One of the Ironies of Life!

This post is especially for Bob and Anne. It will contribute to your humor for the day.

Tom and I have scratched our heads regarding how we could most effectively help the Filipino unit we're assigned to. The bishop of the Ward was vacationing in the Philippines from Christmas time until the end of January so we couldn't get direction from him. When he returned, of course, he was busy catching-up. There also seems to be an attitude of, 'We're OK. Why would we need any help." However the statistics of the Ward definitely reflect many needs.

Saturday evening there was a baptism and we were finally able to meet Bishop Jubinal. He asked us to stay awhile and come to his office to talk. We were glad to do that. He explained what a large geographic area his ward covered and we certainly agreed. The ward has been grouped into 10 regions so that the members in each region live close enough to each other that they can be of help when needed. Seeing we live in region 10, we offered to visit and become acquainted with the members in that region so that they would know they had a contact there, but he didn't want us doing that although there is no one visiting them there. He also has a number of older women who are housebound in region 8 who we offered to visit, but again he rejected our offer. Again, no one is covering the area.

He then explained that his stake president had told him that Tom could handle anything and that he wants Tom to help the members of his ward learn how to do Family History. By this time I was silently chuckling inside. Not only about the comment that "Tom could handle anything," but even more so about the request. In all of Tom's experience in church service, he and I have neglected Family  History.  It looks like we'll be learning about it very soon. On the car ride home I was not longer laughing silently, I was roaring. The whole situation struck me as very ironic and humorous.