Week 13--September 20-26, 2015

 The September batch of missionaries who went home this week. They have all served faithfully for 18 or 24 months.

One of the departing missionaries, Elder Joshua Biggs,  worked with us in the office and trained us on some of our responsibilities. We are going to miss him. One of the activities for exit day is a testimony meeting where each of the missionaries has the opportunity to share his/her testimony with the group. It is very humbling to hear the powerful testimony each missionary shared. As we were driving home we marveled that we get to do this 10 more times before we go home.

We attended Stake Conference on Sunday, September 20. Elder Ardern, Philippines Area President, spoke. A couple of things he said really impressed us. He told about the disciples being on the sea and a storm came up. We all have storms in our lives when we have trials. The disciples were frightened and turned to the Savior to calm the sea. We can also turn to the Savior to quiet our storms and bring peace. He also spoke to the youth about the one great lie of Satan. He used the letters of the word one. He gave the youth examples for each situation.
O--Only time I'll do it won't hurt.
N--Nobody will know
E--Everybody is doing it

The matron of the Philippines Temple spoke. She told us that the Temple had just reopened after a six week closure. On Saturday morning, Sept. 19, at 5 AM there were 500 people waiting in line for the Temple to open so they could attend a session.

When a batch of missionaries go home, we get a new batch the next day plus transfers happen also. That can make for a very stressful couple of days. Monday is our code day. We usually arrive a little after 10 AM and leave at about 2:45 PM but not today. We had a lot to accomplish so we stayed until 7 PM.

Tom was hoping to go unscathed in the car while here. However, while returning from the bank and attempting a U-turn a motorcyclist that was counter flowing clipped his driver's side mirror. It didn't break the mirror but broke the lens cover of the turn signal mounted on the side mirror. He was in the left lane and making a legal U-turn, however the motorcyclist told him he couldn't make a U-turn from that lane. It was just trying to cover up for his illegal pass.

A new batch of missionaries arrived on Wednesday morning fresh from the Philippines MTC. Tom and Garnalee each had do a presentation to the missionaries. Tom's was on finances, and Garnalee's was on receiving and sending mail.

One of Garnalee's responsibilities now is to record the weekly baptisms. There were 41 baptisms last Saturday in our mission. This is going to be a big job as there are several things that have to be done with each baptism.

When we arrived home Wednesday evening there was a message from Jennifer that the Toyota had been wrecked. Lots of  damage and not driveable. It sounds like that insurance wants to total the car and pay her what it is worth. She will never be able to purchase a replacement car that will be as reliable as the Toyota for the insurance settlement.

Friday evening Tom received a phone call from President Bertin after he received a call from one of the new missionaries. The new missionary had spent 1400P of his 1500P support money the first day in the mission. He called to find out what he should do. He must not have listened very closely to Tom's presentation on budgeting. The President directed him to come and explain to Tom why he had been so foolish. Feeling sorry for the missionary, Tom went to the grocery store on Saturday and purchased peanut butter, a loaf of bread, and 1 1/2 kilos of rice. Hopefully that will tide him and his companion over until October 1 when they get their next support money.

Saturday was the Family Day Event for the Stake. We presented the medley of children's songs we have been practicing for the past several weeks that had dance steps with each song. We marched onto the stage like the Von Trapp Family Singers instep with Tom's whistle. It was a fun event but typical of Filipino schedules, one time is announced as when something will begin and when in actuality it begins much later.

Week 12--September 13-19, 2015

We had a Senior Couple outing on Wednesday, September 16. We traveled to Philippines Ocean Park located in Manila. We had a fun day viewing the exhibits and enjoying the bird, sea lion, and Symphony of Lights shows.

They had an enclosed area of Brahminy Kites. They are a coastal raptor found in the Philippines.

 Tom and the Brahminy Kite. I hope he doesn't end up with anything on his head.

 After going through the aquarium, Garnalee visited the fish spa. The fish nibbled on her toes, ankles, and legs. She said it felt like someone was tickling her toes.

There was a large jellyfish exhibit. This is an example of the Moon Jellyfish.










Tom went Home Teaching on Sunday with Brother and Sister David. They visited several homes and he helped give a Priesthood blessing to a sister who was sick.

Each Monday we call all the kids. Sometimes we catch each one and other times we talk to only a few. At least we are able to leave a message, and they know we are thinking about them. Tom started creating a book vault to put valuables in. He will use it at the training next week when he teaches the incoming missionaries about budgeting. It was created because their have been several break-ins at missionary apartments lately. We are looking for a way to help them keep their money safe. President and Sister Bertin said their son used a book vault when he served in Mexico several years ago.

Each week the missionaries go to a computer shop to send and receive emails from family and to submit their weekly letter to President Bertin. The letter is submitted through the Missionary Portal. Sometimes due to problems at the computer shops the missionaries can't get into the Portal. So then they have to send the letter in an email to President Bertin. When that happens, President Bertin forwards the emails to the office and Garnalee has to place each letter in the missionary's electronic folder. Last week there was an unusually high number of letters that had to be individually placed in folders. She later found out there was a Google update that caused some of the problems. Some of the problems come when there are two computer shops side by side, and they share the same hub.

We are fully immersed in Ward activities. The last week in September is Family Week in the Philippines. The Stake is doing an activity on the last Saturday, and each Ward has been assigned to do a presentation based on a family song.  Mimicking the Von Trapp, Elder Harrington blows a whistle while marching onto the stage with the "children."  Our Ward's assigned song is "The Family is of God" but are adding other songs to create a musical. Practices have made for longer days.

Elder Biggs, the mission secretary, and Elder Campbell, the financial secretary, both leave the office next week. Elder Biggs is going home and Elder Campbell will go back to the field. Their responsibilities are being turned over to us. So much of the week was spent working closely with them making sure we know and can do all of the tasks.

Tom had to present the financial report at the monthly planning office meeting on Friday. He tried to get out of it, but Elder Campbell wanted him to do it as it will be his responsibility from now on.

We finally received the shipment of pills and test strips that Jen and Chad sent on August 14. We thought that they might have been lost. They were sitting at the Post Office and no one had sent a card notifying us that the package had arrived. After Jen checked with USPS and found out the package had arrived had the Manila Central Processing Center on August 26, we decided to ask about the box at the Post Office.

Finally P-Day (Preparation Day) arrived but it turned out to be as busy as any other day. We had laundry to do, apartment to clean, and go grocery shopping. Tom got a haircut ($1.02) and made late additions to mail runs for Caloocan and Valenzuela. We went to our musical practice. Tom revamped the financial presentation that the he will be giving on Wednesday and sent it President Bertin to put on his computer.

Week 11--September 6-12, 2015

 Part of Tom's responsibilities will be to give a presentation on finances and budgeting to the arriving missionaries. He wanted to use a program from Dave Ramsey where you have an envelope for each expense category. You put your budgeted amount in each envelope and take money out as you need it. When the envelope is empty then you can't spend any more money from that category. Hopefully, it will help the missionaries learn to budget their money.

 We had Xavier and the missionaries to dinner on Sunday. Left to right: Xavier Henry Zamora, Sister Pader, Sister Talalima, Sister Harrington, Elder Harrington. Picture taken in the atrium area of the Redwood Apartments where we live.

 When we arrived in Bustos on Saturday the Jones took us for tour of the area. Bustos is a rural, agricultural area in the Philippines north of Quezon City. This man was leading his batangas (cattle breed closely related to Brahmas) down the road and stopped to let us take a picture.

 Instead of rolling fields of grain there are fields of rice. A beautiful picture.

 Is an-n-n-n-y body home? The goat was on the front porch of this house and appeared to live right there as there were goat droppings all over the landing.

We stopped at one house that had several bacas staked beside his house. He was kind enough to let us take a picture. There was a mother with her new baby. Tom started to walk toward the mother and she quickly let him know to stay away from her baby.

 This carabao is a domestic water buffalo found in the Philippines. The rope is put through the nostrils of the carabao so it can be controlled by the owner.

This is the home of two families in the Bustos branch surrounded by rice fields. The two families that live here planted the rice and later will harvest it.  It is ninety days from planting to harvest. A very humble home.

The two families who live in the home above. They share common outside walls with a wall separating the two homes. There are twelve people who live in the two homes. They get to Church by all of them loading on to the trike that is owned by one of the families. The man on the right and his two children were there visiting when we arrived.

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As we drove around we saw many bacas in the fields. The white birds are cattle egrets which eats the ticks and flies off the batangas.

We stopped at Jollibee for dinner. A first for us since arriving here. Jollibee is a Filipino multinational chain of fast food restaurants headquartered in Pasig, Metro Manila and is popular here in the Philippines. They serve spaghetti with hot dogs that is a typical Filipino dish. You can also have chicken with rice but they do serve hamburgers with fries.
Left to right: Sister Jones, Sister Harrington, Elder Harrington, and Elder Jones. By the way: Elder Jones grew up in Blackfoot.

A picture of us with Jollibee.

Saturday evening we helped with a Family History youth activity. There about 15 youth plus several leaders. We helped them sign up for Family Search accounts. It was a very successful evening.

There are some pots with soil on our balcony so Tom has decided to try his hand at gardening. On Monday, he planted cucumber seeds and by Friday they had already come through the soil. This picture was taken on Sunday. They got a great start, but there is so little sunlight on them each day we still don't know how they'll do.





Monday, Sept. 7, we walked to SM Mall to purchase a few things at the grocery store. There was Christmas music playing. Christmas here goes on for four months. Tom visited with President Bertin and he has decided that he is not going to have Tom not do all the tasks he had originally been assigned. Tom is going to focus on finances and make sure he knows all the tasks that are involved there. In the evening, Tom decided to go back to the office to finish printing the envelopes Sister Bertin uses for going home medicine for the missionaries. The medicine is a precautionary measure against any internal parasites that the missionaries may have picked up while serving here. The office is only about three miles away but due to the heavy rain and flooding the traffic was especially dense and slow and it took him over an hour to get there.

Tuesday we attended the Fairview Zone Interviews meeting. We discovered that you can't rely on "Sister" Google to give you the correct directions. President and Sister Bertin each gave a short message to all the missionaries and then he started the interviews. While the interviews were going on  the APs, Zone Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders each conducted a workshop.  It is amazing to watch these 19-21 year old missionaries teach. The future of the Church is good hands. After returning to the office, Garnalee received more training on the baptism records. It is important to have several checks to make sure that each baptism is turned in and recorded. An interesting side note: While reviewing missionary orders Tom ran across a name tag for "Sister" Algar. The only missionary we know with the name of Algar is an Elder who is an AP to President Bertin. When asked him if there had been a mistake in the order he quickly said, "No, it was to be Christmas gift for his younger sister." When Elder Algar's older brother returned home from his mission he gave his name tag to Elder Algar hoping to motivate him to go on a mission. It worked! What a great idea.

Wednesday, was another day Garnalee spent working on baptism records. Tom spent most of his day working with Elder Campbell on receipts and reimbursements.

Tom had some follow-up financial training with the Area Office Financial Director through Web-Ex on Thursday.

Friday Tom found a new favorite place to buy chicken. It is called "Chooks To Go" that sells a whole rotisserie chicken for P210 which is $4.48.  We traded cars with the Broadheads, who were coding today, so they could take some fans to the repair shop. Tom worked on his first mail run order with Elder Biggs. After we arrived home we walked to the mall to buy some things. When we came out of the store there was a heavy down pour. We decided to go see "Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials." We had recently watched the "Maze Runner" on TV and thought the sequel would be good.

We drove to Bustos on Saturday to do a Family History activity with the youth of the Bustos Branch. Again we discovered that "Sister" Google's directions are not the best. We drove along on a narrow road at a turtle's speed for an hour before we got to the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX).  It took us two hours to go 35 miles. We followed the directions Sister Jones had emailed to us after we got on the Expressway and the trip went much smoother and faster. We followed Elder Jones' directions back home. All went well until we missed a critical off ramp for Mindanao Street. In the US when you miss an off ramp you simply get off at the next off ramp, cross over, and get back on going in the opposite direction. Not so in the Philippines. Off ramps are infrequent  and overpasses almost nonexistent. So the adventure began. It was dark and raining hard and we both got disoriented. A trip that should have taken under two hours took three. Final analysis, our day was both wonderful and dreadful!

Week 10--August 30-September 5, 2015

We saw these peddler carts several days this week as we drove to the office.  

 A person can buy just about anything off of the cart.

All of the senior couples have arrived. Front row--Elder Harrington, Sister Harrington, President Bertin, Sister Bertin, Sister Ence, and Elder Ence. 2nd row--Sister Jones, Sister Swift, Sister Broadhead, Sister Rogers, and Sister Brady. 3rd Row--Elder Jones, Elder Swift, Elder Broadhead, Elder Rogers, and Elder Brady. We had gathered to wish the Ences good-bye as they head back to St. George, Utah.

 We had a wonderful dinner prepared by Sister Cherry on Wednesday, September 2.  Seated are L-to-R: Sister Brady, Elder Brady, Sister Bertin, President Bertin, Elder Ence, and Sister Ence. The Ences chose the menu of Sweet and Sour Chicken over rice, tossed salad, breaded shrimp, homemade rolls, and carrot cake.

 Sister Jones, Elder Jones. Elder Swift, Elder Rogers, Sister Rogers, Elder Harrington, Sister Harrington, Sister Broadhead, and Elder Broadhead.

Elder Ence has been in charge of the apartments and any repairs that needed to be done. In the Philippines a person can't find what might be needed and is easily available in the United States so you have to improvise. Elder Jones created a "charm" necklace with many of the pieces that Elder Ence might us, i.e. a door knob, a strike plate, a piece of sandpaper, a washer.

 Departing gift of aprons for the Ences.

Baptism day for Xavier Henry Lopez Zamora with Sister Pader, Elder Harrington, and Sister Talalima. 

The La Mesa Ward was very supportive of Xavier and arrived in force on his special day. After the baptism they provided a light dinner of pancit bihon and chocolate cake.

One of Tom's responsibilities is to sign lease agreements with landlords. He is going over the contract with a new landlord.


















On Sunday, August 30, Garnalee had a fun time teaching the Primary children the song, "Keep the Commandments." She doesn't think it was new to them because they started singing right along. She found a fun children's handout of the 10 Commandments on-line and used it to teach a mini lesson to the children to go along with the song. Each child was given the handout and encouraged to take it home and teach their families about the 10 Commandments in Family Home Evening.

Garnalee was asked to teach the Relief Society lesson next Sunday. "The topic is "The Role of the Book of Mormon" from "Preach My Gospel." Tom and Garnalee spent Family Home Evening on August 31 reading through the chapter. Part of Tom's assignment is to compile the yearly mission history. An important part of that history is the arriving and exiting of missionaries. In the past a chart has been used to record all of those names. Tom worked for several hours trying to duplicate the chart in Microsoft Word. He finally gave up and switched to Excel which works much easier.

Garnalee is going to use an idea she got from the MTC which is a jar with a treat in it. The jar says, "A Sweet Treat for a Tender Mercy" Building Faith. I want the missionaries to start thinking about the blessings they receive from the Lord. Many time those blessings are small and go unnoticed.

Thursday, September 3, was Mission Leadership Council. Part of the meeting is spent discussing Zone Key Indicators which is a short 2-page report with charts and graphs for each zone that Tom will be responsible for producing each month for the meeting. Garnalee spent the day sending out information to the November batch of exiting missionaries.

Garnalee thought Friday would be an easy day but she was wrong. She spent the day burning Christmas CDs for the missionaries to use in teaching lessons to investigators and less active families. While the CDs were burning she worked on entering convert baptism information.  At the same time  Tom went to the bank with Elder Biggs and Elder Campbell to learn the procedure for getting quarterly rent checks for the 71 apartments our mission has rented for the missionaries.  Tom bought some seeds to plant in the planters that are on our deck. We'll see if they do anything.

Saturday, September 5, we went to S&R to purchase groceries with the Ences and Broadheads. As we traveled along we all laughed and joked about the traffic and the drivers in the Philippines. If you don't laugh and joke it is easy to get frustrated.