Week 35--February 21-27, 2016

Tom getting a Tagalog lesson from Elder Pedroza while Elder Pedroza is waiting for his interview with President Bertin.

After transfers happen every six weeks the missionaries either have Zone Conferences or Zone Interviews. This transfer is zone interviews, and President and Sister Bertin have been busy doing the interviews. They each spend 15 minutes with each missionary. Sister Bertin talks to them about how their language study is going. The foreigners spend time each day studying Tagalog and the Filipinos studying English. In the interview the missionaries are asked to prepare something to share with President Bertin. This time is was a favorite scripture on repentance. President and Sister Bertin do two or three zones a week and it takes the full six weeks between transfers to interview all 224 missionaries. They do the last two zones next week and then it is transfers again.

Tom is so faithful in teaching the Sunday School lesson . He gets up each Sunday at 5 AM to prepare. His thought this week was, "What if every one came to class prepared to teach the lesson? How much more we would learn!" That is exactly what happened to Tom this week. We had Ward Conference and the Stake Sunday School wanted to teach the lesson. Tom had prepared to teach and he got a lot more our of the lesson as a participant.

The only time we have had a Ward Choir was for Ward Conference. Tom and I participated. Tom has a great voice, Garnalee is just there to add support. We prepared for a month to sing two songs. The focus of the Ward Conference was from D&C 6:36: "Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not." One of the songs the choir sang was Hymn 128 "When Faith Endures."

Tom has been working all week long on missionary apartments. Second quarter checks are coming up soon, so next planning meeting we will talk about which apartments to keep and which ones to close. We are currently leasing 68 apartments for 224 missionaries.

A recent change in our missionary badge is that the missionaries can now order magnetic badges and badges with the mission name. That has prompted a flurry of requests which Garnalee has to process and send to the Area Office.She has processed a request every week for the past month with most missionaries ordering more that one badge. Usually she only does one order a month.

Tom can get the car hand washed and vacuumed for 80 pesos plus a 20 peso tip for 100 pesos or $2.13. He balks as getting the car washed which really needs to be done a couple of times a month because of the pollution.

Tom and I both read a book called "The Book Thief" while in Hong Kong. It was made into a movie. Sister Bertin had the DVD that we borrowed and watched Friday evening. It is a great story of a family in Berlin who was caught up the movement of Hitler. To rid the country of outside ideas Hitler had all the books burned. The story centers on a young girl and her desire to read.

Saturday, after working at the office for several hours on Aetna claims, we went to the new movie "Gods of Egypt." The moral of that movie was good wins our over evil and you can't buy your way into heaven.

Week 34--February 14-20, 2016

 Friday, February 19, was a special day for our mission. President Russell M. Nelson, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, was in the Philippines. Our mission was chosen to have a meeting with him and to be taught.  President and Sister Bertin, Elder and Sister Haynie (second counselor in the Area Presidency) and President and Sister Nelson all spoke. The highlight of the meeting was the Apostolic blessing given by President Nelson to all the missionaries. President Nelson took time out of his busy schedule to shake hands with all 224 missionaries. President Nelson is 91 years old and you never guess him to be that old. His scriptures were a mini Quad that he read from without glasses and was quickly able to turn to the verses he wanted to share.
 

One of the things we enjoy here is the Pandasal that we can purchase each morning fresh from the oven. We watched this man on Saturday evening preparing Pandasal for the next morning. Hot pandasal is available from 4-9 AM only. We buy 10 of them for PHP20 which comes out to be 4 cents each.





The beginning of the week was stressful for Tom. With it being Presidents' Day in the US the support didn't come as usual on the 15th of the month. On the 16th, which is actual support day,  the missionaries were trying to get support but none was available. The problem was Bank of America had had a major glitch in their system and none of the missionaries throughout the world could get support. Tom was told that hopefully the problem would be fixed and support would be available on the the 17th. Many of the missionaries were out of funds and wondering what hey should do.  It was a good lesson for the missionaries to have the emergency fund they are encouraged to have. So now maybe those who don't have an emergency fund will start building one.

We went to dinner with the Bertins on Saturday to a local restaurant that serves shawarma Filipino style. Shawarma is meat that has been slow cooked on a rotisserie. They offered pork, beef, or chicken in a tortilla wrap or on a platter. We chose to have wraps and ordered one of each that we shared. It was very tasty, and we knew we would go back another time. 

Week 33--February 7-13, 2016

 Friday, February 12, we had a Senior Couple outing to Wawa Dam. The dam was built in 1909 to provide for the water needs of Manila but was later abandoned when a new dam was built. Part of our activity was a photo contest with categories for Abstract, Bark, Aerophytes and Epiphytes, Close-up, Gnarly, Environmental Trash, and black and White.

This shows the gorge where the dam is located.

The size of the boulders in the water was amazing. They were the size of cars and houses. We wondered how the clothes hanging to the left in the picture on a bamboo stick were placed there as there is a shear drop off. In the center of the picture is a girl who is placing clothes on the rocks to dry. She came over to the drop off and started climbing like a mountain goat. She would go from hand hold area to hang hold area and scaled the rocks in no time. We soon knew how the clothes were hung there.

 The bamboo huts were built on stilts over the shear cliffs. Even though they were very humble homes, they were very clean.

 Another picture of the boulders in the water.

The waterfall at the dam. There were young people swimming and playing at the base of the falls. There were rows of huts people could sit in to enjoy the cool water on a hot day. Not sure how a person would get to the huts but the locals would know.

 Garnalee taking a short rest along the trail.

 We regularly had to step aside to make way for runners who were bringing fresh fruit down from the mountains to the market for sale. The man on the upper left is carrying a load of bananas. The young man on the left, here, is carrying Duran. They had a strap that went around the lower part of the sack. The strap was then placed around their forward. There a pillow between their back and the bag of produce. They were not walking with their but moving at trot.

 These men are building a bamboo platform right in the water that will support a floating cottage like the one to the right of them.

 Tom stopped for a picture along the trail. All of the homes in this area were made of bamboo.

 The walls of the gorge were shear faces. I'm sure rock climbing would be popular here if they were covered with vegetation.

Garnalee stops on the bridge with the canyon behind.

 Another picture of the huge boulders in the river.

Bamboo homes built into the cervice of the canyon wall. There are three levels to the home.

 Bamboo bridges were constructed at various points along the river so that a person could cross to the various islands in the river. Tom posed for a picture here.

Garnalee posing on the bridge that we both crossed later to go to the island in the background.







On Sunday, February 7, we had the sister missionaries who serve in the La Mesa Ward with us over for dinner. Sister Muller is from Kiribati and Sister De Leon is from Bicol, Philippines. Sister De Leon is a VISA waiter going to the Hawaii Honolulu Mission where her sister just finished serving. Garnalee served lasagna but they especially liked the hot Lava Cake that was made in the slow cooker and served with ice cream.

Monday, February 8, is Kung Hei Fat Choi--Happy New Year in Chinese. Our Family Home Evening was to watch a session from Roots Tech 2016. They had talked about leaving stories for your posterity. We learned through Facebook that Denver was the Super Bowl Champions handily beating the Carolina Panthers 24-10. We didn't see any of the game but were delighted to hear that Denver won. Go Broncos!

Tom has spent days working in the office. Then after dinner and relaxing a little, he spends a couple of hours working on the mission history not going to bed until around 11 PM.

Wednesday for Tom was going to Malolos with Elder Broadhead to sign a contract with a new landlord and helping the Zone Leaders move into a their new apartment. He also went to look at another apartment in the Malolos area for another set of elders and rented it also. President Bertin wants the elders living in the area they are assigned to proselyte so they don't have to spend so much time traveling. Garnalee spent the day in the office by herself working away on various projects including starting one for Tom of listing all the apartments, the landlord for each, the amount of rent paid annually, when the lease was originaally signed, and the start and ending dates for the current leases. She only got about a third of them done. Work for another day.

We celebrated Valentine's Day on Saturday night. We had a great dinner of grilled chicken kebobs, grilled blue marlin, chop suey, and rice. Then Cold Stone Creamery for dessert.

Week 32--January 31-February 6, 2016 

 Each day we drive by this banana tree.

When Tom was an elementary school student he was taught that the fingers of the banana plant grow up. He thought,  that is absurd! The fingers of a plant grow down. Here is proof that the fingers do grow up.They defy gravity. That's what living in the tropics does for you. Let's you see bananas growing on the tree in February.




As each week begins, Garnalee wonders how she is  going to accomplish all that needs to be done. Magically a missionary is at the office that she has to provide with a small job. All that needs to be done is accomplished. However, she knows that it is not magic but the hand of the Lord providing help to accomplish His work.

Tom has spent a lot of time this week working on the mission history which due by February 10th. He is having to work on it in the evening, at home, after a full day at the office. It has been a big job but it is looking great.

President Bertin was crashed into by a jeepney with no brakes and bald tires on Thursday, February 4. In the Philippines, it seems there is no punishment for causing an accident as there was no ticket or fine for the jeepney driver. The President will not have the use of his car for at least two weeks.








We spent part of Thursday driving to Malolos to look at an apartment for the Zone Leaders. We thought it was perfect, so Tom filled out the lease and paid the landlord PHP6000. President thought it was too big so we are back to looking for something smaller. Tom needs to get the PHP6000 back from the landlord. Lesson learned--he won't commit to an apartment until the President has seen it and approves.

This Sister Cherry making cookies for the missionaries. She makes the best pancit that we have tasted in the Philippines. Tom told her that if she ever comes to the US and opens a restaurant he would be her best customer. He also tole her that she call her new restaurant "Holy Carabao!" (rather than Holy Cow).