First Days in the Philippianes

Disclaimer: The last day in the MTC I saw Ned and Janet Mickleson. Ned said let's take a picture of us. Janet said they were told not to take pictures in the cafeteria. Oops! No one told me that. Forget all those picture I took in the cafeteria.

I would like to go back and tell you of a special Sister in the MTC. Remember Sister Dean from St. George? She has a son who left home 27 years ago and they have never heard from him since. Every Sunday she fasts for him! What a heart break. She is such a sweet person. I am so glad families are eternal.
                                                       

                                 Veva Loves Airport Life!

  

We made it to Manila where we spent our first night.

I told you that Veva loved airports with all our luggage and waiting for someone, anyone, to pick us up!

Upon arriving in Manila we went to the Church Office building which is across from the Manila Temple. The Manila Mission Home is beside the Church Office building.
                     

We spent several hours at the Church Office building as they worked on our paper work for visas and immigration. We then went to the immigration office to finalize the paper work. The Church Office then keeps our passports and visas in their office.

We spent the night in Manila where we had to take cold showers because we couldn't work the hot water. I thought the Philippines might be like Hatti where there are no warm showers (in some parts of the Philippines there is no warm water) but NO we just didn't know how to make it work.

We burned up our curlers and hair dryer at the first attempt to plugging them in. Yucky hair look for the Philippians. 

So our 110v does not work well on their 220v. We knew this and had a converter but did NOT know how to work it. Sad, Sad day!

There is a lot of traffic in the Philippines with a great variety of mode of transportation. It is slow going and it is true that the center line is just a suggestion.

A lot of people buy small motorcycles and weave in and out of traffic just like at home. Because a motorcycle is so economical and faster to get around there are lots and lots of motorcycles. When you come to an intersection all the motorcycles go to the front of the line. When the traffic starts to go, the intersection is a mass of motorcycles.

This truly looks like a tin can to me. This is another popular way to get around but you need to know where to get off and back on. They do not take you straight to your destination.

Manila has some nice building and nice stores. The problem is they build a place but after that, there are no repairs made. One nice department store that we went in had a few buckets around to catch the rain that was coming in. There are some nice building here. They are nice for now.

There is poverty all around. Piles of trash along side the roads. It rained for about 3 days straight. The streets flood and much of it is sewage. It is a good thing we were gone when this happened.

When looking at the Philippian news I saw this picture. They were talking about all the garbage that is floating into the sea from Manila.

We see a lot of this.

The day we were to leave Manila the Church Office didn't send anyone to take us to the airport. In any business here, there are always people around to help. The doormen at the hotel kept checking on us and finally set up a taxi with the Church Office Building. We were late- but our plane- we learned later, was also late.

Because of all the delays we entered the airport at the same time as a missionary that Veva had been looking for in the MTC arrived. They took a picture and we both hurried on to our flights.

                                                  We love those small tender mercies.

             Home Sweet Home     (For Now!)        Laoag 

              Veva wants to find her luggage again. She feels lost with out it to lug around!

                                                             Yea! Loaog Airport!

As we came out of  the airport these four strangers started clapping, yelling and waving their arms in the air. It was the funniest sight you have ever seen. The problem is, they think we are going to help them! Oh Dear- call in the cavalry! 

First on your left is Elder Nelson and his wife. They are from Utah. Then you have President Peterson and his wife from Idaho. Of course there is our true and faithful Sister Snyder.

President Peterson and Elder Nelson served their mission here and were companions back in the 70's,

( I think 70's) Elder Nelson told his wife before they got married that he planed to do a Senior Mission back here and she agreed to it. President Peterson had no choice. He was asked to be the Mission President starting this July.

President Peterson replaced a Philippian President. When they asked what their duties were the previous president said, "Don't worry. It will be okay". Bless their hearts they are such a laid back people. 

President Peterson got NO direction in what his duties were. The blessing was that his old companion (a former Novel Computer person) had been here about 15 months and had a lot of knowledge of what was going on. 

In the Mission Office when the Peterson's sat on the couch there were ants all over it. The counters crawled with ants. Sister Peterson went to work to stop the ants or at  least to get them under control as well as the cockroaches. 

In the office there were stacks of papers all over. As the President went through one of the piles, there were letters to missionaries of their mission calls. The letters told them when to report and where they would be going. Some of the acceptance letters were a year old. It just breaks your heart for all those perspective missionaries who wanted to served and had received their call, but had never been mailed to them. 

The regular mail was another concern because they found packages that were sent to missionaries that were a year old.

This is the front of our office. Our office has air conditioning.:) They have regular "Brown Outs" here but here in the mission office and the mission home (which we are part of) we have a generator. :)

Tender Mercies

On the left of this picture there is a door and it is the front of the Mission Office where we'll be working. On the side and on the right is the door to our apartment. I know, can you believe it? Ten steps and we are at the office. We live up stairs in this apartment. The only nicer place is the President's home. Even the Nelson's place is not as nice. The room next to us is a room of bunk beds for incoming missionaries like we had last night. 

Our apartment has not been used much at all. We are very happy here in our clean apartment. The tiny little washer and drier are also just outside our door. We can go home for lunch, wash clothes or make calls. 

This is our kitchen, living room and you can see our bedroom with twin beds Yea!

The President's wife had a list of things to put in our apartment. They are the bare necessities. 

The Nelson took us out shopping to buy what we needed or what we could find. It is hard to find everything like in the States.

This is Elder Nelson taking the first load of items to the car while we shopped some more.

We bought sheets, blankets, towels, plastic dishes to keep the ants and cockroaches out, cleaning supplies and the list goes on. We did not buy many groceries because we did not know what most of the stuff was. We will be eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly until we get this figured out.

This was the meat all out in the open.

The big spoon is the size of a soup spoon and the smaller one is the size of a teaspoon. 

These are you choices. 

We find drains all over the house and we wonder why?

We keep forgetting to NOT use the tap water to brush our teeth and so I put up the sign. It is helping, but we did go to 3 Sacrament Meeting this Sunday and partook of the Sacrament 3 times. We are trying very hard to keep our mouths shut when we shower!

This is Satoes. He is fixing our stove. In the mission home they have Satoes as a handyman. Since we are part of the mission home he fixes everything for us.

Tender Mercies are great!

More about where we live?

We are looking out the window in our apartment to the President's home. Yes it is a couple of steps farther than the office but still close. We are in a gated area with a guard that is here 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Tender Mercy!

This is out our bedroom window into the Presidents side yard.

President Peterson is the Presiding Leader of 5 districts. That means he has to do interviews for missions, temple recommends and District Conferences. He acts as a Stake President because they have none. The area he takes in is 6 hours northward and 2 hours south and it covers at least 30 wards. The goal is to make some of them into stakes to help ease the load. They have 3 branches ready to be wards but in the area they still have 2 branches that are not ready yet. It takes 5 wards to be a Stake. A ward must have 100 active members with 20 Mel. Priesthood holders who are full tithe payers. 

Sister Peterson and Sister Snyder. 

The Petersons and the Nelsons took us out to eat our first night here.

The view from the restaurant. 

In the Philippians they do NOT use toilet paper. You must pack your own. In ward functions sometimes if they know the President is coming they will make sure there is toilet paper. AND NO I am not going to ask what they use instead!

There are 7,641 island in the Philippines. That is if there is LOW TIDE.

With High Tide you lose a few.

One Sister told me that the Philippines is like the Tower of Babel because there are so many languages here.  There are 150 dialect in the Philippines.

Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape.

We attended 3 Sacrament Meetings our first Sunday here. Just like the white line on the highway is just a suggestion, so is the time for a meeting to start. The ward is supposed to start at 3:00 but no one is concerned that it is 20 after the hour.  Blessed are the flexible.

This meeting starts at 9:30. The ward that comes in after this ward is not too happy but they are Flexible.

Blessed are the Flexible in the Philippines.

Our chapel is up stairs and the classrooms are down stairs.

The upstairs part of the chapel looks out to the bus station. It is called the "Florida Bus Station". 

The second night we were here there was a ward party for the Nelsons leaving, the Peterson coming and a return missionary. They threw Sister Snyder and I in there when they learned we were here.

Here they are honoring us.

Here they made us all talk.

Here they fed us. The Philippines believe that we all Love hotdogs. Here Sister Snyder is trying, what they call a hot dog. I am not so sure. The best part is the little pastel marshmallows on the end of the hotdog stick.

This Sister says she was the second person to be baptized here in 1968.

This Sister and her daughter have come to church in a tri-see (not sure how to spell it). This is the best mode of transportation if you don't have a car. Very few have cars because the driving is so crazy here. No missionary has one. This is how Sister Snyder and I will be getting around even when we go to the store. We were taught that one of us can get in with the groceries while the other person sits side ways on the back with the driver. Just hold on tight. With tri-sees you get there faster and cheaper. 

They are just not fun in the rain.

Just down the street from us is a hardwood store so we put on our rain gear and walked down. 

After our three meeting on Sunday the Nelsons had us over for supper. It was a wonderful home cooked meal.   Delicious corn bread and tasty soup.

Youth that came to a Face to Face Meeting on Saturday afternoon.

President and Sister Peterson spent the weekend traveling and having meetings. Sunday night they brought a group of Missionaries in and held a District Leadership meeting. We spent the morning in meetings and playing games.

One of the Sister Missionary is from my daughter Jamie's ward. My Sister Veva also knows her. When we got to the meeting today there was the two Sisters from St. George, from the same stake, wearing the same dress.

In our meeting today we were suppose to pretend that we were on a bus and we were to strike up a conversation with the person next to us about the gospel.

These two elder really got into the bus ride idea.

I have found the thing I want to take back home with me. I absolutely love this. It is that when you go into a store there are young people in almost every isle waiting to help you. They move around and will look for someone to help. There might be someone helping you but more will come to see if they can help. I absolutely love it and wish Walmart and others would do this.

On Sunday the Nelsons spoke in three wards as they were saying their farewells. The story Elder Nelson tells is of when he was here serving his mission in the 80's, (I think the 80's). This was a new and a growing area. At that time this was called an English speaking mission but few people spoke English. There were 15 missionaries a month coming into the area. Within two months Elder Nelson  found himself being made a Senior companion. His Junior companion was from Tennessee.  

Elder Nelson tried his best as a "greenie" himself to help the Junior companion but with that deep Southern accent it got harder and harder. The Junior companion began to withdraw. He stopped talking and looking at anyone. He had given up and Elder Nelson was pretty discouraged himself. One night as they lay in their bunk beds Elder Nelson heard the quiet sobs of his companion. It broke his heart. The second night the crying continued softly and Elder Nelson began to plead with the Lord for help. He pled all night with the Lord.

The next day they went out and then came in for lunch. Elder Nelson told his companion that he was sorry that he had failed him and didn't know how to help him or even help himself. He asked his companion to say the blessing on the food and to ask the Lord for help for them both. 

As soon as the prayer ended there was a knock at the door. When Elder Nelson opened it there was a sister who he had seen at church. The sister said I want to be baptized this Saturday. The two elders were in shock. When they asked why (for they had seen her at church every Sunday). The sister told them that five years ago she was taught by the missionaries and planed to be baptized. When the day came they started to fill the font and then her husband would not sign the papers. She was sad but never stopped going to church. 

Elder Nelson asked,  "Well what happened now- for your husband must of had a change of heart?" 

She said "No he did not have a change of heart- but he died this morning and I don't want to wait another minute!" 

Well they baptized her that Saturday and she was a great member, as she had been, but with callings this time.