Fairview Stake Members in Attendance at DSWD meeting on the Family. It was a long meeting, that is why my eyes are closed.
On Thursday, May 12, we were asked to represent the Church at a meeting held at the government's Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). The meeting was for the purpose of bringing different organizations together to seek ways to better position the family as vital to the success of the Philippine nation. There were three speakers followed by a question and answer session. The hard thing is, that many of our meetings are conducted in Tagalog (which they should be) but then we miss much of what is being discussed. However, here is the good thing, in the presentations, they each used power point and all of those were in English, so we at least got the gist of what they were talking about! The issues they deal with are similar to those back home: Single parenting, unwed mothers, unemployment, poverty, education, and parents working out of the country to support their families. Their children are left with grandparents or relatives to raise. A parent may be absent for years. An interesting discussion was held, but the highlight for us, was when a lady stood and said, “No success in life can compensate for failure in the home”. She even credited Mr. David O. McKay with the statement. A round of applause was heard from those present. We visited with her after the meeting and discovered that she was not a member of the Church. She said she had heard this statement somewhere, and she found herself thinking about it often. Sweet! On Saturday, May 14, we attended the International Day of Families from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm. Couldn't understand very much but at the end the person in charge asked us to come up front and present gifts to those who were present. We felt awkward doing it and tried to encourage the stake president in attendance to do it, but he declined. So we presented the gifts from this government department.
Here is a unique thing about the Filipino meetings......they feed you constantly!! Soon after the meeting started, drinks were passed out, and then little packaged snacks. About 30 minutes later they passed out sandwiches similar to McDonalds breakfast sandwiches, they were sausage and egg or cheese it looked like. I definitely skipped that, but Randy did partake!!! Then an hour later, lunch was served! My thought was that if they skipped all of these snacks, they would have more money in their budget for the poor!! On the way home, about an hour and a half drive, Randy started to feel sick. Sure enough....... he got e-coli.....definitely the sausage!! He became VERY sick!
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