Dalley Daze: July 2009

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Building a Nipa on the farm for farm manager and his family.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

We were assigned to go to Calubian last Sunday. We had a van full of people, high councilmen, District President and counselor and audit committee. The road is always bad but we were making it just fine. We were a few miles from our destination when we came across a huge, and I mean huge mud bog going up hill. We got stuck for a few minutes then backed down a bit and got out to survey the situation. We determined it was just impassible for a passenger van and decided to turn around. Just then we saw a 4 wheel drive van come around the turn heading down. We held our breath but they seemed to just wade through just fine. It turned out to be the contractors for the church's FM group coming from Calubian. They stopped and talked to us and advised us to turn around and go back. They offered to take the majority of the people who were with us back to Calubian so they could accomplish our assignments. While on the way to Calubian President Cinco was talking to the FM contractors. They asked if he knew any good workers. He told him about Alan who was riding in the car with them. He had recently accepted a call to be a on the High Council but he had no job and was thinking about moving to a different area to look for work. Twelve men had recently given him a blessing that he would be able to find work. The FM contractor offered Alan a job that day and he started working for them after about three days. If he shows he is a good worker he will be able to have a permenant job.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Building a Nipa.

Our service project was in Capoocan this week. A Nipa Hut was damaged during the last typoon and the missionaries wanted our help with it. It turns out that no one had any money or tools to do the job. So Elder Dalley brought hammers and saw, nails, boards and Nipa and we all went to work. It took most of the day. We stopped only long enough to eat lunch. It took longer than we thought it would because we had to do things the Philippino way. But they know best and everything worked out fine. We were almost finished when it started raining and we had to go home. But he can finish what little is left tomorrow by himself.

Distribution and the Farm

The weeks have been busy. Elder Dalley and President Cinco made the first purchase of used clothing for the Disbribution Center. Branch members are re-modeling the building getting it ready for use and the young women will wash the clothing and get it ready to sell.
We have applied to purchase NFA rice which is government subsidized rice which will cost about half of what other rice costs here. There is a member who works at NFA who was very helpful in helping us get our application in. We are just waiting to hear back but she feels sure that we will be approved.
A different branch goes out to the farm each Saturday to work. We have still been pruning mango trees and planting more comote. The crops look great. Everything is coming up. Our High Councilman over the farm (Bro. Torado) came up to Elder Dalley and said in his cute accent, "There's a problem with the corn." They went to check and it looks like it was planted too close so every other row will have to be removed.
Next week they plan to build a nipa hut on the farm for the farm manager and his family to live in. He is a young man with a wife and one baby. It will be good to have someone living out there to watch over everything.