St. Augustine Parish

Here are the photos and some of the videos I covered for the St. Augustine Parish here in San Cristobal, Parian Calamba City.

Celebrating the Holy Eucharist at St. Augustine Parish.

Zoomed view of  St. Augustine Parish while celebrating the mass

View from the back end of the St. Augustine Parish.
This seat is very distracting because you can hear the noise of the vehicles passing outside the church

The unfinished construction site

Inner wall

Back wall

Unfinished pillars

Left-most pillar

Left pillar

Left side wall

Unfinished flooring and pillars

Here's some video clips to better appreciate my shots.

Entrance to the parish

St. Augustine Unfinished construction Video 1

St. Augustine Unfinished construction Video 2

St. Augustine View at the center

St. Augustine Parish Altar

St. Augustine Parish Altar 2

In case you want to donate : You may deposit them on this account. 

BPI Savings Account 008453-0522-74 St. Augustine Parish.

Comments on tag line are highly appreciated.

Day 47 : I’m starting to like greeting everyone good morning!

For the past couple of days, I’m sending everyone a good morning message. It felt so good seeing them reply to my message. Some of them are sending back quotes that inspire me. Some of them are replying with a “how are you message?” These replies really felt good.

In fact, what made me feel better is we will be having a date with one person that replied to my short message. We scheduled it this coming Wednesday. We’ll have a little chit chat on what’s going on with each other’s life. So I’m looking forward to it.

I also encountered no response (in fact most of them) but hey that’s okay. As long as my message was received and my message made them feel that someone remembers them. That’s fine with me. No response should not stop me from doing the right thing right?

So tomorrow, I’ll do this again!

See yah on tomorrow’s post!

eLviN

By the way, before I forgot. I’ll be interviewing the parish priest tomorrow. I have my camera to take more photos of the place to fix the site.

Day 45 : Contemplating with Questions

After contemplating on the project for the St. Augustine Parish I asked myself the following questions. Also, I’ll ask these questions to the parish priest as well for us to align with our goals and objectives. Well, I guess this can also help other people to ask the right questions to get the right answers before jumping to any conclusion. By the way, these are random questions running through my head so please bear with me if these are not arranged in a beautiful manner.

• How do we define success?
• If we accomplished our goals of raising this fund, would that make us successful people?
• Why do we want to change?
• What benefits do we receive after changing?
• Why do other people want to help/buy from us?
• What do we offer that other competitors do not?
• What is our story?
• Why do we need to raise that much?
• What do we gain or lose after achieving our goals?
• What are the available resources that we can use?
• When can we complete this?
• Why are we doing this?
• What can be used as our leverage?
• How can we attract the right people that can help us achieve our goal?
• How badly do I want to achieve this?

I believe that aligning with our goals is the first step this includes the creation of our big emotional why. The emotional why would help us move forward in reaching our goals. With the questions I listed above, I’m hitting the big reason why I want to do this. Honestly, right now I’m having a hard time contemplating the answers to my own questions. I guess I’ll give it a day to think about it.

Contemplating,

eLviN

Day 44 : Sickness and 27 Million Pesos

Today I didn’t come to work due to coughs and colds.

Anyway, it was a good opportunity for me to rest. So I slept. I ate food to my heart’s content. I drank medicine and I watched movie in my PC.

I also sent a SMS to my friends to keep me sane from my isolation. I don’t want my family members to have colds too.

I sent Fr. Louie a message that I can go to his parish today. To give you a background, Fr. Louie is the parish priest of St. Augustine Parish here in Parian Calamba Laguna.

So at 8PM, my family went to the church to meet Fr Louie.

We talked to him and discussing to him why I’m doing this. I told him that I’m part of 1 million in 90-day challenge.

Then I asked him, how much does it cost to renovate the parish?

He said a whopping 27 million pesos.

Wow. I never expect that this would cost this much.

Then he showed me the artist perspective. Here's the artist perspective of the church. I’ll also post the current photo of the church.

I know I can do this. 

Believing,

eLviN

Day 43 : Results Oriented Business

I talked to Tito Tony and I realized that I really missed talking to him. I missed his empowerment for a couple of days of no communication or whatsoever. We’re both very busy in our businesses.

Anyway, I’m glad that I talked to him once again. I got his empowerment. I got his wisdom once again. Hooray!

I was amazed how Tito Tony and the group in Cebu manage to help businesses. He develops satisfied customers. Here’s how they’re doing it.

By the way, Tito Tony’s strength is his network and his Marketing Ideas. So he uses this one as leverage.

They attract businesses by giving them new marketing ideas. They create website for them and not charge them until they meet their goals (in the form of sales, number of customers etc). In short, the business ventures they’re entering are win-win situation both in Tito Tony and their business partners.

This scenario enlightened me last night.

Why?

Accepting a client and having a domain for him (for free) would really push me (or my team) to the reach that extra mile for me to have a breakeven. Well the charge for the website is limited but the experience I’m getting on these kinds of ventures is priceless.

Now, I’ll be shifting my mindset from a website developer into a results oriented marketer. Good thing I got to talk to Tito Tony before talking to people I’m going to help.

Pursuing great customer service,

eLviN

Day 42 : I get used to it and I can’t stop

I just developed a habit. For almost 43 days, I’m been writing my thoughts down on this blog. I could not believe that I could not go to sleep without visiting my MS Word to type in my thoughts that occurred for me for that day.

Anyway, just like any addictions, I can’t stop writing my thoughts down. Even though I’m sick, sleepy, tired or bored – I just can’t help myself but to right my thoughts down.

This is one accomplishment that I don’t think I can do before. It is happening right in front of my eyes. I’m writing one article per day, imagine that.

Anyway, there’s another thing I want to become part of my daily routine just like what I’m doing. It is constantly exercising and building my muscles to the next level. I’ll exercise daily. I’ll do my sit-ups, push-ups and breathing exercises every morning as I wake up. I planned this before but it didn’t materialize after a couple of days.

My goal here is to build a strong and healthy body because I know I have a strong mind already.

If I was able to write on this blog daily), I can exercise everyday as well.

Why am I doing this?

After the series of events that occurred for the past couple of days, I really need to step up and to be strong. I want to be a good protector of my loved ones. And I’m claiming that.

I’ll get used to it and I will not stop.

eLviN

Day 41 : Meeting with the Parish Priest

Supposedly, I’m scheduled to meet the parish priest in Parian to discuss a fund raising activity for their parish. To give you a little background of the story, it goes something like this.

There’s a small parish near our place. From the outside, you’ll never expect that it’s a parish. It looks like an abandoned warehouse from the outside. When you get inside, it really looks like an abandoned warehouse. I guess, you’ll appreciate it if you saw the place. Don’t worry I’ll post some photos in the near future.

There was a plan by a political person that will renovate the parish. However, since he didn’t win the election, it didn’t materialize.

I heard this story from my father so it gave me an idea to have a big project. I never did something like this before so this is really worth a try. I have a goal, I’m looking for projects to have experience with my marketing skills, I wanted to help people/community, and this is my chance. It’s really a win-win-win situation.

So here’s the plan.

First, we need to know how much it would cost to renovate the whole parish. Of course, I’ll have the figure after our discussion (hopefully tomorrow).

Second, I’m thinking of applying the social media marketing in pulling this one off. I’ll use youtube – I’ll let the parish priest create a lot of videos. I’ll use facebook – I’ll post here photos plus status messages of the parish. These two sites will lead to a sales page (optin page) where they can see the donate button. I’m thinking of giving something in return to those people who will donate. I’m thinking of Christmas cards/greeting cards but it depends on the resources.

Then third, promote, promote, promote. I need the help of the parishioners as well as my friends to pull this one off. The parishioners will help the online pages to be viral.

My goal is to reach the target amount of money in less than 50 days (before the end of the challenge).

What do you think?

Excited to meet the parish priest,

eLviN

Day 40 : Questions and Random Thoughts

Question. When is the best time to trust someone?

We learned that like attracts like. We attract people that have the same mindset as ours. We attract people that have the same wavelength as ours. But not all have the same blueprint as ours. In some cases, our positivity are misinterpreted and taken advantage of.

Just like what happened to Edel. She was harassed. Her kindness was taken advantage of.

What should we do in such situation?

Here’s another situation.

You want to help someone. You have the resources. You have the skills. You have the talents. You have everything that he/she needs. However, at the back of your mind, you’re thinking that if I give this or that, it will create a dependency that would really worsen the situation. The lesson will not be learned. The person will totally depend on you. No more work, no more actions, no more decisions, nothing.

How can we teach someone a lesson?

If we don’t give them, either they’ll be mad at us or guilt will run in our heads. I know, the solution is to teach them. What if they don’t want to learn? What they really want is to depend on you, what would you do?

I know I have the answers to these questions but most of the time it is difficult to choose. It is very difficult to decide.

But I need to decide. We need to decide and we need to stick to that decision.

eLviN

PS. By the way, tomorrow I’ll be discussing a project to one of the parish priest of one chapel I’m planning to help. I’ll use my talents and skills to help renovate a chapel near our place. I’m excited for tomorrow! Good night

Day 39 : First Godwhispers Image

what do you think? :D

Check out Godwhispers page in Facebook.

eLviN

Day 38 : Longest Day

It's 1:52AM and I'm still awake.

In 8 minutes time, I should be resting to recharge myself..

This has been one of the longest days I had.

I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to accompany Edel in her classes in Diliman.

While waiting for Edel's class to end, I went to Gateway to look for books. I bought two! Viral Loop and The Referral Engine. I started reading Viral Loop and the stories written in that book were astonishing! I got a 20% discounts on both books. By the way, National Bookstore is still on sale until Aug 21.

On our way back to Laguna, there's a discussion about Kindle. I'm thinking of buying one, what do you think?

We attended the Feast Laguna. We were blessed with the talk. Actually, it's a new series entitled T3 which stands for Time, Talent and Treasure. Major lesson learned, in everything we do, we need to give our all to get the maximum results. We've heard this before and good thing, this talk reminded us that we really need to be serious and 100% focus on the things we want.

Edel and I accompanied Edel's sister to their reunion. We met a lot of her classmates and learned a lot from the discussion, mostly politics. I recalled conspiracy of the rich during the discussion.

Okay. Time's up.

I'll post more stories tomorrow and watch out for the Godwhispers facebook page. Something good is brewing.

zzzzzz,

eLviN

Day 37 : Law of Reciprocity

I have been exposed to too much work. 

But I'm having a great time in helping others. I sacrificed my deliverables for the day just to help someone in need. Doing something unusual creates a certain value that cannot be repaid. In short, priceless.

Here are the things I did today.

I helped someone with her excel formula. Based on my calculations, if she manually computed it, it would take her 30-45 minutes. My solution? Less than 1 minute. 

I created a how to video for a report generation using a screen capture program. That video will save roughly 12 hours of my time (in the future) just to answer questions about how to troubleshoot the process. 

I taught my sister how to construct a chord in piano. I taught her the fundamental of chord formula to know the notes of a particular chord e.g. F#Maj7. 

I realized that there's so much to gain when giving. Law of Reciprocity at work. 

zzzzzz,

eLviN

 

Day 36 : Work work work

This is quick because it's getting late. I should have posted this a while ago but because I'm doing my work, I was not able to create a lengthy post today.

Anyway, I'll just share my update. Godwhispers page already received 235 people liking in just a matter of 8 days. So that would be 29 people per day. Wow! So if you haven't been there, I suggest you'll like that page now and be part of the first 1000 Godwhispers page members.

That's about it.

I'll play the guitar on tomorrow's first Friday Mass at the office.

God bless to me and to you reading this as well.

eLviN

Day 35 : Automation

While I’m doing this post, I’m currently sending an email message to all the attendees of the event on Saturday. In case you didn’t know yet, I’m a virtual assistant. What do I do? I’m sending emails to people who are inquiring on a particular event. As of the moment, I handle three events, two this august and one on September. This keeps me busy for the past couple of days (actually months).

So how did I do it? How do I automate it?

Well, I have this message that will be sent to 200+ email addresses. It would be a lot of work right? Good thing is I have a tool here in my PC where in I can send messages to a lot of email addresses. With just a few clicks of a button, viola, I’m multitasking – writing this post and sending email at the same time.

Isn’t it great?

Yes it is. It made my life easier. By doing automation, it is like delegating a task to someone else.

I know you can do that too.

Leverage automation for future success.

Until tomorrow,

eLviN

Day 34 : First steps to the Elvin – Poy Online Projects

Today is our second official meeting of Poy for our Southern Luzon Mastermind Group. Once again, we discussed Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Promotions, Internet Marketing Boot Camp, books and everything that I forgot to mention (intentionally).

We will be starting a project which will focus on building website for Filipinos. Our SEO and social marketing skills will definitely be useful for this project.

Clients will be looking forward to us as we serve them with highly search engine optimized website. The website is complete with social media pages where in their customers can freely talk about their products.

Anyway, that’s the initial talk.

For our next meeting, we will be inviting our partners in crime Edel and Meg.

Sidetrack story!

By the way, I learned something today from the tricycle driver and I quote “Libre lang ang magtanong.” This statement was given by the manong driver to one of his passengers who are unsure where he’s going. I wonder if he managed to get to his place of work on time.

If you don’t understand something, ask questions.

If you’re unsure, ask questions.

If you want to learn something, ask questions.

eLviN

Day 33 : A blessed day!

Yesterday, I talked about blessed or stressed. I decided that I'll be serving blessing today and that's what I got!

A lot of things happened today!

This is an awesome day!

First, we won in our first basketball game (our team standing is 1 win and 2 losses). I scored two points. I’m more of a defense type of a player when it comes to basketball. So scoring two points is already an accomplishment.

Second, I had an affiliate sale! Isn’t that great! I just need to put up more stores. Currently I have four affiliate links, scattered in facebook, a couple of websites and some forums. This means I need to scatter more of them in different places. Of course, I need to remember that I need to build networks first. I’m a permission internet marketer. :D Target for this one, is at least one sale per week.

Third, I’m happy that Godwhispers already have 168 fans in just a matter of 5 days! I did not reach my goal of 200 fans by August 1 but I already consider that one an accomplishment. Next goal for this is to create value before promoting the Godwhispers sales page. I have the post ready for the sales page we’re just waiting for the right time. :D

Fourth, we have a new article in our Feast Laguna Website courtesy of Bro Rem. This week, we will be executing our plan to put more posts in our facebook page. If we are right, this will encourage more people viewing Feast Laguna Facebook page that will eventually become Feast attendees. Target for this is in a month’s time, we will be doubling in Feast Attendees. Right now, the average attendees is 250. In four weeks time, it will be 500!

Fifth, Jomar Hilario already advised me the date for our Laguna Internet Marketing Workshop! It will be on November 20-21. I’m excited for my first event! Please pray for me.

By the way, I guess I’ll stop here for the mean time. It’s getting late. Gotta sleep.

Excited for tomorrow!

eLviN

Day 32 : Stressed or Blessed

I missed writing day 31 on this blog. My head was aching last night until this morning. Due to lack of sleep I guess. Good thing I’m back to writing. I really missed writing my thoughts down. It’s kinda automatic for me. Well, it has been one straight month I’m writing my thoughts down. Before I could not think that was possible but here I am, doing the impossible before.

I thank Tito Tony for that. I thank Tito Tony for introducing me to this 90 day challenge. It really pushes me to the limits (more or less).

Anyway, on this post, I’ll discuss to you my rant for the past couple of days. You see, I’m starting to be stressed out because of my job. Too much frustration I guess. I have this project wherein I’m tasked to lead the data validation of our inventory system. Other markets are willing to help me except for Philippines. I don’t know why, they don’t want to help me (themselves) to fix the problem. Everytime I talk to them, it feels like I’m the bad guy. I’m the bad guy because it is a hopeless case. From what I’m seeing, they don’t like the system because they could not change the details posted on that report.

For months, I’ve been trying to convince them that I’m just trying to help them.  

I’m starting to lose my patience.

I’m starting to be stressed out.

Good thing, God sent me an angel. The angel enlightened me and told me that I don’t need to be stressed out because I’m blessed. I’m blessed with my work.

I even got this message from Godwhispers…

Each day, you have only two options: To be stressed or to be blessed. Stress and trust cannot co-exist together. If you’re stressed, then it means you don’t trust. If you trust, then you won’t be stressed.

Trust me,
God

P.S. When you’ve done all you can, and the problem is still staring at you, just turn everything to me. Like a child, tell me, “Lord, I’ve reached a point of incompetence”. And then sit back, relax, and watch me move.

I thank God for the reminder. I’ll trust him more.

I’m working tomorrow because I’m blessed,

eLviN

PS. In case you haven’t like the page Godwhispers, please do so. I’m 50 people away from my target fans until August 1, 2010. Be blessed.