March 22
Mom said:
Dear Friends,
Today marks 3 months we’ve been in the Philippines and it seems like we’ve been here forever. We’re even getting some of the voice intonations down that the local people use, and are pretty comfortable with the driving situation. Noel does a really good job of negotiating the traffic. It’s wild……no one pays attention to driving lanes, right of way, etc. This is the land of MOTORCYCLES and it is the family vehicle for most of the people. It’s not uncommon to see a family of 5 stradled on with the kids of all ages.
We left Phoenix November 16th after our house funded and stayed with my mother in Sun City West til November 23rd, when we left for Clinton, Utah where our youngest child, Belinda, lives with her family. We stayed with her and visited til Dec. 4 at which time we went to Midway in Heber Valley, Utah and stayed with Noel’s sister, Merilyn, til Dec. 7 when we entered the Mission Training Center. They were kind enough to shuttle us down the canyon in snowy, icy roads to the MTC on that Monday morning.
Roger, Merilyn’s husband is Father Christmas every year at the local Swiss Christmas and Merilyn is Mother Christmas. Merilyn made them some spectacular costumes several years ago with wigs and the whole thing and they truly look the part. We got to participate in that with them which means that Noel drove big, ole, red Cadillac convertible with the top down in some unheard of temperature about 3 miles from their house to the Community Center, honkin the horn all the way, where he was met with squeels and screams from the kids and adults. Roger sat up on the back seat so we had to go pretty slow; it was FREEZING and the stocking cap that Noel wore and fur hat that I had on just didn’t quite cut the cold. Roger promised the kids that if THEY WERE REALLLLLY GOOD, just maybe Father Christmas could arrange to bring them what they want; Merilyn passed out candy canes to the little darlings. After 2 hours, we picked them up and brought them home to disrobe and to rest. Part of the entertainment scheduled for the day was Jennifer’s singing group that sang medley’s of Chistmas carols, traditional faves, and hymns and THEY ARE REALLY GOOD!! And we got to meet Kimball’s cute wife for a few minutes only as they were the stage crew and we chatted in between moving the risers, clearing the stage, etc.
As always there are visitors at M & R’s and this trip we got to see Gordon, Sue, and Ashton who had been staying there for the past several months. They had found a cute little house just down the road from Merilyn’s and were moving things over while we were there. Cute Nathan and his fiancé came down from Salt Lake to say hi with their docile dog and stayed not long enough; the snow started and weather reports had them on the way home sooner then expected. Carla Cook drove down Sunday morning and stayed the day and left late in the evening. Anyway….it was great fun and we had a wonderful time – as always – just visiting and staying up too late talking, learning things about each other that we didn’t know, etc.
After church on Sunday we went to the Stake Center to view an unequaled display of Christmas Creche’s from literally all over the world. The whole church building in just about every room and the hallway was decorated in a professional manner that would rival New York’s department store window designers during Chistmas time. I can’t even describe it all; it was breathtaking. One of the featured performances for that day was Merilyn’s Bell ringer group that she plays in. It was fascinating and they looked so cute in their Swiss costumes. Merilyn actually did one of the arrangements and it was lovely. I never knew there were so many kinds and shapes of bells. We wrapped up Sunday with a lovely Roger special pot roast dinner with scrumptious veggies served on some wonderful, festive, Christmas dinnerware with special candles for each of our plates and all this shared with Gordon, and Fam, & Carla, and we all “licked the plate clean!”
The MTC was something that we’ll never forget. For as many times that we sang CALLED TO SERVE I never failed to get choked up, and even as I’m writing this , I’m a little blurry just humming the tune in my mind. The teaching was intense and every day for every hour it was filled to overflowing with the Spirit emphasizing to each of us, specific to our understanding, the efficacy of what we about to embark upon. Much of our training was by returned missionaries; our son in law, Belinda’s husband Adam, taught there for quite a while after his mission, so I felt a special bond to those who were teaching us. We were separated into groups specific to our assignments, ours being Welfare Missionaries. We stayed with our group of 5 couples plus us for most of the time until the end when we were separated due to language requirements. One couple went to Ethiopia, another to India, another to Louisiana, another to Tennessee, and another to Jkarta and us to Philippines. We will all do similar things, but we were the only ones that would do the Career Workshop big time at a professional center.
We ran in to the adopted son of a widowed mother from our ward in Texas in the cafeteria; he was going to Tempe, Arizona, Spanish speaking. It was wonderful..his parents had waited for years to have children and never did, so they ventured to the adoption process. We were present when Robbin and Joe got Geordan and then Annie Laurie, less than a year after. When Annie Laurie was an infant, Joe was diagnosed with a brain tumor the size of a grapefruit that grew til the pressure was so great it took his life. Robbin’s mothercame to live with them and to hep raise the hyoung, fatherless family and now, Geordan is on a mission! Great Story!!
We left the MTC Sunday evening about 9pm for a flight from Salt Lake to Los Angeles. We arrived about 20 minutes late which wasn’t enough time, we thought, to catch our connecting flight to Hong Kong. Because of the late hour in LA the airport was empty practically, no shuttles, and after asking questions frantically were told that we had to catch a bus to the next terminal. We found the bus stop, waited about 10 minutes, got dropped off at the Cathey Pacific terminal which was under construction, and literally RAN as fast as we could to the terminal only to be told that the plane was loaded and the door was closed. We told them we had reservations and please check again, which they did, and we were right……..they sent one of their staff to RUN ahead for us and we followed, RUNNING AGAIN, to the gate; we got on, they closed the door, and the plane taxied away. Miracle?.........I think so. I kept telling the Lord in my silent, pleading prayers, “…..you’re in charge….if you want us to go on this mission, you have to help us.” He did. 15 hours later we landed in Hong Kong, we didn’t know we had no boarding pass, so after RUNNING to the gate and they told us to go back to the airlines to get a boarding pass. We RAN ALL THE WAY to the airlines booth and discovered that we had misplaced our luggage tags that they needed to track our luggage. I didn’t think they gave us them, but discovered during the flight to Cebu that I had them. SO…………STILL RUNNING back to the gate to catch the flight to Cebu, it was the same song, 2nd verse, get on the plane, get seated, take off. Because they couldn’t track our luggage, the luggage didn’t arrive with us. Cathey Pacific was waiting for us and knew of our plight so they took our found luggage tags, located our luggage in Hong Kong, and put it on the next plane to Cebu, which we picked up the next afternoon.
Prior to coming, we had been invited to stay at the Mission Home the night that we arrived, so we packed a set of clean clothing for the next day in our carry on luggage so we wouldn’t have to dig through our larger bags. It was a good thing, or we wouldn’t have had any clean clothing at all with us. As it turned out the Mission President was in the hospital and had been for 10 days due to a staph infection that they couldn’t get the infection under control. He was pretty sick. So…..we went straight to our apartment and the Senior Couple that we replaced were kind enough to loan us their extra set of sheets, towels, soap, etc. and everything that we needed to get by for the night. The Watkins were wonderful to us – they were patient to drive us to the all everyday and stay with us as we shopped until we got everything we needed. I was grateful for the time we had to do it, with the Center closed.
Our apartment has 2 bedrooms with and 2 large wardrobes for closets, and 2 full bathrooms and hot water that is adjustable with an attached heater at the top of the shower,. The floors are all slick, white, ceramic tile and attract the dust like crazy. Our kitchen has a 2 burner stove with an oven,& a small fridge. The laundry room has a washer which holds the equivalent of our small loads; we fill it with the water, (no hot running water; only cold and we don’t ingest the tap water. We have a filter that is attached to the kitchen sink and we also have a water cooler), time it and then manually turn the knob to drain it. We refill it again for the rinse cycle, drain it again, and then manually lift the wet clothes out of the waster to the cylinder receptacle next to the wash tub into the spinner. We turn on the spinner and it goes for about 1 minute til the water is out, at which time we pull the stuff out of the spinner and hang the damp clothes on a rack to dry. We have a lovely round table with a turn table in the middle – a very Chinese style thing. Our land lady is Chinese and she is on the same 3rd floor that we are. She sends down muffins, cake, and the other day, a bunch of bananas – all at 6:30AM!! We are up though and she is nice to share with us. Her building is lovely with lots of grand Chinese artifacts on each floor. We feel very safe here; she hires some cute young security men who are on call 24 hours; they swing open the gates for us to come and go and are very pleasant. When we come home with a trunk load of groceries, they quickly run over to the car and get as many bags as they can and sprint up those 3 stories and deposit the bags by the front door. Nice.
Because the ERC (Employment Resource Center) was closed Dec. 22 – January 4 the Senior Couples (5 of us) made reservations at a lovely Bed n’ Breakfast on the beach called Las Flores. You can check it out at Lasflorescebu.com and it’s the one that is called Country Cottage, I think. We spent 2 nights and 3 days there just relaxing, visiting, sleeping, reading, hiking, long walks searching for shells, playing some clever yard games while waiting for the next meal, and anything we wanted. It was no pressure and was a wonderful way to get acquainted. Actually, the other couples didn’t know each other very well, so it was nice for ALL of us to get to know each other, not just us “new kids on the block”. It’s actually owned by a local Filipina woman and her British husband – a very classy place with great attention to detail. The food and service was impeccable and delicious and we had a special Christmas Day menu with special little treats from the owners. We were the only ones staying there, but others dropped when we were there for a meal. We feel like we made some friends with the owners and may go by again; it was a very comfortable place. They couldn’t do enough for us. Because the Filipinos are big on fireworks, those who were here last year said that it sounded like they were coming through the wall and couldn’t sleep all night. So………we all made reservations at the Marriott for New year’s Eve night to avoid the noise. It was super cheap, only $85 for the night including a wonderful buffet breakfast.
Real life got us back on track and we started in January 4 getting acquainted with “the Center”. It’s a wonderful facility, and we’re on the 5th floor of a prestigious office building. Across the street is the Ayala Mall which is a lovely HUGE mall of 4 stories and is circular in design. It has lots of eating places and many that we’re familiar i.e. KFC, Shakeys, Sbarros, TGIF, Pizza Hut, and some others, many of them that are Thai. We especially love the Banana Leaf which uses real Banana leafs for a plate – takes some getting used to. Eating out here is pretty cheap and we do it a lot. There’s really nothing to go home for every night, so quite often we go to the mall, eat dinner, and then go home. We’re pretty tired from dealing with people all day so that’s about our life.
We can find most everything here that we are familiar with i.e. cosmetics, hygiene items, toothpaste, etc. There are 2 grocery stores in the mall, opposite each other. We can’t take the carts out of the store so they will follow us to the car regardless of where it is parked and unload the basket for us. Many things are outrageously expensive i.e. milk and cereal – at least twice or three times the price of the states. We also have a Toyota Camry with all the bells and whistles for about $50 per month rental, and $50 per month for gas.
Interesting local and pretty common names that we’ve run across are: Bong, Gold, Epiphinia, Dandy, Blinky, Wynkee, Jupiter, Divine, Ding Dong, Dum Dum,(these last 2 are family names and NO ONE laughs at them)! The people here are so friendly and accepting of us. They don’t complain but just go about doing their thing. Some interesting things about “stuff” here are: the malls are kept IMMACULATE by “moppers”, that is to say guys that are constantly cruising throughout the mall mopping the tile floors. Whenever we’re stopped in traffic, whether it be by red light or just stopped, it is a sure thing that we’ll have from 2-5 different vendors wanting us to buy their limes, potatoes, hammocks, dust rags, cigarettes, lighters, or sunglasses and then there are the little kids that come up to your window and begging by putting their fingers to their mouths with sad eyes hoping for a piece of candy or money.
Church is special with the majority of the meetings in Cebuano and with a smattering of English thrown in. When we shake hands in the states, we always do three shakes; here they do one BIG shake! Their testimonies are wonderful; new converts sound like they’ve been members all their lives. The children know the hymns by heart – just about every verse. And they are on the same lessons that we are. While we don’t know what they’re saying in the meetings, we’ve read the lessons so we can feel the spirit of the lesson. They read from the scriptures in English so we usually get to participate then. Our Relief Society President is the ward pianist, the Family History coordinator, on the committee to translate the hymn book and the Primary Children’s Hymn book in Cebuano, teaches school full time, and is always happy. So when you think you’ve got too much to do, think of our Emi. She has become the sole breadwinner in the family this last year when her husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease; his medicine eats up most of their $$.
President Hansen has given us an opportunity to visit 3 branches which are in the mountains, sometimes referred to as “the jungle”. They are about 2 hours away from us, so we leave bout 6:45am on Sunday morning, pack a picnic lunch to eat on the way back, and get home about 2 or 3pm. The drive is beautiful on windy roads, and that time in the morning is especially pretty. The mountains are so green and lush and big; the variety of foliage is awesome. This is where the REAL experience of getting to know the culture is. The branches are my favorite places to be on Sunday; the people are so humble and are so loving and happy to have us. The smallest one is my favorite one and I’ll tell you about that and some of the others another time. We visit the first 3 weeks of the month, and the 4th and 5th weeks we are in our home ward where we attend a Welfare Meeting as the Ward Employment Specialists. There is a ward social the first Friday of every month without fail; sometimes nothing is planned and we just visit; other times there are games, and dancing and singing to karaoke music; they don’t care – they just love being together and we love being with them. The Youth are terrific – most of them come along as they are the only members, or they are from an inactive family, or a part member family but they come to everything and visit with the adults and us, and are so cute; I just love them to pieces.
We’re so busy here and have to look for opportunities to do REAL missionary work. It feels sometimes like we’re doing what we did at home i.e. church work all the time with diversion for work, ward activities, shopping, etc. But there are lots of non members who take advantage of the Center here and every now and then the spirit lets me know that I’ve shared a sacred moment with one of them; I’m grateful for that time because I didn’t look upon the moment as a testimony. Sometimes because I’ve helped someone correct their resume and helped them to word something in a better way, they gravitate to me another time when they come in i.e. they will ask about my family, ask my advise on something, etc. Usually them come in, do their stuff on the computer and then leave, so I’m always happy when they feel comfortable enough to want to chat and linger around a little longer. I surprise them as I slip a tootsie roll next to their computer and their face just beams and they’re shy and say “…thank you sister Luke!” I just love it when they come in and say they passed their interview; they talk so soft and get excited when they’ve achieved something by using something they’ve learned in the Career Workshop.
I never bore my testimony at home; it is such a personal thing for me and I get all choked up and emotional, but I’m always called on someplace every week it seems to do so, so I’m not quite as emotional. I know that Christ didn’t leave us without a support and help when he left the earth, and so He provided the Holy Ghost to be with us always; he also didn’t leave us without a written reference to go to and to be reminded and instructed on a level that we could understand - even the Book of Mormon. The parallels in that book are identical to what we go through today in our personal lives. The more I become knowledgeable about the contents and use it I can see where I fit in and where it fits in to my everyday life. It is TRULY a book for our times and I know that it is a true record brought forth for our benefit. I’m so grateful for the sacrifices that Joseph Smith made at the expense of his family and even his life and for the example of obedience that he always demonstrated as he honored the promises he made to the Savior.
Well, I’m sure there are other things that I’ve forgotten, but that’s it for a start. Sorry this is so long and I won’t feel bad if you just toss it. Would love to hear from all of you sometime.
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