All Kinds of Adventures! 6/7/2015

Sister Dorimon with one of her daughters
and two grandchildren.

Mabuhay!

A very swingy swinging bridge (just don't look down!) and a trip out to Corregidor Island have been two of our adventures since we last wrote, but the adventures never end!

For starters, meet the Dorimon family, or at least part of them as shown in the picture at right.  You know the song, "Over the River and Through the Woods to Grandmother's House We Go"?  Well, to get to their house we got to go over a swinging bridge.  The elders had told me so much about how broken down and swingy it is that I actually had a nightmare about falling off and into the river, the night before we went on this visit.  Turns out that I shouldn't have worried that much!  Yes, it is built from scraps and is quite swingy, but I would cross that bridge any day to get to see this sweet family!  We also got to hike along a beautiful trail through the woods and along the river,

Beautiful fields!

Elder Lorio, Banjoe and Elder Javier.  Banjoe is
leaving on a mission soon and loves working
with the Elders.  This is partway along the trail.

This is the river near their house where they bathe.

then up a hill to get to their little nipa hut made of bamboo.  Sister Dorimon built it all by herself and is so proud of it!  She did a great job!

In front of their house.  See the mango the little girl is
eating?  They just peel the skin off and eat them kind of like
apples.  It's a great technique!

7 people live there.  It is about 10x10 at most and doesn't have water or electricity which means that they hike along the long trail and over the bridge with large containers of water and do their cooking over fires.  At night, they put the sheets that keep the sun's hot rays off them, onto the floor for their bedding.  Brother Dorimon is being taught by the missionaries.  This makes Sister Dorimon SO happy!  More than anything in the world, she wants her family to be sealed in the temple for eternity.  That is the reason why their family moved to this area from up in the mountains where it was nearly impossible to attend church.  They still do not live too close to the church, so they save what they need for the fare to attend on Sunday's- a large part of their earnings.  Such faith!  We love them for their beautiful smiles and devotion!

We got to go on a senior missionary outing to Corregidor Island.  We rode over to the island on bonka boats.

All ready for our ride to the island!

Here is a fishing boat we passed on the way back.

It was so nice to feel the ocean spray as we rode over the waves.  Corregidor has been used to defend Manila from enemy attack since the 1500's, but especially during WWII when the U.S. helped defend the Philippines from the Japanese.  Tunnels were built that housed a hospital, ammunition and offices.  The Philippine and U.S. troops fought bravely for 5 months before the Japanese finally forced them to surrender.  The Japanese then marched the prisoners up the island of Luzon (the main island that we live on) for many, many miles in this heat without food or water.  Many died.  They were marched right through the area we live in.  There are markers along the road stating how many miles they had marched by the time they got here- about 85 miles or so.  Very sad part of history!  Here are some more pictures:

This is General McArthur.  The statue plaque
says, "I Shall Return."  Mike says he said the
same thing when he left here on his mission
40 years ago- haha! 

Mike, standing in front of one of the tunnels.
By the way, that is an ordinary amount of sweat!

Interesting information about the tunnel.  There is also an
island very near by that they turned into a decoy.  It looked just
like a battleship!  We couldn't see it that day because of the haze.

Bombed out barracks.

The view from the top of the lighthouse.

There are always many opportunities for service.  We helped clean another schoolyard one day and then another day we went with the Lubao 1st Branch to get a couple of classrooms ready for new students that would be arriving 4 days later.  We are always impressed with the number of people from the branch that show up to help.  We cleaned the classrooms and then painted the walls.  I think I have already written in a past post (say that 10x fast), that they don't split a class until there are 60 students!  Here are some pictures of that day of service:

Sister Ayala, Sister Curitana. President Jiro and some
other Branch members painting the concrete walls.
I don't have a picture of the finished product!

Gotta love a good mission statement! :)

A classroom that was already prepared and ready to go.

One of the classrooms we worked on.

We were able to attend a couple of baptisms in the last couple of weeks.  Seems that we always have some other commitments such as the English class we offer, and miss baptisms.  Our luck changed this transfer and we were able to attend two baptisms.  Sister Irma was baptized in Lubao 1 and Sister Anita was baptized in Guagua.  Both were so excited and bore beautiful testimonies right after their baptisms.  It was so nice to be there!

Sister Anita and some branch members in Guagua.

Sister Irma's baptism in Lubao.

We have been asked to work with the Self Reliance program for the Philippines Olongapo Mission.  It is a training program to help members become self reliant spiritually and temporally.  It is an incredible program that teaches everything from time and money management to job searching, getting a higher degree of education and starting a business.  The courses are run by facilitators that are very dedicated to helping people improve their situations.  After graduating from the Perpetual Education course students can apply for loans, through the church, to continue their education in a degree program or technical course, greatly increasing their chance of finding a good job.  It is expected that they will do what they can to pay back the loan so others can then benefit.  We are excited to be involved with the Self Reliance Program throughout our mission.  This picture is from a graduation that happened a week ago.  It was the first batch in our district, to graduate.  This young woman finished the Perpetual Education training and is enrolled in college.

Here are some other random pictures that don't really have much of a story to go with them.  The captions will tell the stories:

Picture of some of the "enjoyable" everyday driving.

Every time I see this little boy I think about our
grandson Edmund.  They are the same age.  He
is so cute!  He was up front in primary, getting
a little bit of help in reciting an Article of Faith.

We went to the mission home to drop off some departing
missionaries.

Just had to stop and walk into the ocean in Morong.
We hope to go back!

This monkey and it's entire family were on the road and
along the side of the road.  I got a good picture of this one
looking at me too, but I think this picture is cool!

This was taken while walking out to someone's
house to go teach them.  It was way back in a field.
Seems to be an appropriate picture to close with!

THE END!

Until next time!  Stay well and know that we are thinking of you!  Kita kits tayo!

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!

Families Can Be Together Forever! 5/19/2015

Magandang Tanghali!  

The Mendoza Family after they were sealed
as a family for eternity in the temple.

Coming out of the Manila Temple.

My artistic photo of the Angel Moroni.  Look
up, waaaaay up!

I thought I'd start out our blog with the highlight of the last two weeks since I last wrote.  Last Friday we were able to go with the Mendoza family, to the Manila Temple.  Brother Mendoza was not active for many years and his wife was not a member until one year ago.  Brother Mendoza is now in the bishopric and Sister Mendoza serves in YW.  He is a rice farmer and she does what she can to help out.  Such a humble family!  They were SO happy to know they can be together forever and it was such a pleasure to see their joy and to be with them on their special day!  We're loving every minute here!  We get to be among such wonderful people that we love so much!  We fall into bed each night and wake up tired, but somehow we are given all the energy we need to get everything done the next day.

We have started teaching a couple of English classes in different towns that are a lot of fun.  I can't remember if I've already said this, but there is a funny expression here that people use all the time.  They say they are getting a nosebleed if too much English is spoken to them and when they try to respond in English.  People laugh at other's attempts to speak English, so people are really scared to try.  Of course, being on the other end of the stick, we understand the feeling of being afraid to try to speak a new language.  The thing is that most people really WANT to learn to speak English as it can qualify them for better jobs for much better pay.  We promised that there would be "No Nosebleeds" in our English classes!  One of the classes has been running for 2 weeks, and the other one for only 1 week.  We are having so much fun with the classes and people seem to really enjoy them.  We teach conversation, proper pronunciation and grammar.  It is open to members of the church and non-members.  Here are a few pictures of our English classes:

Some of our Lubao class.  We have 20 students.

The other half of the Lubao class.

We love visiting members of the church that don't come anymore.  They are always so friendly and open.  We love sharing a lesson and visiting with them and we always commit them to come back ("babalik") as they are missed!  Some of them are coming back and it's always so exciting!  I need to get more pictures of those visits, but here are a couple:

We went to go see the Galveson Family.  It was Fiesta time in
their barangay (community).  Their daughter Shyra, was getting
her hair and makeup done for a beauty contest which is always a
big thing in the Philippines.

These are the Tiksay's.  We are in front of their summer
house.  It's called a bahay kubo.  I wish we could bring one home! Sister
Tiksay is a teacher and has 57 grade 4 students!  They split the class
when they have 60 students.  Brother Tiksay is a rice farmer.

Here are a couple of pictures from a fiesta parade that happened in our barangay.  When the parade participants would see me taking pictures the ENTIRE parade would come to a stop and pose.  I kept having to tell them to move on!  Everyone wanted to be sure to be included in a picture.  This was especially true for the 'bukla's" (gay) participants, who would really put on a show for the camera!

The Fiesta King and Queen

We love going for walks around the neighbourhood and feel like tourist attractions when we do.  By now, the kids know that we have a camera and they love posing for pictures and then looking at the pictures.  We have a basketball court right near our house which is always in use.  

 

The kids play in barefeet or flip flops and can run as fast as kids in North America
wearing expensive, high tech running shoes!  Notice the courtside
houses.  Box seating!

See the bag of brown liquid?  They sell Coke in plastic bags.
There are little stores that people run out of their
homes that are called sari-sari's, for extra income.

Mga kaibigan (friends)
These little kids were playing a game when we walked by.
They were trying to get a paper plate with the centre cut out, over a
bottle.  Their own version of ring toss.


We love working with the young missionaries.  They are so great!  We go to the zone and district meetings and we also get to go to appointments with them sometimes.

These Sister Missionaries had one oc the cleanest apartments
on apartment check day.  This was supposed to be the "funny
face" picture, but apparently I'm the only one that got the memo!

Birthday dinner for Elder Hunt.  He's from New
Zealand and we found some New Zealand beef that
we cooked up for the 4 elders in his apartment.

Elder Furniss (from Utah) and Elder Fepulea'i (from Australia).
The small guy in the middle is Jayson, a local member that
is leaving on his mission in 2 weeks.  He went out visiting with us.
We brought some birthday cake to Elder Furniss and enjoyed it
along the highway together!

The Elders and Sisters in our zone.  We have 1 Canadian
in our mission and he's in our zone!  (Elder Wetterstrand from
Lethbridge).


We buy all our fruit and vegetables in the palenke's- the outdoor markets.  Fresh mangoes, bananas, watermelon, coconuts, string beans, eggplant, tomatoes, sour sop, and other fruits that we can't remember the names of.  Everything is so fresh and delicious!  We could also buy our meat and fish that have been laying out on tables in the hot sun, but we choose to go to the real markets for that!  We also love running down to the fresh pandasal shops.  Pandasal is fresh from the oven- buns (or rolls).  All the breads from the bake shops along the street, are so good!

  

Our favorite coconut vendor.  He is a master with the machete!
The husk is off in seconds and then he leaves enough on
for us to get it home and cut a little hole in the top to pour out the juice
and scoop out the tender meat inside.  It's so maserup!

Two of the vendors where we bought our mangoes and bananas.
They are so much more tasty than what we buy in North America!

The members are so good to us here.  They invite us to many events in their homes.  This was  a debut (18 yr. old birthday party).

The Ibanez parents with the birthday girl!


We see these types of signs everywhere!  They are all over the jeepny's (I think the real spelling is jyipni), buses, family cars, motor trikes, stores, etc.  Christian faith in the Philippines is publicly expressed in ways that you would never see in America.

Well, that's it until next time!  I can't promise weekly posts anymore, but we'll do our best.  We are so happy here.  It is such a privilege to serve here as missionaries.  We love sharing our testimonies of Jesus Christ and we love the people!  We also love you!  Thanks for taking time to stay in touch with us!  Ingat!

105 degrees in the shade...wait, what shade? 5/3/2015

Sunset through the smoke

Okay, okay...I think you get the point that we are melting here, so I will spare the complaining again.  I have told Mike that I will never complain about the cold again, but he doesn't believe me and I probably don't either.

These are 2 of our great missionaries Elder Villamer and Elder Hunt.
We got to go with them to teach Irma.  The woman on the left
is Irma's mom.  They live in such a beautiful spot!

Another great week as missionaries!  We are meeting so many sweet people.  We are so thankful for this opportunity!  We love going out with members of the church and finding people that haven't been to church for months.  They always appreciate our visit and we love meeting them.  Here are a couple of pictures we took on one of our visiting days:

 This is the home of Erlinda.  She is in the pink shirt and is the grandma to all these teens!  They either have deceased parents, parents that work abroad or a combination of both.  My favorite was Jericho who is 13.  He is hiding behind Clariza, the girl in the greed striped shirt.   Our visiting partner is Sister Malig, the woman I am leaning on, with the red shirt.  I don't know where everyone fits in this house, but it seems to be filled with love!  When we left this house we met another woman who saw our name tags and told us she was a member of the church who had moved to the area 5 years previous and had just never bothered finding the church.  We hope she comes back as well!

Brother Malig picking the perfect apple mango for us!  It's like
the Garden of Eden there!

The land near Malig's house.  

Sister Malig and Sister Abelya came visiting with us and they would squeal with delight after each visit.  They would just say, "This is so much FUN!  I love this!"  We would never be able to do the visits without them as there are absolutely NO addresses here.  Have I already said that?  You have to find out the barangy (neighborhood), and then just stop and ask people where the family lives.  There is no rhyme or reason to where people build houses.  Of course they also help us with the Tagalog.  We go visiting for hours and love every minute.

This is Sister Malig and her husband as well as
Sister Abelya. Brother and Sister Malig have lived here
for years and have SO many fruit trees.  They gave us
some apple mangoes- who knew there were so many types of mangoes!
They also picked some of the mangoes we are familiar with.  YUM!

Cocoa Tree

Beautiful rooster.  Yes, it is on a
sort of leash.  How else will it stay in the yard?

This is Ronnie and Michelle on their wedding day.

We were asked to speak at a wedding this week.  Ronnie is a returned missionary and Michelle is getting baptized in a couple of weeks.  They asked us to give them advice.  We spoke in English, but they said they understood.  Who knows!

We always have some meetings to attend.  This was MLC-
Missiionary Leadership Council, held in Olongapo.
It was very uplifting!

Just a funny story of the week:  Our English classes will begin in one of our branches, this coming Saturday.  We designed some flyers that took a lot of time for us to do, but we thought they looked very professional.  We took them to the printer and he told us they would be ready the next day.  When we picked them up we thought they were great, then later we looked at them again and realized the printer must have lost a couple of the words when he was moving it around on his computer or something, so he just put his own word in there instead of asking us.  Now the flyer says:  "Learn conversation, proper grammar and conversation."  The second "conversation" was supposed to say "pronunciation!"  Now we sound like we don't know English!

That's it for another week!  We love you and miss you!  Ingat!