Time is Flying By! 5/27/2015

Mabuhay!

What a week we have had.  Time seems to be flying by!  Mike and I are having so much fun together.  24/7 is working just great for us!  We love the variety of things we do everyday and continue to meet the most wonderful people!  We are so thankful to be here!

Children playing outside, posing for a picture. It's so much fun to show them the picture on my phone. They squeal with delight!

We were involved with a service project that the Guagua Branch did.  So many members showed up to clean up the school grounds of the school next to the chapel.  The principal was so grateful!  By the time we left it looked like a new place!  It was so overgrown with weeds and long grass.  Summer break is almost over and school starts in a week.  This school is K-12 and has 2,000 students.  The classes have up to 60 students in them!  That one principal is in charge of all those grades and levels of learning.  She's a busy woman!  Of course it was another hot day, but everyone worked so hard starting at 7am and didn't stop until 11am.  The principal of another school in the area saw us and begged for us to go do the same thing over at his school.  He was actually crying when the branch president told him we would be happy to do that!  We head to that school this Friday.  How wonderful is it that the church can gather so many willing volunteers in a matter of minutes?  We love it!  

Here are some pictures from this day of service:

Halfway through the cleaning.  I didn't get a before and after picture!

Part of our group.  They also, are super happy about gathering for a picture!  Such wonderful young adults!

A couple of our missionaries with the Branch President's wife.

Sister Villaveles with the School Principal.

We joined the fun!

All ages worked hard!  This little boy is holding his broom.  He was hard at work sweeping the sidewalk.

One of the teenagers that came out to help.

We went on lots of teaching appointments this week.  We love sharing the gospel and meeting such incredible people!  We are having some great experiences and are learning so much from them!  New lessons about faith, humility, love, generosity to name a few things.  Here are pictures of some of the people we met:

We stopped by to visit the mom of these cute kids. They are standing by their house.

This is Narissa, her three children and a couple of nephews.  Her husband works in Manila and comes home some weekends.  He is a returning member of the church and Narissa is being taught.  We got to teach her the first lesson.  We are showing her a video.

Narissa's family

Elder Wood with a couple of members from the Lubao Branch.  Isn't this the greatest nipa hut?

Although related, there are 3 different families represented in this picture. 3 whole families are getting baptized in June!  It is so much fun to teach outside with such beautiful surroundings!

Sister Manloc and Jericho.

When we met this family Sister Manloc was

feeding their 2 pigs.  She saw us, dropped everything and gave us such a warm welcome.  Her son Jericho, joined us for a visit and lesson.  Brother Manloc was in the fields.  During our visit we found out that Jericho will not be attending school this year due to a lack of funds for school registration.  Jayson, the member we visited with, was able to tell them that the branch was using fast offering to cover school tuition for those in need.  They were SO happy!

It is amazing how many children are not put into school due to a lack of money for registration or uniforms.  There are no laws to keep children in school and some drop out in elementary school.  Of course, it will be so much harder to rise above their poverty without education.  We wish everyone would take advantage of the Self Reliance programs offered by the Church.  We are going to be doing more work with that program.  

We always do visits with a member, but we also picked up 4 great elders along the way and a dozen donuts to go visit a teenage boy that has stopped going to church.  We had a fun visit with him.

We have seen many creative games being played by the kids. This is a game of Stones.  We aren't quite sure about the rules, but the 3 stones are lined up and then 1 tries to hit them.  When the stones are hit they all run to the next spot and try to hit his stone.

The kids loved this game of stones. That's it till my next post!  We are happy, HOT (I know, I said I wouldn't complain about that anymore!), busy and thankful to be serving here in  the Philippines !  The Church of Jesus Christ is a message of hope and we love sharing that message!  We miss you and love you!! Kita kits sa linggo!