The Jensons' Mission in Manila: September 2013

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.)

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.

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.