Happy Pioneer Day!

Pioneer Day isn't even on the radar in the Philippines, and it's kind of sad.  Elder Whiting remembers as a kid growing up in Charleston that it was the biggest day of the summer.  Pioneer Day also seemed to signal the winding down of summer as our focus turned to back to school activities.  We hope you will get to do a little celebrating and take some time to be grateful for our pioneer ancestors who sacrificed so much for the gospel's sake.

It's been another busy week. Tuesday we finished things up in the apartment in Cabanatuan, except we found a plumbing problem that the landlord needs to fix before the Dansie's come; which will be at the end of the week.  Here's hoping.  We had lunch, again, with both the Cabanatuan and Gapan Zone Leaders.  We treat them to lunch, they choose the place.

Wednesday, we tagged along with Elders Fillmore and Lastierre to Dave and Fe Jensen, the less active brother and his nonmember wife, and we didn't get  "punted" this time. It was a really good hour of teaching, and Elder Whiting got Dave to open up and share his thoughts about the gospel.  The spark of testimony is still there, we hope we can help fan it back into a flame for Dave and ignite the flame in Fe.

Friday evening we had Sisters Evans, Gonzaga, Cutar, and Fosita over for dinner for the first time.  Sister Gonzaga and Cutar, being Filipina, were worried there would be no rice.  They were grateful that Sister Whiting had fixed rice.  They are very good, obedient missionaries and were out the door on time to go to work after dinner.

We made two trips to Angeles to drop off and pick up orientation manuals for binding.  When we went to pick them up yesterday, they weren't quite ready, so we took the opportunity to walk through a big Catholic church just up the street.  In the process, we stumbled onto some local World War II history.  Apparently in 1945, during the battle to retake Clark Field, a B25 was hit by flak and crashed into the church, killing the entire crew, and nearly taking out a Japanese unit camped there.  The church has a plaque inside with the history of the event and the names of the crew members who perished.  At the bottom, is a thank you to the Americans from the Filipinos for helping to drive out the Japanese.  It was a pretty cool discovery.

Yesterday, before and after our trip to Angeles, we attended two baptisms.  In the morning, we attended the baptism of a 60 year old sister the Assistants taught, and in the evening we attended the baptism of a 16 year old brother Sisters Evans and Gonzaga had taught.  We love attending baptisms because of the abundance of the Spirit that is always there.

We had a couple of really strange experiences this week.  Even though we are in the city, there are chickens and pigs and cows and goats roaming free everywhere.  Going right through the middle of town is MacArthur Highway, a four lane busy road filled with big trucks and buses as well and the usual cars, trikes, and jeepneys.  One night last week, traffic was stopped so a cow and her calf could cross the highway.  Only in the Philippines.

There are many things the Filipinos do that we just don't get.  There are so many cumbersome requirements and regulations that it takes forever to complete even simple tasks.  Something as simple as parking in the mall parking garage is an example.  We don't even know how to describe what happened to us the other night at the mall, because we are still not sure what happened.  There is only one entrance and one exit to the parking garage, so there is no way you can sneak in or out. Upon entering the garage, security guards put an orange cone in front of your car to stop you so they can "search" it, looking with mirrors at the undercarriage and checking the trunk.  Then you pay 15 pesos to get in and get a receipt with your license plate number on it.  On the way out, they put another orange cone in front of your car and you must surrender the receipt to a different guard and he checks to see if the receipt belongs to the car.  Huh? Why do they care? They got their 15 pesos! Well, on Thursday night, the parking attendant wrote our license plate number down wrong, so when we tried to leave they wouldn't let us.  You would have thought we had robbed the joint! They pulled us over, detained us, and asked for Elder Whiting's drivers license and car registration--and we don't know why, or what they are going to do with/to us.  Fortunately some Filipino members happened by and helped us out.  Even though the security guards look official in their uniforms, they are not the police, just mall cops who wear holsters with no guns in them.  We don't even know if they had any authority to detain us.  If you don't understand what we are trying to describe, don't feel bad, we don't understand it either. The only conclusion we can come to is that it has something to do with the general lack of honesty in this society.

Today we attended the Dapdap Branch, one of our favorite places to attend. The upcoming week looks busy, then it will be transfers again, then zone conferences. It is time for Sister Whiting to order the October batch's travel, and for Elder Whiting to prepare September's  rent checks.  We will welcome Elder and Sister Dansie to the mission this week as well. Then July will be over with and we will have been in the mission 11 months.

We leave you with this quote from President Thomas S. Monson in the July Liahona:
"To be  Latter-day Saint is to be a pioneer ... The path of a pioneer is not easy, but we follow in the footsteps of the ultimate pioneer--even the Savior--who went before, showing us the way to follow."

Mahal Kita,
Elder and Sister Whiting

Jeepney of the Week

Our Successful shopping trip at the bazaar last week. L-R: Sister Clark, Sister Pugh, Sister Whiting

Lunch with the zone leaders L-R: Elder Whiting, Elder Ordejan, Elder Burton, Elder Smith, Elder Naylor Sister Whiting

Selfie with the Sisters,  L-R: Sister Evans, Sister Gonzaga, Sister Fosita, Sister Cutar, Sister Whiting, Elder Whiting

The baptism of Sister Pasamba

The baptism of Brother Joseph

The Catholic church in Angeles the B25 crashed into during WWII

Love the Sunsets

Bazaars and Mattresses and Frogs

Another week has come and gone and time just keeps marching on. We keep busy with our office duties and love rubbing shoulders with the young elders and sisters.  They are doing amazing things in the mission as our baptism and reactivation numbers are impressive if we do say so ourselves.  For the most part, the missionaries are obedient and hard working, and it shows in their success. Although our assignment doesn't give us much opportunity to do the real missionary work, we hope we are contributing to the success of the mission by taking care of the necessary temporal and support tasks so the elders and sisters can focus on the work of salvation.  Our goal is to have the mission run so smoothly that no one notices what we do.  We don't always achieve that, but we try.

Last Wednesday, we drove to Manila with Elder and Sister Pugh and Sister Clark and attended the American Bazaar held in a convention center by Manila Bay.  It reminded us of a mini Swiss Days with booths full of handcrafted items for sale and yummy food. There were no Bratzlies or Swiss Tacos though, but there was roast beef and mashed potatoes Yum! We three women had a good time shopping while the men sat and visited.  Neither one of them were thrilled to be there, but we told them they had to drive us there and carry our packages.  They did end up having a great time talking to people from all over the world.  We are planning another trip to the bazaar (they are held monthly) some time in the future.

As if that wasn't a busy enough day, that evening we had the assistants and office elders over for tacos. Again, it was a hit with all of them. Boy can those elders eat! of course they always leave us with a wonderful message and are very grateful to be fed.  We enjoy having them over.

Thursday, we loaded two mattresses and fans into President Clark's truck, and took them to the sisters serving in Guimba. They were very grateful to get them.  We then went up to San Jose and met the Zone Leaders to pick up some things and deliver pouch mail and supplies.  We treated them to lunch and Greenwich--pizza and pasta! Yum! Those were the highlights of the week other than last night.  We were hit with a deluge and we were so glad we were home when it hit.  The rain came down like a fire hose with thunder and lightning and wind for over an hour.  We heard reports from our missionaries and neighbors of waist deep floodwater in some areas of Tarlac.  Our missionaries had to cancel lessons because they just couldn't get to them.  After the storm blew itself out, we were serenaded to sleep by the low, deep croaking of frogs.  Only in the tropics.

We leave you with one of our favorite Book of Mormon scriptures in Third Nephi as the resurrected Savior is ministering to the Nephites: "And when he had said these words, he wept, and the multitude bare record of it, and he took their little children one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them."  He who is Endless and Eternal has time for each one of us.

Mahal Kita
Elder and Sister Whiting

Jeepney of the Week

It's rice planting season

Carabao are just the coolest!

Elders Tuvera, Thacker, Fillmore, and Lastierre

Their reaction to the tacos? 

Lunch with Elders On and Hatch...

...who live in a purple house...

...with a Virgin Mary shrine...

Rainy Days and Auditors

We have had almost constant rain for two days now--the remnants of the typhoon that hit Taiwan.  We have had almost daily afternoon thunderstorms for quite some time now, but not the steady, at times heavy, rain we are experiencing now.  It is cooler, but that is countered by the 90% humidity.  It's kind of tough for a couple of desert rats like us.  The only upside is that our skin rarely needs lotion.  A downside is that it takes forever for anything to dry.  We have a member lady do our laundry, and she often puts things away damp.  Friday, Elder Whiting got to the office and realized the clean socks he had on were still damp.  It was kind of funny to see him sitting at his desk with his white shirt and tie, dress slacks, and bare feet as he tried to dry his socks.  Not exactly "matching the message", but we were the only ones in the office at the time so it was okay.  He put is shoes and socks back on when the office elders and AP's came to work, and endured damp feet for the rest of the day.  Sister Whiting wishes she would have gotten a picture.

Elder Whiting not only had to deal with damp socks, but auditors as well.  They spent two days last week going over all the records and procedures in the mission office.  They even took inventory of our computers and printers. (apparently we have one too many of each) Of course Elder Whiting is used to auditors; having dealt with them a lot when he was working for Lifetime Products.  He describes auditors as people who come in after the battle is fought and bayonet the wounded. Hehe.  However, the mission passed the audit with flying colors!

In addition to the auditors, other events this week were Mission Leadership Council, a birthday party for one of the office elders, and a baptism of a 14 year old boy (who looked no older than 9) taught by the Assistants.  Today, we attended church in the Burgos Branch where we sat in on the Gospel Essentials class taught by a member of the branch who is a counselor in the stake presidency.  In attendance was a newly baptized family and their investigator father.  It was a very spiritual lesson.

Because we need to be at the office by 8-8:30 am, we do our study in the evening.  It's a nice way to end the day.  This week, Sister Whiting was impressed by the doctrine of witnesses as described in Helaman 10:6.  In this chapter, Nephi, because of his faithfulness, is given the sealing power by the Lord.  It says in verse 6, "Behold, I declare it unto thee in the presence of mine angels...". God Himself uses the doctrine of witnesses to accomplish His work, whether with His own declarations,  or in the mission field or in our own wards. Elder Whiting has been reading Helaman 12, which are Mormon's editorial comments.  Verse 5 ends with, "men are slow to walk in wisdom's path."

That's about it for this week.  We love you all and hope you are "walking in wisdom's path".

Mahal Kita
Elder and Sister Whiting

Jeepney of the Week

Baptism of  14 year old Raul Hodrial Jr

A gecko enjoying sacrament meeting in the Burgos Branch

Beautiful rice terraces in Burgos, Philippines

"Punted"

June is history and July is upon us! We have had an eventful week. We traveled twice to Cabanatuan to prepare the senior couple's apartment with the wonderful help of Elder and Sister Pugh and the Cabanatuan Zone Leaders. We moved some furniture in, hung curtains, had the internet installed, and unpacked the kitchen.  One more visit to dust and set up in a couple of weeks and it's ready for Elder and Sister Dansie.

Wednesday, we came home to a commotion in our neighborhood.  Our neighbor two doors down had been found dead in his apartment of an apparent heart attack.  He died alone a day or so before.  He was a retired patent examiner who spent his career working for the UN in Zurich, Switzerland.  He had moved back to his native Philippines just a few months ago.  He lived alone, had a really nice pickup truck that he washed every morning, and was a very pleasant man.  He spoke very good English and we visited with him occasionally.  Elder Whiting talked to him just last week when we came home and found we had no water.  The man was frustrated with his country and stated he could live anywhere in the world he wanted to.  He doesn't have any worries any more, and hopefully he is listening to the gospel message in the spirit world.

We spent the rest of the week in the office doing the usual. Friday night we witnessed an incredible lightning storm.  We watched as the lightning danced nonstop among the clouds.  We've never seen anything like that in Midway.  We love the big tropical sky with its beautiful clouds and storms and blue sky and sunsets.

Yesterday, we were invited to teach a couple with the office elders.  The man is actually an inactive returned missionary from Idaho, married to a nonmember Filipina.  She has been taking the lessons, and the elders wanted us to meet them.  So we went over yesterday afternoon and called from the front gate (as opposed to knocking on the door). Finally the man came out and said his wife wasn't home and told us to come back later when she was home.  That is called being "punted" in missionary slang. We arranged to meet them at 6 pm when the wife was home.  Well, just as we were driving there at 6, the heavens opened up and it started pouring down rain--in sheets and buckets.  We parked in a Catholic church parking lot (of all places) and walked the half block to their home.  In spite of the umbrella and the attempts to not walk through the water, we were soaked in seconds, the road was running like a river, and were were "punted" again.  The wife was there, but she had company and would not let us in.  The elders were so frustrated, because they thought the appointment was all set up. We just laughed it off and swam back to the car.  It actually gave us a taste of real missionary work; working in all kinds of conditions and being rejected and turned away more than being let in.  We are grateful for the experience.  We laughed all of the way home, and our shoes will take days to dry.

Today, we were warmly welcomed at the Dapdap branch by the 30 or do in attendance.  We met a newly baptized young man, an investigator, and witnessed another recent convert father pass the sacrament.  We enjoy going to the Dapdap branch, which is pretty much being held together by the branch president, his wife, and their  recently returned missionary daughter. As we celebrate our pioneer heritage this July, we are rubbing shoulders with true life pioneers here in the Philippines.  As we do with our ancestors, their posterity will call them blessed.

We leave you with this scripture thought on this Independence Day weekend:
"For behold this is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore he that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off ..."  --Ether 2:10--

Mahal Kita and Happy Birthday America!
Elder and Sister Whiting

Congratulations to Bryant and Rebecca on the birth of Lila and Ivy!  As if you weren't busy
enough already!  You have a beautiful family, and we now have 18 grandchildren!

Jeepney of the Week

Elder Whiting's first trike ride!  He'd rather drive!

Lunch in Cabanatuan: L-R: Elder Ordejan, Sister Whiting, Sister Pugh, Elder Pugh, Elder Whiting, Elder Naylor

Caribao

Elders Fillmore and Lastierre in the downpour.

Sister Whiting dripping wet!

Elder Whiting dripping wet as well!