ON THE ROAD AGAIN !

It has been a whirlwind two weeks as we traveled to the West Coast of Luzon, back to Manila.  To the East Coast of Luzon, back to Baguio for one day, and then off to the North Coast.  And may we mention .........traveling across the Philippines is a time intense adventure.  There are 2 major roads across the Island (North and South) ... not like Freeways, more like old highway 89.  To travel 150 miles, it takes us anywhere from 5  to 10 hours.   Then the small cities are filled with 'Trikes' and 'Jeepnies', and chaotic traffic.   

We now are being 2 Senior Missionary couples in one.  What that translates into is that we are filling two positions.  One as Welfare, Humanitarian Missionaries in the Baguio Mission; and the second as Welfare WheelChair Specialists in the Manila Area Mission.    There is no time for play.  We are on the Lord's Errands in the Welfare work here serving the Filipino people. 

Having dinner at ChowKing with the CSM (Church Service Missionaries) who do follow-ups on recipients of the Wheelchair projects.    These 2 companionships do the follow-ups for the University of Northern Philippines Hospital in Vigan.   

While in Vigan, we were privilaged to watch a wonderful water/dancing lights show on their City Square.    A historic city that still hosts many influences of the architecture from the Spanish era back in the 1400-1500s.

This is a Filipino Christian Temple.   Not sure exactly which religion.  It is just along the side of the road along the side of a step mountain on our drive down from Baguio.

This is a home built by a ward for a member
family.  It is in a relocation district.  The
Family who lives here is in the picture on the right.

Filipino family living in the relocation
area.  This ward has a Member Welfare
Gardening Project and this family
is involved in it. She is an
excellent gardener.  Very humble and
kind people.

This was last Sunday's lunch.  The stuff that
looks like fish with dots is DragonFruit.  I
think that is because only dragons would be
eating it .... no flavor, but supposed to be
healthy.   Do you love the 'tube steak'
Elder Bell cooks for me?  :)

This is a typical Church Parking lot on Sunday afternoon.
This is a more rural City, but larger than Brigham City.  The Mission home
for the Angeles Mission is located here.    Notice a car or two and the rest of the vehicles are the 'trikes'.  Popular and affordable method of transportation and employment for the family.  (A 'trike' is a 110cc
or above Motorcycle and a side car with a roof over it.)

Here you see corn being dried during the harvest along the side of
the roads.  This is also the method used for drying their rice crops.

A 'trike' taking school girls home.

A close up of the picture on the left.
You see the one girl on her mobile device ...
a quite common site.  There was also 3 girls inside the side car.    10
passengers and 1 driver. A normal site before and after school for Filipino roadways.

A typical Caribao site along the Filipino highway. (pronounced "care-a-bow" bow like the large branches in a tree)  These animals are very important to the farmers in the Philippines.

We were able to attend and take part of the distribution of  6 wheelchairs at this hospital.  These older people have waited a long time for mobility, and many tears of joy were shed.    The families of these individuals were extremely appreciative that their parents were finally able to obtain a wheelchair.

A little baby girl ... only hours old.  The mother was very grateful
to receive one of the Receiving Blankets sent from the Stakes in
Brigham City, Malad Idaho, and Spokane Washington.

A little fishing hut out on the structure in the middle of the River in Northern Luzon.  We are amazed at the many fishing nets and structures put out along the river ways to catch the fish swimming in the waterways.   Many varieties and sizes of fish.     Many are dried and then eaten whole.  Just a glimpse of the wonders of the Filipino peoples.    

We visited this Hospital on Thursday.   It was an 11 hour drive to Northern Luzon.   It is a 25 bed District Hospital that was built in early 1970's by the Japanese for the island of Luzon.  They are still using most of the furnishings and equipment that was originally purchased for the facility.   We are writing up a project to obtain them new equipment and oxygen therapy apparatus.  Half of their beds are basically 'unusable' ... so we are also trying to obtain approval for new beds and hopefully new mattresses.  A plea was made for functioning, usable,  new surgical equipment.   Their filing systems are slots under the counter tops of their nurses room.   They serve a large district that has grown immensely in population.    Their communities are some of the 'poorest of the poor'.     This is a project we really want to be approved.

This was a photo I had to capture.   A basketball pad out in the middle of a Rice Field, along the side of the River.  The Filipinos love Basketball!   When it is rice harvest time (soon) it will be used for drying the rice granules.

A Jeepney off to the side of the road ... undergoing an engine repair right along the roadside.  Notice that the Jeepney has individuals inside it, on top of it, and when it is traveling, there are many times people just standing on the back bumper and holding on.  Most Jeppneys have specific routes they travel each day ...each hour or two.   Amazing modes of transportation.   Do you see the little kids up on the top?    This is normal.   Many times you will pass a motorcycle along the road, thinking it is just a man with his wife on behind ... but as you pass you see the one or two little children sandwiched in-between.  Very common site in Filipino travel.


We were able to attend a Baptism last Sunday of a young woman in the Pozorrubio 1 Ward, and then immediately after Elder Bell and I were asked to speak in the Ward Sacrament Meeting.   Good thing they understand most of our English.   We were humbled by their friendliness and kindness.     The Gospel is the same everywhere.
Today, Sunday, we had 2 confirmations in our Baguio Pacdal Ward.  Both were young men ... probably either 17 or 18.   The youth are searching for Truth and answers to the questions of life.    Outstanding young men.    It is wonderful to see the growth and strength in these wonderful Asian people.         Both Tharon and I feel that the young people here will soon be part of those who will help to bring the Gospel into the land of China.  The Truth is moving forth ... the Gospel is flooding the earth.

Thanks for visiting our little blog .... we will share some of the amazing views we captured on our 10 hour mountain drive on Friday as we drove along and through the Cordillier mountains in the Center of Luzon.   BREATHTAKINGLY  BEAUTIFUL.      Some days I wonder if the Garden of Eden was, in many ways, much like this beautiful Island Paradise.

One Full Month on Filipino soil!

Primary at the Baguio/Leguarde Ward.  I helped teach the CTR class.   They had never sang the song "If you chance to meet a frown, do not let it stay; quickly turn it upside down, and smile that frown away."  
The Saints here are faithful and happy people.  Their conditions are not easy, but they are filled with joy and love life.
  They are so willing to serve and to share what they have.   They have amazingly strong and dedicated
Priesthood leaders who are faithful and diligent in all of their responsibilities and callings.   Many have served
as Area 70's, Mission Presidents, Area Directors, Stake Presidents.   The Church here is strengthening families
and  giving hope to those who have little.  

Me at my desk.  We moved it into the SunRoom.
I spend plenty of time here when we are at
the apartment.    I snuggle up in my hoodie - it gets
a bit chilly in morn and even in Baguio.

Our Philippines Area Welfare Director,
Carl Revillo is in the green shirt.  We took
him to the Member Welfare Project in Tarlac
in which a group of Ward Members have
formed a Co-Op and will be getting a feed-mill
plant up and running.   They have just been
approved for a grant from the Philippines
government to run a beef feed lot.  This will allow
them to help more members and non-members in
the community to have gainful employment as
well as provide for their own families.

Donating some of the receiving blankets that
you have sent to one of the hospitals that we
 have visited in our Humanitarian work.  This is at the
 Ilocos Training Center and Hospital in San Fernando,
La Union.  They have an average of 50 births at this
 hospital a day.  It is normal for 15 to 20 of those
 births end up  in the Intensive care Unit.

Here in the Baguio General Hospital, they have 25
average births a day, with 5 to 8 going to
NICU.

Pink Horses.   Riding stable just around the bend from us.  Probably 60+ horses available.  They come past
 our apartment daily.  The color just makes me smile.   Kids love them.  My granddaughter Oakley would
literally 'be in love' with these true to life 'pretty ponies'.  LOL

Dark picture ...sorry.   This is Dennis
Smith - Wheel Chair specialist
for the Church world wide.  He is
setting up 2 to 3 more Projects for
the Philippines area.  It is humbling
to see how these programs bless the
lives of those in need.  

Horrible picture of me ... oh well.   This young lady is 13
and this is her tiny little newborn.  She was extremely happy
to choose the blue blanket to be able to take her little
boy home in.  

3 weeks into our stay in Paradise.

Tharon and I had to stop in for a lunch to try out JollyBees.    It is the Filipino's equivalent to our "McDonalds".  McDonalds is also big here .... but JollyBees are just as good and are on so many street corners.  Almost everything you can order has rice as a side dish.    He was able to order a Meat Hamburger with Fries and he was very happy.   They also serve a sweetened version of Spaghetti as a side dish.    Here he is finishing off my spaghetti.    I ordered a piece of chicken and had the spaghetti as my side.                We have been very blest.    No gastric problems (keeping our fingers crossed that this is true for the entire year and half).       We wash our dishes with boiling water and wash our fruits and veges and lettuce with Bleach water ... drinking only boiled or bottled water.     IT IS DO ABLE!

As you can see, Manila is a modern city.  Skyscrapers, Malls, Modern Cinemas, Restaurants & Hotels galore. you name it.

This is at one of the entrances of Baguio ... the city we live in.    It is a huge rock that had the shape of a Lion's Head, and so the LION'S CLUB (Service Club like in the U.S.) came in and painted it golden yellow and detailed the eyes and the mouth, and nose.   It really is pretty awesome to see.    

I snapped this photo coming down our Baguio Mountain (truly a mountain range and we are nestled in the highest tops that is able to be made into an actual city).  It was scaped out by Americans and set up to hold a population of 25000.   It is now the home to 300,000.   During holidays and in the summer it can expand out to 750,000 to a million people up here.    Holy smokes!       People live along the sides of mountains and build their homes from galvanized metal corrigated sheets (called G.I. Metal)        The road is extremely steep most of the journey and twists and turns.   If there is ever an earthquake in this region .... we will be stranded for weeks, if not months.    (YES... we keep a 72 hour kit with us all of the time.)      

It was PANAGBENGA in our city Baguio this past week.   It is FESTIVAL OF FLOWERS.   The streets have been horrendiously traffic congested  and we have spent many hours being 'lost'   while we hunted for ways to cross town.    This celebration is much like "Peach Days' in Brigham City - - but a week long and HUGE.      This is a photo down the main street that has at least 400+ booths of food and crafts.    The Filipinos use the umbrellas to keep the sun off of them, they desire lighter skin and hair.     We Americans Sun Bake  to get tan - - go figure.

This is Elder & Sister Stroud, Elder & Sister Zorn, and Us.    We are all the humanitarian Missionaries serving the entire Philippines.   The Zorns serve in the south, centered on Cebu.     The Strouds serve in central Philippines and are stationed in Manila in the Area Office.  And us - up north.     A formidable team.

This is another small area of houses along the roadway to Baguio.  They are made from wood and the sheets of metal.  Built on stilts on the canyon side is the norm.   

We spend almost as much time in our vehicle as we do in our apartment.    We are traveling around the island every week.    Furtherest North that we have traveled so far, is Lagawe, Ifugao, on a potential project to help provide the schools with vegetable seeds to help children learn to garden properly and augment their diets.

I love this view.    It shows the clouds on the tops of the mountain range as we drove out of the city on Friday (Mar. 3).   The roads wind down and around those mountains.  Steep .... nerve wracking .... scarier that ---- in the nighttime.  It was an amazingly beautiful morning.

Another small home built up along the mountainside.

This little guy was saved from hunters by one of our members.   It has became a pet to his family.   He lives out on a tract of land where they are farming pigs and chickens, and growing their own produce.  Tharon and I just shared a ripe papaya that they gave to us.  We have 3 more ripening on our apartment floor.    Yum!

Here I am climbing the stairs from the market in the street.   We had just purchased a waffle cone with mango ice cream.   The painting along the wall is in celebration of their rich history.    They remind me in many ways of our Native Americans. Some of the regions have facial features much like many of our Indian tribes found in America today.    Genetics are truly fascinating.    Good people.     Next time I will share a little history with you, if I remember :).  

We are so richly blest to be able to live among these humble and hard working people.   We see the Lord's hands and multiple 'tender mercies' being carried out daily in our lives and in the lives of those who wi serve with and among.       It is a joy to find ways to serve and assist in uplifting the hands that hang down .... and to strengthen self concepts .... and give mobility to those who cannot walk .... and help provide ways for people to grow their own food and feed themselves and strengthen their own health.     
The HUMANITARIAN FUNDS that are donated into your local ward units are used 100% to help throughout the earth.   We pay our own way to serve, pay our housing and food.    Those who are assisting with the REFUGEE RELIEF in Europe are also LDS Missionaries, serving to do God's work.    
Thank you for your love and friendships across the miles.   You are in our prayers and thoughts often.  We love hearing from you.    Thanks for caring and sharing our adventure with us.