Veva and Rita's Mission in the Philippines: Our Lovely Little Branch

If you're wondering why I am without my companion, Veva had to fly home to a funeral and was able to attend our brother Ed's 80th birthday party and well as her friend's funeral.

So, this is Elizabeth Child. Her parents are serving their mission in the LA Visitors Center, where Lizzy serves most often as well. On Friday mornings Lizzy helps Sister Snyder and I fill out the orders of household needs and proselytizing books and papers for the missionaries.

(We had a Sister DeMartini who was teaching Sister Snyder and I how to do it all when she fell and broke her knee and had to go home two weeks early.)

With Sister DeMartini and Sister Snyder gone and since it had been transfers last week, I knew that our 3-hour job would take longer. Lizzy was tired that day and then left to go to the Visitor Center at noon. I stayed until 3:00 pm and finally got all the orders out. It was an exhausting but sweet time as well as a good learning experience.

There are only two wards in our chapel, so we clean the chapel every other month. April was our month to clean so I went on Saturday while Sister Snyder was gone.

This is our sweet, faithful Monic. She is from France and does not like her picture taken. She is such a faithful member and shows up to clean after catching the bus to the chapel. She may be small but she is a Hoot!

Once I went to throw some dead flowers away and she couldn't stand it. She had to cover them up because she felt sorry for them. That is why, she said she won't buy flowers because she is so sad when they die. If she ever has to throw away flowers, she makes sure they are placed carefully in the garbage and nothing bad touches them (she covers them with newspaper).

This is my friend Johnny Mask. I may have spoken of him before. I didn't dare ask him if I could take his picture today (I'm pretty sure he didn't comb his hair carefully after all he just walked across the street to open the gate and help us clean.)

Later in the day we all came back to a funeral. The funeral was for a Sister Ann Perry as we all knew her (it wasn't her real name).

When we first arrived, several people told us to go check on Ann Perry, but she was in ICU and we never got in. Johnny told me that now that Ann had passed, he would tell me her back story.

At age 15 Ann was convicted of murder. Now her real name is, Juliet Marion Hulme and the movie they made about her life is called "Heavenly Creatures". Look it up!

What Johnny told me was enough for me to hear. I will tell you at age 15 her and another young girl became closely connected not in a romantic way but in a strange way. Sad to say as the mother tried to separate them (they were moving) the girls couldn't bear it. And so, the gruesome murder.

When the authorities realized what had happen the girls were too young to be convicted so they both spent 5 years in isolation.

While in those 5 years of isolation Ann realized what she had done and was so remorseful.

Let's just brighten our day with a flower found here.

Here is the best part.....Ann became a mystery writer. She sold lots of books and wrote beautiful poetry. As I said, look her up, she was well known.

As you know, having a past like hers will always catch up to you, but she lived a good life.

She had neighbors who introduced her to the gospel and Ann was a faithful Latter-day-Saint. Her brother and his family spoke highly of her.

At the funeral her publishers and co-workers read beautiful words or poetry that Ann had written. They talked of how she loved her religion and bore her testimony of the here-after.

One cute story her co-worker told was when Ann was about 5 a big bully boy stopped her on her way home and threatened to beat her with the stick he had if she didn't give him her money.

At this young age Ann began to cry and tell him how poor her family was and what was to be done with the money she had in her pocket. When she was done the lad then gave her every cent he had in his pocket.

I just love that. She was a GREAT storyteller even at a very young age. Right?

Sorry just had to add this one because he has so little. Most have a few more things than this. It makes it easy to just stop where you are and go to bed.

We see a few of these cars around.

I for one don't understand what and how they work.

Now that Ann has passed you may wonder who is left in our little ward?

(Oh at church Sunday we had a man from another country move into our ward. You can't believe how excited we all are to have someone come into our little ward.)

So who is left? First let me just tell you why they're all gone! (I learned this at the funeral).

Before Covid the Hollywood ward was as big as life. It was packed full of all kinds of people working in the entertainment world. They were close and had wonderful activities. It was booming. After covid most had moved away because the movie industry had shut down and they needed to go find jobs.

Who is left... let us begin with my friend Johnny Mask. Johnny will never tell you his age. Your age will affect your acting career. Johnny plays parts, he says where he usually gets killed. He said he has killed a few times but mostly they kill him off. He said this last little part was hard for him to learn his lines. I didn't want to remind him of his age.

The next interesting fact is that when Ann Perry had her heart attack our young Brother Bunker was visiting her. He got her to the hospital. Yes, Brother Bunker's family did come from Bunkerville. He says he remembers as a kid going to reunions there. Brother Bunker and his wife are also in the entertainment business. He is more into plays; Johnny says and there isn't much in that business. His wife is young and pretty so I'm sure she can find work.

I want you all to notice that I didn't have a lot of the homeless in our blog this time (okay there is the one). So instead of homeless I tried to put some nice pictures. I am sure we overdid it last time and the homeless pictures. There are a couple of sights we could never take a picture and show it to anyone.

BUT let us just show you our neighbor down the street.

Notice how clean HER area is? She sweeps all around and you can see some trash bags that are not near her clean area. I assume that this is the woman that our Sister Wycott gave a coupon for M-Donalds to. As Sister Wycott walked away the homeless lady threw the coupon back at her.

The other day as I drove by she had some of those stretch bands and working her legs with them.

As sister Snyder and I walked back from our walk one day we came upon her and I could see that she was standing behind the bench and was changing her clothes. We were about to walk right through her bedroom. How embarrassing would that be? So we just stepped off into the road and walked in front of her place as not to embarrass her.

When she leaves during the day, she makes sure no one can sit on her bench or take her stuff.

So who's left in Hollywood Ward?

Well we have the Bishop and his wife with us here. On Sunday after the Bishop had asked me to speak in Sacrament meeting, he invited the elders, Bart, Sister Gudrun and I to come to dinner with them. It was then that I told him he had asked me to speak on my birthday. He felt bad and I was glad.

I must say I felt that maybe I was like my grandson's Layton's wife who was asked to speak in Sacrament Meeting on her due date and with a bad cold.

The Bishop's family is still with us but want to move so bad. They, like so many others often live in a two bedroom apartment. Everything is crammed into that little apartment with all of them. Even the bikes are there otherwise they would be stollen. It is so sad to see this.

In one of our Relief Society meetings we all were introducing ourselves and one sister said, " I am Sister so-and-so and I own my own home. Really! do you know how rare that is here? I wanted to go up and touch her. The two people in our ward that own their own homes are there because they are old and the city just moved in around them.

So this is Andrea. This is her two weeks ago giving our Relief Society lesson. She opened with a quote from a Buddist Monk but ended her lesson from a quote from one of the seventies. She began with a terrible assault on her when she was young and skillfully brought it into ministering (not judging, excepting people where they are and just being there for them).

She was also very skillful in when someone commented she didn't just thank them, she showed how it tied into the lesson on Ministering. She made everyone that contributed feel good about what they said. It was beautiful how she did that.

It was not your normal lesson but there was such trust in that room that it was wonderful. Even Nazreen (he is a she) participated. Andrea has a sweet testimony, and we hope to watch her grow in the gospel as she teaches the lessons.

Nazreen came back to church last Sunday and brought a friend (the second one she has brought to church)

She stayed after church with her friend and worked with the Hurst's on getting on the genealogy site.

Nazreen told me her mother had all the work done so I questioned her. She then called her mother and talked to her about their genealogy work. As she finished her call she said, " My mom is high-fiving Jesus right Now!" Then she said, "Love You Mom" and hung up. What a happy sight (The Love You Mom and high-fiving Jesus)

Oh, you can't see Andrea's cute little nose ring but it's there. She works with props in the Entertaiment business, so I believe that is why she is dressed like this. That is her surroundings.

Last we have Bart & Gudrun still with us. Bart was mentioned in other posts. As we said, Bart worked with Leslie Jordon until he passed in Oct. He has been left without a job since but was left in the will, so he is not too worried yet.

Our wonderful Bart was able to attend the temple for the first time since 2004. What a great day!

Gudrun is a convert who never believed in Jesus and was so happy to know he is real. She loves the gospel.

Oh yes Bart was offered another job and it is assisting P Wee Herman.

We had lunch with Bart and Gudrun (she never says her first name) and Bart told us that he doesn't feel good about taking this job so he might not.

Gudrun calls me scrooge sometimes. She will say in her text, "Be civil Sister Scrooge!"

I asked Bart not to invite Gudrun to lunch because she picks on me. Bart says that's why he invited her and he has been grooming her for years!

He says, "She is my Princess Leia to your Darth Vader"! We never laughed so hard as we all tease each other, except for Sister Snyder because they think she walks on water.

When we ordered our food Bart and Gudrun made us laugh so hard because it was like they were ordering only food that had gluten in it (which I can't eat).

Now don't worry, we had plenty of food and it was just so much fun! They both are so witty.

Sister Gudrun knows I'm not a hugger so she hugs me until I cry, "Uncle" and I have to watch her because she'll run up to me and just start hugging me.

I think I told you that no one offered to teach early morning Seminary, so Bart offered. He still lacked some of his blessing to be confirmed on him, but he offered, and they accepted him.

As we ate the other day, he once again told us of the lesson he was teaching in Seminary. It was the 3 parables, the lost coins, the one lamb that went away and the prodigal son.

He told us that he had ordered the cutest little lambs and when he got them, they were flat like a pancake. But what a surprise when he opened the bag up. Out popped 3 cutest little lambs.