Sounds of the Philippines

If you look at our mission you will find that we have 5 or more missionaries who's parents passed while they were serving here. Most of them have chosen not to go home but to continue with their mission. Our hearts went out to these wonderful missionaries and we are so proud of them.

Now in the past few weeks (since transfers), we had one sister leave after a couple of months here. An elder went home to his dad's funeral and will probably not come back. Another elder came a few weeks ago with medical problems and then had to go home. Another missionary was sent home a few months early. 

This elder, in the red tie, is from Texas. He has a 5-year-old brother dying of cancer so he went home. His mission is about done anyway. 

Then we lost this wonderful Elder on the right. He is from Sir Lanka. In the tiny island of Sir Lanka, no foreigners can serve missions there. Only people from that place and then only about 12 missionaries at a time. He was assigned to us until a slot was available for him to go back home and serve. In May we will get a sister from Sir Lanka who will wait for an opening back home.

Our most recent insane experience...(insane because they just keep coming and messing with the companionships. This is a headache for the President to keep changing people around, especially if they all leaving and not coming in) was the one who was walking home one night and a drunk Tri-C driver hit him and broke his leg. (No lights on the Tri-C). Tri-C drivers are known to be drunk especially at night.

At this point, we never know who our next door neighbors will be with all the going home lately. They are usually next door until they can assign a new cowmanship for the missionary that is lef there.

Well, then there are these two that seem to know when we have food in the house. 

While we are here let's just get this over with. Elder Rees wants to be on the blog so bad. He even told me he emailed home about something I did so that somehow is pay back. I do refuse to put him on the blog just drinking a bottle of pop. I have my limits.

                                  

We do have to humor him because we're not sure when he will be leaving the office.

                              Here he is and he is so proud of himself!

Now I had to give him this one because he made the shot just as I snapped the picture.

Okay just admit it! Anyone who would let me take their picture looking like this really wants to be on our blog. 

By now some of you are wondering how Sister Snyder is doing. Well here she is. Everyone's favorite Senior Missionary. 

I was told that there is talk around that it is her name that the Missionaries call out in the middle of the night. 

"Oh, Sister Snyder my belly hurts"! Oh, Sister Snyder, a cockroach bit me"!  I was pretty upset to think no one called my name out in the middle of the night. 

"Oh Sister Cox, can I go home now"?

Pictures of our cute kids at church!

This cute little guy is being held by our past, Sweet Primary President who is battling cancer. He is not even scared of her.

These sisters are in the second ward so they are in the building when we come to church. A couple of these sisters greet us every Sunday and even helped me set up our classroom. They usually check to see that I am wearing my name tag. (I forgot it only once long, long ago.)

Sorry, I don't know how those other two snuck in the picture.

In the office on "P" days sometimes we have quite a few missionaries coming in for reimbursements. Then there are times they come for interviews with the President and his wife. The sisters like to help so I try to have things for them to do.

These sisters have come to the office quite often and we have thoroughly enjoyed them and their sweet spirit.

Here they are again! They love the candy, but we love the hugs!

Okay, there are no hugs here just lots of laughs and candy with these guys. 

Chito, the one in the middle is diabetic. We try and hide the candy before he comes. They have come to asses what needs to be fixed in the Mission Office.

Can I just tell you- Chito's daughter got called to a mission to California. It is very hard to get a visa to leave the country. The day she applied she passed but the five others were told that they looked too young to be ministers so they didn't get visas. 

(You know that's what our cards say, "Ministers of the Gospel".

Candy loves!

The Devil saw me with my head down and thought he had won until I said,  “Amen!” 

This is one of Elder Ballan's quote and he has many. Some we just call gibberish. 

Elder Ballan broke down and wore a different colored tie. Truth be told- his tie was dirty.

Well, of course, Sister Snyder went out and bought him a new BLACK tie. She used the excuse that it was his birthday. It really was his birthday and he made us celebrate for over three days. We all have it ingrained in us that long, long day in March. 

                            The Birthday Day boy in a colored tie again!

So the other day we were coming back from the store. We have so many bags of groceries that I decide to ride on the back with the driver (sidesaddle with a foot peg that is almost pointing down).

We are going around the Round-About competing with all the other traffic when we pass a couple of cars trying to see who could play the loudest music. Our driver was trying really hard to not get behind anyone so he hugs the retaining wall. My knees have nowhere to go and they almost scrape the cement wall. The thought came to me, I will be glad to sit comfortably in a car once again.

So the 2 new Senior Sisters came and we showed them the town in style.

         Sister Robinson and Sister Drzayich  (pronounced "does your eye itch"?)

We went to the new sisters' for Family Home Evening. As we came outside the place was absolutely quiet. I felt like I was back in Littlefield where the stars are bright and plentiful and the quietness is amazing.

I love our place here but quiet it is not! All hours of the day and night we have traffic, sometimes a parade, maybe a funeral, school bands, dogs barking, birds chirping and at time video Karaoke.

There was a lady across the street that would walk in the mornings. She walked like she had had a stroke. She must have passed away and this is her funeral.

With the new sisters coming we had to find them a place to stay. One sister has a bad hip so no stairs. In the end, the Kartchners moved to a new place and gave the sisters the "Mansion" as we call it. It is the Nelson's old place all fixed up. 

Sister Snyder and I took the morning off to help Sister Kartchner with the move.

Oh yes, the elders helped a little!

Our leaving missionaries. Do you see our wonderful Maraket? These were some fun missionaries.

 This is our new batch of missionaries. Elder Squires, the big guy in the back has already been bitten by a dog and is waiting to see if he needs the shots!

"P" Day for the missionaries. Two of our Office Elders do not have the same "P" Day as all the other missionaries. Their "P" Days are very lonely. 

Sister Hunt and Sister Brooks were in the MTC when Sister Snyder and I were. We attended a fireside where they offered the prayers. They now are Senior Companions and trainees. Time is just flying by! Here they are with their brand new trainees. They are a little nervous but excited.

On our last post, I showed you the worst job in the whole world, "Making Salt"!

Let's now look at the second worst job in the whole world.

He is out in the streets around 5:00am. He packs these buckets of sweet drink around all morning calling out to customers. By lunch time he is home to rest and then to start making the new drink for the next morning. My shoulders just ache every time I see him.

Another job is working in the fields. This is out our back bedroom window. 

As I watched, one of the workers walked a little ways off, dropped her drawers and relieved herself. She then pulled her pants up and went back to work. 

AND THAT IS WHY WE SOAK EVERYTHING IN CLOROX. 

(There is no restroom close by, Bless their souls.)

Find the people and see if you can find the goats as well.

This is a picture of our Office Elders and their newly baptized couple. 

Elder Prusee is replacing Elder Denkers in the Office. Elder Prusee was also in the MTC with us. At the Fireside that the sisters prayed, Elder Prusee played a wonderful piano piece. 

The interesting part of about this baptism is that this couple that lives together are not married but were baptized. Here in the Philippines where the Catholic church is so dominant, it is almost impossible to get a divorce. The cost of paper work just bleeds people dry and they can never find the end. The church allows people to get baptized if they have been together for 5 to 7 years. The sad part is is that they can't go to the temple. 

We are watching this man. 

He wants to be baptized. He has developed some wonderful friends here in our ward. He has a smoking and coffee problem though. Today the Elders came looking for Hot Chocolate mix to give him to see if they can help him with his desire to give up coffee. We have our family back home to thank for sending the hot chocolate mix. We are praying for a miracle.

 Okay please forgive me but I promised Elder Rees to put this picture in of the family they are teaching. I almost forgot to put it on the blog.

The little girl in the photo will be baptized next weekend. She is a very bright little girl. Her little sister and little brother are in the picture at the top of the blog. The little girl has come to our primary class.

Our miracle of the month was when the President made Ballesteros into a stake. These are miracles that the President had started wanting back in 1979 when he served his mission in the Philippines. 

The President said that he could see where the 3 Mission Presidents before him were trying to do this. They just couldn't make it happen. The idea came to him to move a place called Calveria over to Ballestseros. That was the key.
He then asked the bishops to go find names of 140 Melchizedek priesthood holders who were full tithe payers. They came back with 200 names.

At the Sunday meeting, they would ask a branch to stand and then they would say you are Ward (1) of the Ballesteros Stake. Then the next branch and the next until they were all done. They then said, "You now are the Ballesteros Stake". There were over a 1,000 people there. It was a spiritual high for everyone.

 We can almost see the temple coming our way!

I mentioned some of the sounds of the Philippines. Let's listen to our first sound which is the neighbors across the street. It must have been someone's birthday because the new "Video Karaoke" went on all day and into the night.

Video Karaoke is a big pass time here. People love to do this and they are not afraid to have the world here them.

The next two videos are not half bad. They usually are much worse than these two are.

So the Office Elders came up to get the Chocolate for the coffee drinker and then said they were hungry for a snack. For pay for their taking all the food, I asked them to show you all how the Filipinos call their dogs.

Elder Rees will do this call several times a day to try and get Elder Ballan to move. 

Well, we hope you got a feel for the sound we hear all day long. If not you are welcome to come and visit!

On Sunday these two wonderful sisters, who have been attending our ward for several months, invited all the office missionaries out to eat. They both were raised here in Laoag but have worked in the hospital in Chicago for many years. They have now moved to Hawaii but spend a few months out of the year back here in Laoag. They will leave to go back to Hawaii on Friday.

Okay, one last sound. It is election time so to add to all the noise the campaign is on. There are loud speakers and announcements as well as singing starting at 6:00am.  No one here has heard the term 
                                           "Silence is Golden"!

   Love and miss you all!

 The Sister Sisters

The Good, The Bad and The.... You've Got to be Kidding!

You've Got to Be Kidding:

We start with this our house warming gift from our "Neighbors"! 
They hung their picture on our front door! Kawawa…….

Yes these are our neighbors, well at least for the next couple of weeks. We are having trouble finding a place close by for the incoming Senior Sisters so they moved the Elders out and the Sisters will move in 
                                            (once it's cleaned and painted).

Our wonderful Senior couple the Kartchners are busy repairing apartments most of the time for the missionaries.

Last week one missionary said that the Kartchners had put in a working shower, (no more bucket showers) , a flushing toilet (no more flushing with a bucket)  and a bidet (look that one up). That was one happy missionary!

Once while working on a bathroom all day the Kartchners went home dead tired. Brother Kartchner went home and sat down and said, “Wasn’t that fun?” He loves the challenge of trying to fix their contraptions or repairing things using only the fixtures they have here. 

On the other hand, Sister Kartchner, who is his right-hand man says,

”I never would have guessed in a million years that this is what I would be doing on my mission!”  She says she is right in there with him hugging toilets all day long.

Okay we all over exaggerate a little but Sister Snyder and I just laugh at her.

She does do a lot with the teaching of music to many of the kids here. 


You may be tired of us showing you the "Haka Dance" (War dance). 
I'm sorry if you are! 

At Zone Conference the missionaries wanted to do it again. Many of them are going home in the next couple of months. You will notice our numbers are so much smaller. Three of the girls in the back are brand new and so they didn't quite know what to do.

We had a parade Saturday while we were in town. These were all Colleges. I thought it was wonderful that they had a parade just to celebrate different colleges.

I was asked by a friend what we do in the office. I thought I would give you a small glimpse of what we do. This is Sister Snyder at her desk writing away.

Frist she writes every missionary medical phone text she has had in a book . She then puts it on her ipad and sends it to Sister Peterson. 

Sister Peterson keeps a record and so does Sister Snyder. 

She also greets people as they come in. She helps with the mail, keeps the kitchen clean, repairs missionary clothes and picks up around the office. She also provides treats for those that come in and a snack for the Office Elders. (Peanut Butter Sandwiches, Cereal and Milk). She faithfully keeps our water jugs going across the street to be filled.

 This is just some of the finished pages.

For weeks we have watched as they looked like they were working on the Laoag Fair. For the past month we wondered if the rides were going up or coming down. Were they adding each week or just taking some of it away? Then there was the possibility that they were just moving the few pieces they had around each week.

When we asked our friend Ruth she said they have a hard time deciding where everything goes. What! They have had a whole month to decide!

We had a new missionary load the bus and go home without telling anyone the other day.       Sad, Sad day!

As you may know our President is a Toyota Man. We just received a new Toyota truck. (Hilux like a Tacoma in the States)

 The elders are in heaven.

Today (our new truck day) a sister had to go to the hospital. I was asked to be the chaperone for the elders and the sisters. What a nice ride. 

Speaking of nice rides! I see this once in a while on the streets and I decided that this is what we need to invest in.

I am sure that I can get Sister Snyder to pedal and I will hold all the groceries. Look at the money we would save on Tri-C rides.

The Elders had to check it out also.

Now what do I do all day in the Mission Office? This is one of the booklets that I prepare for missionaries going home.

 This is a nice record of their assignments and who their companions were.

 Flight plans, Certificate of Release, luggage tags and Mission map and song.

This one is a bear. It is a Matrix of the plans of the missionaries leaving that is sent to Manila. It lets the people in Manila know when to pick up our missionaries, when to drop them off and to get them where they need to go for the two days they are there.

I also prepare letters and complete paper work for incoming missionaries and out going missionaries, contact people to get missionaries flights booked, and follow up with email. Follow up is the key word here. There are a lot of follow up to make sure everything is in place for missionaries coming and going.

Mystery of the day; While we were out walking one morning we saw this on one section of the road. It was only on one side and it looked like it was carefully put there.

 It's a pretty good section of the road but only on one side. 

Yes it looks like corn. Any guess on why it was there? Any good reason for it?

They next day every bit of it was gone! Nope No answer just a mystery.

We had an elder in the office the other day and he told us that his brother served his mission in Czechoslovakia (something like that). His brother is now a translator for General Conference. 

He said it is interesting because often times that to say it in English is a lot quicker than when you translate it.

I have noticed that with the Sacrament Prayer. I read it as the Elder here says it and I am done reading and they are still going.

The translator, at General Conference has to work very hard to keep the pace even with the person speaking. 

He said sometimes one of the speakers will speak fast (may be nervous) and get done sooner than planed and that throws them all for a loop because everything has been timed down to the minute. In these cases, the people behind the scene have to add more verses to a song or something. They scramble to figure out how to fill the extra time.

This elder said the translators or given copies of the talks weeks before conference so they can go over it. Yes, they know about the new temples before we do.

It gets interesting when they get word about 15 min. before conference that one of the speakers is throwing his whole talk out and going by the spirit. 

The missionary said that the talk that Elder Holland gave in 2017 titled, Song Sung and Unsung (I think this is the one) was one of these times when he chooses to go by the spirit. It makes you want to go back and read what he said that was more important than what he had written down. I’ll bet everyone behind the scenes were worried and had things lined up incase the talk went over or even under time.

So what did we do for Valentines Day? Brother Kartchner invited us all to go out to eat at this fun little taco place.

VERY Good! Yes they have Cheesecake here! We tried it with our tacos and it was very good.

MLC Meeting at the Presidents. What was your first clue?

Packages came in from Sister Harris for the Mission. The Office Elders got their very own and they are thrilled. They will share...…?

Your quiz for the day:

We find many of the same companies over here that we have in the states but they change their names. I am sure it is a legal thing. See if you can guess what this name is in the states.

How about this one?

No fair, I already told you this one!

Went walking again today in a different area and look what we found once again. We finally asked someone why the corn was on the road. She said it is to dry it out.

We went to church with the president and his wife today. They told us that on their last trip to do interviews they went to the most wonderful baptism.

First of all, the President said the water was very, very, cold and they had some sort of heaters there trying to warm it up. Some people were packing warm water from somewhere else to help out.

The person being baptized had suffered a stroke and had trouble walking.

The President noticed that the baptizer was littler than who he was baptizing. The President quickly suited up and jumped in to help get him down and then lift him out of the water. 

Now if you’ve seen pictures of our president, he is quite tall. There was no baptismal suit that fit him so he had to squeeze into the biggest one he could find. I guess it was a sight to see but we will never see it because he threatened his wife about taking a picture.

The president was amazed because the baptizer had only been a member about 2 weeks. The two people giving the talks had joined the church only a few weeks ago. It seems our wonderful Sister, Sister Ramos is on fire. She said she was going to baptize someone every week and for the past month she has done that.

One of the sweet Sister Missionaries that spent some time with us Monday. She showed me one of her drawings.

I must say one thing I really appreciate is our Church buildings back home. 

We have helped cleaned the building here, when it was our turn and it was different. We swept and moped the floors with black water. You never can get all the hair up off the floor. There isn't much more done other than that.

As the president has traveled around, he has noticed that one side of the mission that the church buildings are in bad shape. The president requested things to be fixed. He was ignored. The man who is the FM (repair man) says you can still feel the spirit there. About two weeks ago the president met with the boss from Manila and told him of his concerns.

This week as the president traveled, they said they could see that every church building was being worked on, from the grounds to the holes in the roof left from the typhoon in the fall. Many of the toilets were being replaced and cracked windows were being fixed as well as air conditioners. Some of our church buildings are just leased buildings but we still need to have them looking nice.

Ours is the white van. Not many can leave church until we move our van.

Do you recognize our Elder Corpuz there in the middle with the glasses? These five missionaries came in one Sunday night so they could take the Michigan test on Monday. (Grades their English for Collage). They were hungry after traveling 6 hours so Elder Corpuz brought them by. Of course we found some food, fed them and wished them luck on their test the next day.

As the Office Elders moved out they found so many treasures like this caibou horn. (Elder Rees is happy! He counts how many times he gets on the blog.)

At the Conference that we had with Elder Holland the area President, Brother Schmutz, spoke first. Brother Schmutz said that recently they were meeting with Elder Holland at the Cebu temple site. 

They were going to take pictures with all the missionaries in the area. As Elder Holland approached, Brother Schmutz put out his hand to shake hands with Elder Holland. Elder Holland slapped his hand away and gave him a great big hug.

As they stood there hugging, Brother Schmutz quietly whispered to Elder Holland, “You must be very tired”. At that point Elder Holland just let go and completely relaxed. Brother Schmutz said he had to quickly brace himself to support and hold Elder Holland up. Then Elder Holland breathlessly whispered back, “Yes I am!” 

For several seconds Brother Schmutz stood there and held Elder Holland up. Then Elder Holland straighten up and said, “Okay let’s go to work now!” 

This may give you and insight to how busy and worked these General Authorities are. 

I must confess that the Cebu temple sits atop a hill and Elder Holland had just come up the hill to meet everyone. Even so we do know they get worn out sometimes.

We made it to Pugudpud!

On the way to Pugudpud.

Stopped to Eat the Bergblick Restaurant. The owner is German and is married to a beautiful Fillipino woman. German, Filipino and American food.          

Wonderful food! 

 Bergblick means, "Mountain View" in German.

Lunch with our driver Steve and his son Tee.

Where we stayed!

Let's take a break and we will share with you something we think is interesting.              (at least to us)

You might remember that way back in the beginning when the president came many of the baptisms were children ages 8 to 11. We call these, ”Anchor Babies”. This shows up as great inactivity in the church because when the missionaries go there is no support and they usually lose these children. 

The president told the missionaries to focus on the families. Families have parents that are the support that a child will need. Sister Ramos is taking this to heart and baptizing adults. 

             And this is how you build branches and wards!

When the president came the average age of a person being baptized was 14. Now the average age is 21 and our baptisms haven’t gone down any.

Pugudpud means flower. When a couple gets married the girls family gives a dowry. One of the things the man does is build a home for them. This is one of the homes. It has Pugudpud flowers growing all over it. 

The flower is heart shaped.

Streets of Pugudpud….

Yep! 

Not much in Pudgudpud except for the beach! Yet it is a tourist attraction in the summer because of the "White Sand Beaches".

One neat thing was in last Zone Conference President told the missionaries to check and see if members have a record number. Often someone who was baptized didn’t get the paper work all done. (Lots of reasons, missionary transferred or missed placed it, lost in the paper work at the Mission Office).

If a person does not have their baptism recorded the president told the missionaries how to take care of that. It becomes an easy baptism and now the member can go to the temple because they have a record number.

Recycling and creative people:

Even here in Pugudpud people were using all their resources to beautify there homes.

Next day stopped to see the Windmills....

and of course the Souvenir Shops

Then off to the "Lighthouse".

We all got in free because the person in the yellow said his Grandmother was LDS. Our name tags were a dead give away!

A well with coins in it.  You can see our reflections taking the picture.

 Our Chaperones Tee and Shawn, the driver's sons.

 The view from the Lighthouse.

On the way home we stopped to see one of the worst jobs in the whole world. This would make anyone get an education!!!

Picture a warm place like this. This man's job is to make salt all day long.

These are the cooking pots.

 He must pack the 50 pound bags of salt rock from Australia, to the cooking pots and pour them in. He must keep the fire going and the ashes dumped.

 Stir and mix.

 And after 8 to 10 hours when it is all cooked he will fill the baskets with the cooked salt.

At one time we would look at how active someone was as how often they attended church. Now we look at what is happing in the home.

Keep those home fires burning! 

Love you all, The Sister Sisters