Goodbye January

It hasn't even seemed like January to us--in fact for us it has been the warmest January on record. (he he)  It got down to 69 degrees one morning, and the locals are freezing!  We will continue to send warm thoughts your way this winter.

Monday, we worked late in the office, then had to stop at the hospital by our house to check on a sister who had a bad reaction to something she ate.  We stayed with here until they released her at midnight, then took her home.  When we got to the hospital, the bishop of the ward we attend was there because two young men from the ward had been hit by a truck.  One was killed and the other was in critical condition.  Such a tragedy.

We spent three days preparing a house for the arrival of Elder and Sister Pugh.  We went shopping for them and finished cleaning and stocking the house.  Sister Whiting even went out to the house by herself one day because Elder Whiting couldn't leave the office.  She was proud that she drove the one hour to Camiling and back without incident.  She has learned she is no longer a courteous driver; courteous drivers get nowhere in this country!

The Pugh's arrived Wednesday, stayed that evening at the mission home, then went with us and President and Sister Clark to Camiling to Zone Interviews.  Then we settled them into their home.  Sister Pugh was ill, so it was a rough start for her. We hope they soon adjust to everything.  Watching them reminded us of our first few weeks here and how, as Deanna warned us, everything would seem so foreign, even frightening to us. Then, as Deanna also warned us, everything would seem more normal than foreign.  Then when we get home, we will experience it again in reverse!

Friday night we watched a two hour missionary training session/workshop. Every missionary in the world saw the same training either live or by DVD less than a week later.  Speakers included Elders Oaks, Bednar, and Nielson.  Elder Oaks reminded missionaries to, "never lose sight of your paramount responsibility, which is to teach repentance and baptize converts."  He also said, "we find when we teach and we teach when we find and we always open our mouths."  It was a great reminder to us of our purpose here in the Angeles Mission.

We are preparing for a full mission conference to be held February 16th, this will be the first and only time the entire mission will meet together during President and Sister Clark's service.  It will be epic!  We will give you more details next week.

We leave you with the words of Elder David A. Bednar from the missionary training video:
"Revelation is thoughts to the mind and feelings to the heart."

Mahal Kita,

Elder and Sister Whiting

Jeepney of the Week--"Mama Nits"  Makes you want to ride in that Jeepney doesn't it?

Ella's Store.  Way to go Ella!  Who knew you had a store in the Philippines!

Welcome home Elder and Sister Pugh (Center)  Left is Elder and Sister Whiting,
right is Sister Clark and Sister Hafoka of Tonga

Same photo but with Sister Borrowman of California

The Boy Scouts of the Philippines "Cleanest Restroom" Campaign. Okay ....

Viruses

In spite of the fact that we are in the tropics, Elder Whiting came down with a nasty winter chest cold this past week.  He's been quite miserable, but is finally on the mend.  Sister Whiting is crossing her fingers that she stays healthy.

Another virus invaded Elder Whiting's computer after a power outage last week.  It fried it completely.  Fortunately, we have smart office elders who were able to save his files, but it took two days and many calls to the church IT department in Manila to get it up and running.  They basically had to wipe it and start over.  Then, ironically, the day after the head IT guy was here in the office installing new printers, the office elders' computer went down like Elder Whiting's did.  We hope this virus doesn't spread to the rest of the computers in the office.

We fed the sister missionaries on Monday, and that's always a treat to host them. They are awesome, wonderful young ladies with powerful testimonies.  They had several investigators to church today.

It was the Tarlac Melting Pot Fiesta this past week.  We're not sure why Tarlac is called the melting pot--there's not much diversity here.  But Elder Whiting and I always turn a lot of heads in town.  Anyway, they had a grand parade down F Tañede Street right past the mission office.  We watched it for a while until it got too hot for us.  We've included our favorite pictures from the parade below.

Our new senior couple, the Pugh's will be here this week.  We have been working hard to get their house ready for them, and we are almost finished.  We look forward to welcoming them to the mission.  They will be a huge help.

Yesterday, we attended the baptism of a young man our AP's taught.  We always love attending baptisms, as the Spirit is always there.  Then we served lunch to all of the Stake Presidents in the mission after their training session with Elder Meim of the Area Seventy.  Many of these brethren travel for hours at great sacrifice of time and money to attend.  We appreciate their faithfulness.

We leave you this week with the words of the Savior from Matthew 20:26-28:

"...whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."

Mahal Kita

Jeepney of the Week:  King Rodessa!

Striping the road by hand!

The Tarlac sisters--L-R:  Sisters Tumala, Lina, Whiting, Panitla, and Nuku

Selfie with the Sisters

The Tarlac Dog Walking Club's float in the parade.  Is this a problem?  Hilarious!

Members of the Tarlac Dog Walking Club. The man on the right is our friend and former
 bishop, Brother Mercado.  He breeds Jack Russell Terriers.
 He helps us out whenever we need anything.

A view of the parade down F Tanedo Street just in front of the mission offices.

Moth and Rust ...

It is a never ending battle keeping bugs at bay when you live in a tropical climate.  Right now the bugs are winning as we have termites in our apartment.  Hopefully we can get rid of them and fix the leaky pipe in the laundry room as well.  This is the same pipe that was leaking a couple of months ago and was "fixed" Filipino style with duct tape and wire.  Maybe this time we can get it fixed right.

Our duties this week mainly were preparing the house in Camiling for the new senior couple who will arrive in just 10 days.  We have been shopping for furniture and getting things ready for them.  This week is a deep clean and move everything in.  We can't wait to welcome Elder and Sister Pugh.

We were invited to our 12 year old neighbor's "house" to meet her cousin. This house is made of whatever materials they could scrounge, no electricity or running water--for that matter no bathroom either.  It was a humbling experience that made us grateful for all of our many many blessings.  We hope for this family.  We pay the kids a few pesos to do things for us, we hope we can teach them self reliance rather than to be beggars.

We leave you with a quote from Sister Bonnie Parkin, former General Relief Society President:
"Knowing who you are changes what you do."  That is the answer we think to the beggars next door.

Mahal Kita

Jeepney of the Week--For Mark and his Grandpa

For our horse loving grandchildren. That's the size of horses in the Philippines

Caribau--pronounced care a bow as in ow

Another Walmart on wheels

Our Baptism board for 2015

Elders Thacker and Ronquillo are such a help. Hehe

Road Trips

It was a pretty boring week -- no frogs or trike accidents.  But we are getting pretty good a navigating the far reaches of the mission.  We traveled to Guimba and Camiling this week to check on missionary housing and resolve some issues with them. We took the Elders to lunch at a Filipino fast food place called Jollibees--which makes McDonalds' food look gourmet. But it was the only option in Guimba and the Elders were not complaining about a free lunch.

Tonight was the Philippine Area Broadcast informing members and missionaries of the progress of the church, and to introduce the theme and goals for 2016.  The basic message is that the Philippines in is a unique position as the "cradle of Christianity" in Asia, but that they need to step it up and live up to their potential. It was a great broadcast.

The Clark's have their entire family visiting them this week--8 adults and 7 grandchildren flew all the way here from the states.  What brave souls to do that.  President and Sister Clark are in heaven, though.  Their granddaughter was baptized in a beautiful stream here.  We are happy for them.

This blog will be short on words and long on photos, because we have a lot of great ones for you.  We leave you with our 2016 mission theme, from Acts.  The Lord has appeared to Paul and called him to repentance and to the work.  Then Paul only became the greatest missionary ever.

"...rise and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness...".  Acts 26:16

Have a great week
Mahal Kita

Jeepney of the Week

 

Translation: "Do not urinate here"
Public urination is common

Kaliglee working a rice field.  It reminded us of jet skiing

Welcome To Guimba! of course a trike is in the way!

Planting rice fields

Spaggetti and chicken at Jollibees

Sister Whiting, Elder Lombos, Elder Lastierre, Elder Taylor, Elder Esteres
with the Jollibee

Elder Brown of New Zealand calling a bat to repentance. The bat is caught in some netting.

The Clark Family

Heading home after the area broadcast this evening. Doesn't that look safe?

Christmas, Noisy New Year, and Frogs

We let a week slip by without a post. We just couldn't find the time.  We spent the days before Christmas doing our Christmas conference twice--half of the mission each time.  Christmas day was spent with the Clark's working part of the day and sharing Christmas dinner with their non member neighbors. In between we took cookies to a park and gave them away to random people.  There were some surprised looks when they received cookies from white people.

Then last week was transfers and that always is a busy time.  Elder Whiting and I taught the departing missionary adjusting to post mission life/career workshop.  It's a 4 hour presentation and it was a lot of fun. The funnest part was watching the missionaries struggle to say their first names again after so long being just Elder or Sister.  They thought they were breaking some rule or saying a bad word or something.  It was quite funny. By the end of the workshop however, they were more comfortable with it.

The mission received 27 new missionaries on Wednesday, and by Thursday evening everyone was paired up with their new companion and on their way to their new area.  New Years Eve was so noisy with all of the fireworks, that there was no sleeping until the wee hours of the morning.

Earlier on New Years Eve Sister Whiting and Sister Clark began taking Christmas decorations down at the mission home.  As Sister Clark was standing on a step stool to take down the garland around the outside door, she screamed.  Sister Whiting thought she was falling and grabbed for her.  As she did, she saw the reason for the scream as a frog jumped out of the garland at Sister Clark.  The garland was full of frogs!  The security guard, Jose, came to our rescue and took the garland down, but those dang frogs kept jumping at us as we shook the garland to get them out.  Then, to top it off, there was one frog left on the side of the house.  Sister Clark pointed her finger at the frog and said, "you can't stay there."  As if that was its cue, the frog leaped a good 12 feet and landed right at Sister Clark's feet. We squealed and screamed again as it hopped off into the bushes.  We are still giggling about it!

As the new year begins, we leave you with a quote from Elder Neal A. Maxwell: "Refuse to let yesterday hold tomorrow hostage."

Mahal Kita

Jeepney of the Week

The dormant volcano, Mount Arayat at Sunrise

The Christmas Gift Room.  Thank you for your generous donations.

Merry Christmas!!

Our wonderful Christmas.  Thank you all for the gifts and cards. The Diet Coke was a gift from
an Elder to Sister Whiting.  It's a real American  Diet Coke! Thanks for the Tabasco Sauce,
the Nestle Quick, the M&M's and the Kipper Snacks!

Filipino Walmart on wheels