Christmas in the Philippines

Christmas Season in the Philippines actually started back in September when they started putting up decorations and playing Christmas music in the Mall.  We have listened to Christmas music for four months now.  There are some lights up around the city.  Below is a picture of one of the lights with the words "Maligayang Pasko," Merry Christmas in Tagalog:

We were able to purchase a wood carved Nativity Set from a Filipino wood carver.  It is unique because it has an animal that is found in the Philippines, a carabao.  It is a cross between a cow and a water buffalo.  We have seen them out in the countryside.  The set also has the wise men bringing gifts of mangos, bananas, and a sack of rice, very typical foods here.  The stable is carved to look like the bamboo huts that can be found around the Philippines.  I love the coconut tree.

 



 



On Christmas Eve we invited the missionaries in our district to come over to our apartment for dinner.  We made our traditional waffles and ham dinner.  We then had the missionaries share some of their family Christmas traditions with us.  We had four American missionaries and four Filipinos.  The Filipino missionaries told us about a special feast they have after midnight on Christmas Eve.  It is called "Noche Buena."  Very few Filiinos include Santa Claus in their celebration.  We shared more of the Jenson Family traditions by reading, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "Cajun Night Before Christmas."  We then read the real Christmas story from the scriptures.  We enjoyed being able to share our Christmas Eve with these fine young men.  (See below)

 

 

We were even able to have Christmas music and a  fire via you-tube on the internet.  Our air conditioner was also running, no freezing temps in this part of the world.

 

 

We missed being with our family, but we really enjoyed being able to Skype with them and actually see them.  It was especially nice to see our grandchildren and watch them open some presents.  It gave us a chance to share some of Christmas with them from far, far away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 





 





A Description of What We Do

Our mission here in the Philippines is to help young members of our church prepare for their future. We teach a class called "Planning For Success." This class helps them make plans for their future by having them create a work plan, an education plan, and a financial plan. We just started teaching this class to some potential students. After they take the class they can apply for a Perpetual Education Fund loan from the church. The Perpetual Education Fund (PEF) has been established to provide worthy young adults of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with the support and resources necessary to improve their lives through education and better employment to better serve their family, the Church, and their community. We help them with the application process as well.


Getting ready to teach

We also keep track of the students who are in our assigned area. We try to contact them each month by texting them or sending them messages on Facebook. We had never really sent texts very much until we came to the Philippines. Now we text every day. That is one of the preferred methods of communication here. We also learned recently that most of our students are on Facebook and use it regularly. So we are now contacting them via Facebook and have more than 200 Filipino Facebook friends. One other way that we contact them is meeting with them individually. Every Sunday we go to church at different meetinghouses and meet with PEF participants. Some of them are current students and others have graduated. We get to ask them about school or their jobs and we encourage them in any way we can. It is the most fun part of our assignment! We have now met personally with over 100 participants.

Anna and one of our participants

 

Another part of our assignment is to train PEF Specialists.  These Specialists are called to work with students who live in their Wards (Individual Congregations) and Stakes (Groups of Wards).   We train them on how to teach the "Planning for Success" class and how to help students with their loans.  We also meet with leaders in the Wards and Stakes to help them get Specialists called and to update them on how the PEF participants in their Wards or Stakes are doing.

 

We have met so many wonderful people here.  They are always happy to meet us and we shake hands with every one of them.  We love meeting the little children in the congregations.  They seem to think that it is a great honor to shake our hands.  And we love it!

 

To close our blog today I am including a beautiful sunset picture taken from our apartment looking out on Manila Bay.  We have just recently been able to see the sun actually sink into the water.  It was too cloudy when we first got here, and now that the rainy season is over we are delighted by the sunsets.

 



                                                                                         Breathtaking!





The American Cemetery

The Entrance

We visited the American Cemetery here in Manila about two weeks ago. It is on a hill just south of Makati. The grounds are very well kept and there are 17,000 crosses representing the Americans and Filipinos who gave their lives defending our freedoms during World War II in the Philippines. Their names are inscribed on the walls of the monument. There are also historical descriptions of the American involvement during the war in the Philippines. Here are a few pictures:



Supply Routes Description

The Crosses

Typhoon Yolanda

Typhoon Yolanda had very little effect on Manila, but major damage in the islands about 300 to 400 miles south of Manila.  Relief efforts are on-going here in Manila by many different groups.  The church members in Manila have been part of those efforts.  Below are pictures of the food bags and hygiene kits that have been assembled at a church building in Quezon City:



Assembly line for loading

At our meetings on Wednesday Elder Pajaro, an Area Seventy, told us about what has been happening with locating all of the missionaries in the typhoon damaged areas. We heard some stories this morning about how the missionaries (the 22 missing ones) were located and were able to get on flights back to Manila. A priesthood leader who had been helping care for 3,000 members who were taking refuge in a church building went out and located the missionaries. He did this after losing his home and all of his possessions. The missionaries were able to get to the airport in Tacloban by walking more than 30 kilometers. Even though they had electronic tickets they were not able to get on their flights in all the confusion. A US marine saw the missionaries at the airport and asked how he could help. He was a member, Brother Clark. He was able to get them on flights to Manila. He later told the leaders there that he was wondering why he was here, but he knew after he was able to help the missionaries.



Assembly Line down the stairs

There are 400 missionaries who have been evacuated from the storm damaged mission areas to the Mission Training Center here in Metro Manila. You have probably seen pictures of the devastation. We have heard several more stories about the survival of missionaries during the storm. Two missionaries were in their apartment and tied their mattresses together to cover themselves because they were worried about the winds. Water started coming into their apartment. A little later the ceiling in their kitchen fell down.

They decided to get under the dining table because they wanted to be safer. Under the table they were praying and the water kept rising. It was up to their chests. After their prayers they noticed that a picture of Christ on the wall fell down. It floated over to them. They took this as a sign that they were being watched over and everything would be alright. They spent about 2 hours under the table.

Two other Elders were in their apartment. They also had water coming into their house. It kept rising and they thought that maybe they should get out. When they tried to get out of the door they found they could not get out because of a metal gate covering their door and because of the water pressing against it. Now they had to figure out how to get higher out of the water. They broke through the ceiling and climbed into the rafters. The water kept rising. They eventually broke a hole through the roof and got out on the roof. They stayed up on the roof for 3 hours until the water started going down.

 

 

Relief Supplies

 

It is wonderful to see all of the people who are coming together to help their devastated countrymen.  The missionaries who were in the heaviest storm damaged areas are now being reassigned to other areas here in the Philippines.  Others are helping with relief efforts in their areas of assignment.





We really appreciate the opportunity we have of being here to serve and witness this great out-pouring of love.

 

 

Scenes Around Manila

Today (Monday, October 15th) we decided to have a P-day because the schools are closed in Manila and there is a big meeting for the Iglesia Ni Cristo in the area by the Institute building. We were able to find out about it by checking our Twitter account on my phone. We get updates of traffic and weather reports for Manila. That saved us from being stuck in a bunch of traffic.

We took a cab to the Intramuros area of Manila. It is the old walled city that was built by the Spanish back in the late 1500s. We walked around and saw the old churches, San Augustin and the Manila Cathedral. The Manila Cathedral was being repaired, so we were not able to go inside. We also saw a building built by the Spanish as a Customs House that was destroyed by bombing during World War II. The outside wall is still standing, but the roof is gone. There were buses parked all around this building with signs on them saying Iglesia Ni Cristo Evangelical Mission. We thought we had escaped the big activity, but ended up being in the middle of it. We walked over to the Pasig River and watched as two men paddled small crafts that looked like small rafts. We stopped at Jollibee

One of the entrances to Intramuros.

After getting refreshed, we walked to Fort Santiago. The Spanish built it a long time ago. It was the place where Jose Rizal was imprisoned for causing an uprising against the Spanish. There were some artifacts displayed there about Jose Rizal. He was later hanged in what is known as Rizal Park today. He is considered the Father of the Philippines independence. The Fort was nice to visit and the grounds are very well kept.

 

Entrance to Fort Santiago.

 

 

When we finished there we walked out of the fort and were asked if we wanted to buy hats. I was all for the idea because the sun was beating down on us. Dale didn't really want one, but the vendor insisted he try it on.  We then of course bought two hats.
 

Aren't we a pair!

We continued our walk and saw more of the wall around the city. We hoped we could go out a gate there, but it led to a golf course and was off limits. We walked on top of the wall back in the direction of our apartment and found another exit to get out of Intramuros. We then continued walking toward the Ocean Park and saw that there was an aquarium there. We were pretty hot and tired of walking by then and decided to take a cab back to our apartment. It was nice to get out and actually see more of the city.

While walking in Intramuros we came upon a rooster who had a rope attached to his leg.  We think he was a fighting rooster.  Here he is:

 

We got up today (Saturday,Oct. 19th) and went for a run along the bay and down by the Cultural Center of the Philippines. There were lots of people out early (7:00 am). We had to dodge people as we ran down the sidewalks. There are always so many vendors with their carts on the sidewalks. During the run we went up the ramp in front of the Cultural Center which we had seen other joggers doing. It took us about 40 minutes and it wasn't as hot going early in the day. We came back to the apartment and I did some cleaning and washing. I also went into the mall and bought some candy and little bags so we can give Halloween candy to the Primary in our ward. I decorated the bags by drawing jack-o-lanterns and writing "Happy Halloween" on them. I don't know if the children here do anything for Halloween, but they do sell costumes and decorations here. I sent a text to the Bishop to make sure it was okay to give them candy at church. He said we could give it to them during Primary. Dale and I will be visiting some other Wards the Sunday before Halloween, so I will have to give the bags to the missionaries to distribute for us.

 

 

 Here are some of the candy bags along with cookies I made for the missionaries.

 

 



 

 Here's a picture of our apartment building from the Yacht Club. 

Our building is in the middle in the background.

 

 

This afternoon (Wednesday, October 23rd) at the office a man and his daughter showed up. They had come to Manila to go to the doctor because the daughter has some sort of eye problem. The man told us that he was willing to give one of his eyes to his daughter so she could see better. That really floored me. I could hardly believe that he would be willing to do that. They showed up at the church building looking for someone to give them blessings. Dale went out to find someone to help him. While he was gone I talked to the father some more and found out that they didn't have money for food and would be getting on a boat to take them back to Bicol at 4:00. Dale couldn't find anyone to assist so he came back and did the blessings himself without consecrated oil. He first blessed the father and then had the father help him bless the daughter. After they finished the father mentioned again how their stomachs hurt. I whispered to Dale that we needed to give them some money. Dale got out 200 pesos to give them for food. I thought that we should give them a little more, so I got out another 250 pesos. The father looked at Dale kind of asking if it was okay for me to give him some more money. I told him that it was fine, we have enough to share. We wished them well. I hope that they will be okay getting back home and also in arranging for the surgery they need. I felt so sorry for them and also awed by the father's willingness to give his daughter one of his eyes.

 

 Another view of Manila from the Yacht Club.





 

 



Our District

We have been meeting every Tuesday with the young missionaries in our district.  Here's a picture of them from September 24th before some of the them transferred out.

We found out who was being transferred and what changes were coming to the District. More missionaries are arriving into the mission field and the District is being divided. There were 2 Districts in the Zone and now there will be 3. Another set of Sister Missionaries is being assigned to the Manila 2nd Ward where there had been just one set of Elders. Two others are being transferred along with Elder Tofi but Elder Bahan is staying. Elder Tofi is being transferred to Tondo, which is the area that we got lost in a couple of weeks ago. We joked with him about how bad the area is and told him that Senior Couples are not even supposed to go to Tondo. We also joked with Elder Bahan when he arrived saying that he may stay in this one area his whole mission and could be in the Ward longer than we will be.

 

On Saturday, October 5th, we went with the missionaries, new members, and investigators to the Manila Temple to tour the temple grounds.  We had to meet at the chapel before 6:00 AM, but ended up waiting for everyone to arrive.  We took an investigator and two sister missionaries in our car and drove to the temple.  The others rode in jeepneys.  It was a beautiful day.  Here is a picture of the temple:

 

 

 



The Temple grounds were crowded with investigators, less actives and Missionaries from the entire Mission along with the normal Saturday crowd of Church members. It was great. People everywhere feeling the Spirit and going to the Temple.

This is a picture of Jewel and Marie Estrada and their mother.

 (They are my Filipino adopted granddaughters.)

 

After we arrived at the temple, I spent some time with Sister Estrada's children entertaining them while we waited for our turn for the Temple Tour. Her youngest daughter, Marie, asked her mother if I was nice. When her mother said yes, she became my best friend. Marie doesn't speak any English, but somehow we communicate with each other. While we waited in the temple annex, I got out our tablet and let her and her siblings play the Jewel game.  They couldn't get enough of it.

When it came time to go back to Manila, Marie insisted that she wanted to ride with me in our car. I'm not sure her mother wanted to let her do that. I finally talked to her mother and asked if Marie could ride with us. She gave her okay, so Marie was very happy.



 

 

 Merry Christmas from the Philippines!

 

Christmas comes to the Philippines starting in September.  We got a "Merry Christmas" message from the Zone Leaders starting on September 1st.  The malls have started playing Christmas songs now too.  We thought Christmas came early in the U.S., but the Filipinos have us beat.

 

 

We see vendors along the streets every day selling lots of things.  One thing they sell are these carved pineapples.  They carve and sell them all day long.  We finally bought one when we were on a very narrow street and it was easy to stop and purchase it.  We didn't eat it right away because we wanted to take it home and rinse it off first.  We are always warned about not buying food from street vendors because you don't know how it has been treated.

The Extremes

We went to the Mission Home for the first time on September 12th. It was in a beautiful neighborhood. We had never seen anything like it in Manila. Wide streets, no jeepneys, tricycles, bicycles or even beggars. Trees lined the streets and you would have thought that you were in a nice subdivision in Florida. A gated community with walls and armed guards. The Mission Home was very nice! The dinner was great. Steak and baked potatoes. The first time I had steak or potatoes since we arrived here. I think that I would feel a little differently about Manila if I lived in a place like this.

 

The Mission Home

 

Here is the famous and ultra big Mall of Asia:



 

The Mall of Asia

Big Ferris Wheel at Mall of Asia

We drove through a market in an exceptionally poor area, exceptionally poor even for Manila, right on the edge of their largest and most famous slum called the Tondo area. Not quite like we planned but it was interesting. Raw, rotten, stinking meat on tables for sale. Naked children running through the street and lots and lots of people. Anna tried rolling down the window to take a few pictures but the smell was so bad that she gave up. After about 30 minutes we finally reached the other side of the market. We were lucky that it was mid afternoon or we might not have been able to get through as quickly.

When we came out the other side the road we wanted was elevated and we did not know how to get on it. All of the traffic was turning right even though we wanted to go left. This is not too unusual here because often they make you go the wrong direction only to have you take a U-turn later. We are always having to make a U-turn to go somewhere. I started to go right but then Anna saw an opening to the left and thought we could make it through and take a short cut. It worked very well except for one thing it was illegal and there were policemen directing traffic right there. They signaled me to pull over and I did. I was wondering what was going to happen as they walked over to the car. They asked me for my Drivers License and I told them that we were having a hard time and that we had been lost. They didn't seem to care until one looked down and saw my badge. He said, "Are you Missionaries?" and I said, 'Yes, we are." He started to give my license back and said, "Then you can go." The other one asked where we were going and then gave us directions, I gave him a P100 tip which was only about 50 cents. He was pleased. He then stopped the traffic so we could go. Sometimes it is very good to be a Missionary. .



The Tondo Area

In the Philippines we cannot drink the water that comes out of the faucet.  We get water delivered to us in big blue containers and we also have a water filter on our faucet in the kitchen. See below:

Our water sources.

(The tea kettle is for hot water.)

 



Sign in the Institute rest room.

 







We drove down to Cavite on the Cavitex Expressway.  We had to pay tolls, but it was worth it.  The road was a good one.  I was confused about what road we were on after exiting the expressway and we didn't turn the right direction in Cavite to be able to find the Stake center.  We ended up driving all the way to Dasmarinas, which wasn't part of the plan today.  We had wanted to go to Naic, further south along the coast.  Oops!  Well this wasn't our first time to get lost in this country and it will probably not be our last.  We stopped at two different malls trying to get a map of Cavite, but they didn't have any.  We managed to find our way up to Imus and drove around until we were able to find the Bacoor Stake Center.  It was a very nice building on a fairly large piece of property for here.  After that we drove back up the Cavitex to Paranaque.  It wasn't easy, but we did locate the Paranaque Stake Center.  Brother Mascardo, the institute director for four of the stakes in the Manila Mission, was having a meeting there.  We were able to get information about the Bishops of the wards in Paranaque Stake.  That will be very helpful for planning our visits there.  Brother Mascardo told us what we did wrong in trying to locate the Cavite building.  We also got a suggestion on how to get to the Paranaque building a little easier next time.  I think it is good for us to do some exploring to find these places before we need to go there.

Houses along the water in Cavite area.

 

 

Sunday we went to the Pina Ward in the Manila Stake for Sacrament Meeting and to meet with some of the PEF participants.  The Sacrament Meeting was the Primary Program.  It was great.  The children sang and talked in English.  It was interesting to hear them with their accents.  They did a good job.  The Filipinos typically do not watch their children very closely during the meetings and often there are small children walking through the aisles and all around the chapel.  They are normally not very noisy but it is a little different.  All of the Primary Children were seated on the stand at the start of the meetings with no adults except the sister playing the Piano.  They gradually got more antsy as the program went on until many of them were moving about and making noise.  The Bishopric counselor and the Bishop tried to restore some order several times but had limited success.  In spite of this the program was great and you could tell that they had been practicing and working on it for some time.  Just imagine if our children back home had to do the program in Tagalog with no Teachers or Leaders on the stand with them.   After the meeting I told the Bishop that I had really enjoyed the program and was impressed that the children knew their parts and did them in English.  He was so glad he said that he had been praying on the stand that we would feel the spirit and enjoy the meeting.  He wanted to know how I liked their singing.  I told him it was great.  They love to sing here.  He thanked us for coming.  They always want to be sure that we are happy.  They are wonderful people.

Here's the Institute Building. 

Our Office is on the second floor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meeting with the Students

 

We went to an activity at the Institute on Friday, August 30th.  The activity was kind of like Filipino Idol although we do not think any judging was going on. It was pretty interesting as they were singing songs written by Filipinos in English. There was a band that included guitars, drums and keyboards. We stayed until about 8:00 pm when they were changing over to sing songs in Tagalog.

 

 

"Filipino Idol" participants

 

About our PEF Students



These kids are fun to talk to and are excited about life. They tend to be younger than American college students because most of them graduated from high school when they were 15 or 16 yrs. old. Two of them had graduated from college and were now working and shared testimonies about how much the PEF program had helped them. One of them who is now working as a radiology technician shared that she was so excited when we asked for a meeting because see wanted to talk about how great the program is. She even brought her camera and asked if we could have our picture taken with her. We of course agreed and all of us had big smiles when the picture was taken. We asked both girls if they would be willing to share their stories at an upcoming fireside and they agreed.

 

On Saturday, August 31st we walked about 6 blocks down to the main park in Manila called Rizal Park. It is named after one of their heroes whose death helped start their revolution against Spain in the late 1800's. It is a pretty interesting park with a large relief map of the Philippine that you can walk around. It is pretty interesting but it has not been maintained so the lettering and numbering were worn down and gone in some cases. As we walked around the park we were again reminded of how different we look to the Filipinos as a group of young people touring the park came up to us and asked if they could take our picture. We agreed and many o them surrounded us while one took the pictures. They were very nice and took 2 or 3 pictures of us and asked where we were from. As we were leaving a young boy said, "See. it's more fun in the Philippines." "It's More Fun in the Philippines" is their tourism slogan. You do not see many old white people with gray hair here. When you do they are probably another Missionary Couple.

The one green area in downtown Manila

 

A relief map of the Philippines

 

Scenes from around Manila:

 

A Tricycle with a big load

(Notice the mother with a baby in her lap and two girls in the side car)

The view from our office window
(Most of the houses here have corrugated tin roofs)



 A view along a waterway near our office

 

 

 



 



The Rain Has Stopped

The rain stopped or at least let up some. There was only a little water in the streets when we drove over to the MPIR this morning. The streets are actually pretty deserted as most of the street vendors are not back up and running yet. The schools were also still closed so the drive was pretty easy for Manila. On the way home we saw sunshine for the first time in over 5 days but it is still fairly cloudy and overcast. We have not seen any real clear days yet. We may never see any. We have been in this apartment for 2 1/2 weeks and have only seen the sunset once. We are learning to be happy if it only rains a little and no one gets flooded. Maybe this is why they refer to this time of year as the rainy season.

The sun is actually shining on Manila Bay.

 

We had a student show up at our office on Friday afternoon. We had been communicating with him because he was waiting for the loan money for his tuition to be sent. We called Sister Tenney at the Area Office and asked her about his loan. She found that all of his information was submitted and will now work on getting his check sent out. It was nice to meet with a student and get to know him and finally see the PEF program working for someone.

 

This is a fruit, that tastes somewhat like a plum.  It is called

rambutan.  You just peel off the fuzzy skin and eat the fruit. 

 

We went to our first baptism in the Philippines today, Saturday, August 24th. Sister Michelle Tanael was baptized, the fiancé of Brother Niu, the couple we met at Pasay Stake Conference last weekend. Three other people were also baptized, a mother and her young son, and another young man. The baptism was held at the San Marcelino building where Manila 1st and 2nd Wards meet. We have been assigned to attend Manila 1st Ward and were able to meet people from both wards at the baptism.  The baptism was supposed to start at 11:00, but didn't really start until about 11:40. Dale volunteered me to lead the music when the missionaries were looking for someone to do it. The baptism was great and there was a pretty large crowd. Sister Tanael's family and friends came. We talked to one of her friends and found out she was not a member of the church. We asked if she would like the missionaries to come and see her and her family. She said, yes, and told us to get her information from Brother Niu. We talked to Brother Niu and he said he will get the information for us tomorrow.

After the baptism there was a dinner in the cultural hall. We were served some traditional food which included our first opportunity to have sticky rice. It was very sticky. Dale didn't really like it, but I thought it was pretty good. It was nice to sit down and converse with the local members. We sat down next to Sister Estrada who was baptized today. She has two young daughters that were laughing during the baptismal service when they saw their mother and brother get baptized. They thought it was funny to see them go under the water. One of the girls came over and asked me a question in Tagalog. I asked her mother what her daughter said. She wanted to know my name, so then I told her and asked her name. I didn't understand what she said, but we had fun talking with them.

 

This is the courtyard in the middle of the San Marcelino Building. 

A lot of the church buildings here have courtyards.

 

 



Our First Monsoon

It is raining like crazy still. The area
is flooding. We were told to stay home again today. There is an orange alert out and people are being evacuated. We talked to the Zone Leaders this morning and they have been out carrying people on their backs to safety in waist deep water to the church buildings. The sister Missionaries apartment is flooded and they are trying to get over here. I have been wondering what would have to happen for this to be a red alert.

At 10:00 AM a red alert was issued. Many church members have evacuated to the various church buildings throughout Manila.

 

 

The street in front of our building

 

                            



                       Definitely!                       

First Jeepney Adventure

We rode in a jeepney for our first time with about 18 other people. We were packed in, good thing the Filipinos are small. We talked to the girls who were all about 19-23 yrs old and members of the YSA Ward that meets in the building next to the MPIR. It was fun to ride in the jeepney. We joked with the girls about the air conditioning and the first class accommodations. They seemed to enjoy it and laughed along with us. The Filipinos are always smiling and seem to enjoy life no matter what.

The ride was bumpy. I don't think they have any shocks. I asked how much it costs to ride a jeepney and was told 8 pesos. At first I thought they had said 80 pesos and they thought that was pretty funny because 80 pesos would be so much money. 8 pesos is about 20 cents. I told them that you can't buy anything in the states for 20 cents
.

The Jeepney



 



 

 

 

Anna and the YSA Ward

         
Stake Conference was good and we understood a lot of it because they speak a lot of English during their meetings. The songs are always in English. The Stake choir sang again and they were surprisingly good When the meetings ended everyone hangs around for a while. I asked one of the sister missionaries about it and she said that the church was the nicest building most of them had ever been in and that they are in no hurry to get home. The YSA ward had a dinner afterward and we were invited. It was some kind of pork and of course rice. It was actually quite good and Anna found out what it was called so we would know for some other time. It was pouring rain and we waited until it let up and then we all got back in a different jeepney and headed back to the MPIR and then back to our apartment. Another interesting day in the Philippines.