where Kenneth Lee served with his wife as mission leaders . They were released about a year ago, so it was great watching him greet missionaries he knew then, and watch everyone have their teary reunions with him. He went by the mission office and on the way back, had us go by the mission home, which he loved so much and misses so much. Hence, the nostalgia. We switched drivers in Naga and met up with Joem who became our driver (and Elder Huff’s buddy) the rest of the time. We barely made it in time to do the literacy presentation in Daet, but luckily they were a bit late arriving as well. It’s tough for these leaders to get off work and get to the church, which might be kind of far, on a weeknight. We had a nice presentation, though, then afterward went to dinner with a counselor in the stake, his wife and other members. The restaurant was more or less outdoors and they had a couple of guys playing guitar and singing. Joem insisted that Elder Huff get up and go sing with him so they basically karaoked for the restaurant patrons. Joem has a great voice and he clearly loves to sing. Then Elder Huff sang the Beatles “When I’m 64” and dedicated it to me. If that wasn’t bad enough, he insisted that I come up with him and sing “Sunrise, Sunset”, which was a disaster because I’ve had lots of junk from a past cough, I couldn’t really hear the music, and the key was way too high. Awful!!! I told him, that ‘s the last time I am singing at a restaurant! The next morning our driver picked us up and took us to a beach. Unfortunately, we didn’t have swimming suits because we didn’t realize we would be anywhere near water, but we had a really nice long walk on the beach with Joem. His English is quite good and he is just a delightful person. After our walk, we went back to our hotel and worked, worked, worked. We had lots to catch up on. Our room couldn’t get internet, so we went down in the hot dining room and worked there until around noon. Then we got back in the car and headed down the road for about two or more hours to Sipicot where we were meeting with the next District. It took a really long time to get started here, because, once again, the people couldn’t get off work to make a 5:00 meeting time. We started after 6:00. At first I wondered if it would work here since the attendance was so low, but then people showed up and we had a decent group to work with. Both of the districts are very excited about this program and feel like they really need it. It is similar to what we are doing for the schools, but they will also have a four leveled curriculum, which was put together by teachers in the Taytay Stake. I really think it is well planned and coordinated and should be easy for parents to follow and use with their children. Those who don’t have parents who can help will be given another church member to work with. So that is what mostly dominated our week this past week. We also had our Humanitarian Missionary monthly meeting, where we all gather for training. We were mostly focused on updating our projects in CHAS, our computer reporting system, but we had some time together, so that was great. I didn’t really take any pictures of our time together, so maybe next time. Oh yes, I should mention the silly pictures of us next to the ruins. Kenneth made us stop in Legazpi to visit the ruins of a church that was covered by lava and ash when the volcano erupted (I think in the 1800s). The ruins were cool and the pictures were fun, so all is good.

Today we walked on our normal walking route to the residential/shopping area called Circulo Verde. We took our friends, the Meyers with us because we knew they were holding a big competition on the “Buggy” track. It was so interesting to see how much these grown men get into remote control car racing. They had big stations set up where everyone could work on their cars (which they seemed to spend most of their time doing) then they have heats where a bunch of cars race together. They have some sort of transmitter inside the car that allows them to know how many times they get around the track. They have lots of guys on the track that retrieve the cars when they go flying off or need to be taken to the pit stop. There were people there from Australia (lots of guys from Australia), India, of course the Philippines and probably a few other countries. Very entertaining (and very hot).