Rain, One Year Anniversary, Rain, Zone Conference, Rain, Leadership Training and Shopping, Rain, Branch Conference, Rain, Emergency Transfer, Rain

One year ago on August 24th, we entered the MTC. Now it's one year later and what and experience it has been! We have been stretched, tried, challenged, and very, very blessed.  We are so grateful for everyone who has made it possible for us to serve.  We are indebted to all of you, and hope we can pay you back in some small way.  It has been and continues to be a wonderful, challenging, growing, crazy experience.

We never knew there were places on this earth where it rains like it does here.  We got a little taste of it last year, but we arrived in the mission at the end of the rainy season.  What an experience for a couple of kids from Utah! We look forward to returning to lower humidity, albeit it will be interesting adjusting to the cold again.  We just don't get cold here. Ever.

Thursday was Zone Conference.  If you remember, Sister Whiting was asked to lead the zones in the mission motto and scripture. It took a lot of work to get her brain to remember it, but she did, and nailed it! Not that anyone in the congregation knew or even cared, but that's okay. The conference was very spiritual and motivating, as we had great discussions on our mission study articles regarding faith, accepting the Lord's timing, and the ministry of angels.  In addition, we reviewed all of the finding tools available to us and shared success stories.  The missionaries are challenged to baptize every week--which with faith and hard work is very doable in our mission.  Some of our elders and sisters are already doing it.  It's not really about the numbers, but about stepping up the efforts to find lost Israel.  The numbers take care of themself.  Hopefully the young missionaries left with confidence and motivation to make baptizing every week happen.

In addition to the spiritual topics of the mission, we took care of some temporal business as well.  It amazes us to see the lengths (and expense) the Church goes to to take care if it's missionaries.  Earlier this year it was manifested in the Church providing smoke/carbon monoxide detectors for every single missionary house.  We have 90 houses in our mission, so just times that by 350 or so missions throughout the world and you can see the Church takes the health and safety of it's missionaries very seriously, regardless of the cost.  This week each missionary in the mission was offered flu shots provided by the Church. Se we rolled up our sleeves and got shot! Actually, Sister Whiting had worn a blouse with sleeves that couldn't be rolled up, so she found a very large (think Polynesian) white shirt in the mission supplies, changed into it, and got her shot.  She got a few laughs, but it worked out just fine.

We were fed a nice lunch at Zone Conference, (the caterer is a member of the stake presidency and does a really nice job) and when dessert came around, it was a really good warm tapioca pudding with fruit in it.   Elder and Sister Whiting were chowing down when Sister Whiting realized that it had bananas in it. She immediately took Elder Whiting's dessert away--since he is allergic to bananas--and it wasn't long before his throat started tightening up.  Even though he kept insisting he was okay, Sister Whiting made him take some Benadryl; and Elder Whiting ended up missing the afternoon session of Zone Conference because he was sleeping it off in his office.  But it did the trick!  Thank heavens for Benadryl!

Yesterday, we drove to Cabanatuan where the mission presidency did priesthood leadership training for three districts.  62 priesthood leaders attended--an amazing show of support.  While Elder Whiting, President Clark, Elder Dansie, and mission presidency counselor President Cruz conducted the training, Sister Whiting, Sister Clark, and Sister Dansie had a girls' morning out. We went to the mall at 9 and realized it didn't open until 10.  But the nice mall cops let us in and we found an open snack bar in the food court, bought drinks, then sat down at a table to wait for the stores to open.  We kept getting these looks from the mall cops, then one of them came over and asked if we were waiting to see a movie.  We said no, we were just waiting for the stores to open.  A few minutes later another mall cop came over and asked us the same thing and we told him we were waiting for the stores to open.  Well apparently that is not allowed, (the Tagalog word is Bawal) and they asked us to leave the mall. Oops!  We thought since they let us in it was okay.  The only thing we can figure is that when they saw our name tags they thought these three white women were employees of one of the stores, so they let us in.  We hope no one lost their job over it!  It was just strange.

Today was Branch Conference in Dapdap, so off we went to Dapdap again-three Sundays in a row.  The branch was packed with stake leaders, members and investigators, and from what we could understand, was an excellent meeting.  After the block, we were again invited to stay for lunch (remember the goat guts), but excused ourselves because we had gotten a message from President Clark that we were needed to help with an emergency transfer.  All of the events of this week were accomplished in an almost constant rain.  We feel like ducks or frogs or fish or something!

We leave you with this quote gleaned from Zone Conference by Daniel H. Burnham, the architect who designed many of the distinctive buildings in Chicago, and which is often quoted by general authorities:

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood.  And probably themselves will not be realized.  Make big plans, aim high, and hope (have faith) and work."

See you in September,
Elder and Sister Whiting

Jeepney of the Week

Slide taken from the Assistant's Powerpoint presentation.
Sister Whiting's job is to make sure the Baptism Records are properly filled out. 

A true life mission success story-- One convert led to 8 baptisms and 6 investigators--and counting

Tarlac Stake and Dapdap Branch leadership.  Right to Left--Sister Tess Nacon (who irons Elder Whiting's shirts), Sister Pascua, Sister Whiting, Sister Mercado, other stake leaders.

Storm Front

High wire act.  OSHA would have a meltdown in the Philippines!

From the Land of Eternal Summer

It's been a quiet week for us--the only excitement was the gecko that fell out of the curtains at Sister Whiting's feet one night. It was hard to tell who was more startled, her or the gecko. Sister Whiting had moved the curtains aside to look outside at the rain, and when she let go of them, the gecko dropped out.  He scurried away and Sister Whiting sat down to let her heart stop pounding.

Speaking of rain, it finally tapered off, and today it didn't rain for the first time in about 10 days. The sun came out and the humidity skyrocketed. Ah well, we just plan on being wet either from the rain or the humidity.

One day last week, it started raining just as we left our apartment, and by the time we got to the office, it was raining so hard that there was water flowing in the church parking lot. Sister Whiting had worn her good leather shoes and had ignored the prompting to bring along her flip flops. So she ran barefoot into the office. Not that it did any good, because that evening on the way home, she got out of the car to go into a shop and landed ankle deep in a puddle.  So much for saving the good shoes.  Next time she brings her flip flops!

We helped President and Sister Clark prepare for the upcoming zone conferences this week. We are not teaching this time, but Sister Whiting was asked by the Assistants to lead the missionaries in the mission motto and scripture.  She has it 80% memorized and plans to have it 100% memorized by Thursday--the day of the Tarlac zone conference.  We thought we would share it with you:

"In the Philippines Angeles Mission we teach repentance, baptize converts, and rescue members.

"Our purpose as missionaries is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.

"Doctrine and Covenants Section 4:

1. Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men.
2. Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve Him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.
3. Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;
4. For behold the field is white already to harvest and lo he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not but bringeth salvation to his soul;
5. And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God qualify him for the work.
6. Remember, faith, virtue, knowledge, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.
7. Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you. Amen."

All who have used Preach My Gospel will recognize the "Your Purpose" statement, and of course we all know D&C 4. The first sentence is unique to our mission. Our missionaries recite this before every companionship study and at every meeting so they have it down. (we haven't done this, hence the reason Sister Whiting needs to practice) Sister Whiting's job will be to slow them down and have them think of the words instead of see how fast they can say it.

We attended Dapdap branch again today.  They are always so warm and welcoming. In fact, the branch president always gives Elder Whiting a big hug. One of the elders assigned to Dapdap, Elder Lewis, is from Hyrum, Utah and is a big tall young man.  He's been in the mission less than a year and they tease him about his height and his Tagalog, and he loves it.  We have dear friends in Dapdap.

We leave you with this quote from President Benson from today's Sunday School lesson:

"You have been born at this time for a sacred and glorious purpose.  It is not by chance that you have been reserved to come to earth in this last dispensation of the fulness of times. Your birth at this particular time was foreordained in the eternities ...You are to be the royal army of the Lord in the last days...."  --Ezra Taft Benson--

Well we spoke too soon; it's raining outside!

Mahal Kita,
Elder and Sister Whiting


We thought you would enjoy some pictures of things we see while driving around the Philippines!

Jeepney of the Week--Bird's Eye View

Always Carabao

Pig in a Trike

Boys on a Bike

U-Turn gone wrong

Horse Drawn Hearse

Hey, it still runs!

Kaliglig

Misty Morning

Time to Build an Ark?

It started raining steadily four days ago and hasn't really stopped since.  It will let up for a while, then start pouring again. The upcoming week looks to be more of the same type of weather. The frogs love it and they are croaking their little hearts out, and everything is greener than green.  There is some flooding and the humidity is unreal.  Fortunately, it is cooler than normal and that is a good thing.  Our umberellas are getting a good workout and it's hard to keep our feet dry.  The big downside is that missionary work slows down because of the weather.  We hope it doesn't get much worse.

It's been an uneventful week for us for the most part as we manned the mission office.  Elder Whiting is working on October rent and Sister Whiting is working on October return home travel.  We always work about three months ahead in these areas and it seems like it makes the time just fly by.  Elder Whiting did spend about an hour one day on the phone with Richard Hendrickson, CEO of Lifetime Products, having their quarterly Board of Directors Meeting.  Lifetime is doing well and expanding their manufacturing east to Knoxville, Tennessee. This is all good news because it means our retirement is secure.

We took Friday afternoon off and traveled in the downpour to S&R (aka Costco) in San Fernando--about an hour's drive away.  On the way down, we passed a car with a metal street sign attached to the luggage rack rack that said "Cougars Avenue" and had the BYU logo on it.  We could hardly believe it! We honked and waved and Sister Whiting flashed the "Y" sign.  They rolled down their windows and gave us the thumbs up and big smiles.  They were Pacific Islanders and were wearing BYU gear.  There are BYU fans even in the Philippines!  It was fun to see.  Then we ran into Elder and Sister Pugh at S&R and had a great visit.  So all in all, with the stocking up on American food, seeing the BYU fans, and running into the Pugh's, it was a good day.

Yesterday we served lunch in the mission office to the Stake and District presidents of the mission along with the Area Authority Seventy who was doing his quartely training at the stake center.  Today, we splashed our way to Dapdap and attended meetings there. Sister Whiting was asked to give the closing prayer in sacrament meeting and actually mixed a few Tagalog phrases in with her English.  Mabuti!  There were about 45 in attendance, including us and the elders.  About 15 attended Sunday School, and there were 7 of us in Relief Society.  Small in number, large in spirit and testimony.  After the meeting, we went to the Capas National Shrine where the Bataan Death March of World War II ended, and where 31,000+ soldiers who had survived the march died.  Most of them were Filipino, but there were nearly 10,000 Americans as well.  It was a somber reminder of the brutality of war.  It was ironic that our Sunday School lesson was in Alma--the story of Captain Moroni and Amalekiah.  We discussed why there are so many war chapters in the Book of Mormon, and when a follower of Christ is justified in going to war.  It was a faith and partriotism strengthening day for us.

We leave you with this thought from our Relief Society and priesthood lesson today:

"As Jesus took the bread and broke it, and took the cup and blessed it, he was presenting himself as the Lamb of God who would provide spiritual nourishment and eternal salvation."
--Howard W. Hunter, Teachings of Presidents of the Church, Lesson 15: the Sacrament of the Lord's supper--

Mahal Kita,
Elder and Sister Whiting

Jeepney of the Week

Umberellas at Dapdap Branch

Capas Philippines National Shrine

Rail car used to transport prisoners to Capas. Capacity 50, loaded with over 100.
Many died from the heat in these rail cars.

Interesting name for soldiers who were left behind with no hope of supplies or reinforcements.
The quote regarding courage is very moving.

Elder Whiting. The monument has all 31,000 names of the victims on it.
The Shrine also has 31,000 trees planted on the property.

Sister Whiting at the American Moument at the Capas National Shrine

That's one way to get around when it's raining!

Driving in a deluge!

What is a Bed Spacer?

Another transfer--#18 for President and Sister Clark--is in the books and everything is settling back down.  We again taught the departing missionary workshop on Monday, enjoyed lunch and the testimony meeting on Tuesday, welcomed new missionaries on Wednesday, and survived transfers on Thursday. In  between, we got our work done.  Sister Whiting input 64 baptismal records into the church's system--the most she has done at one time.  It was two weeks worth, a big batch.  As she has mentioned before, it is tedious, detail oriented work that is very satisfying.  The best part of the week was that we were fed a really good meal by the mission 6 of the 7 days!  We could get used to that!

Last night was the 6th meal mentioned, as we had dinner at the mission home with the stake and ward leaders of the Mabalacat Stake, as part of President and Sister Clark's outreach to the units in the mission.  Of the 12 units in the mission they have hosted 11 so far for a thank you dinner and a discussion on how the mission and the stakes and districts can improve their cooperation in missionary work.  Those invited are the stake presidency and bishops and their wives.  When the count of those who would attend came in for the Mabalacat Stake--33--it was higher than it should have been as they had included the bishopric counselors and their wives.  President Clark informed the stake president the dinner was only for the bishops and their wives and asked him for a revised count of those who would attend.  The revised count came back at --33.  We don't know if the request to limit the guest list to bishops and their wives was lost in translation or ignored, but at any rate, the mission hosted them all; the largest group by far!

Today as we waited for church to start in the Tarlac 1st Ward, the counselor in the bishopric approached Elder Whiting and asked him to give a name and a blessing to the infant boy of a ward member.  Dad readily agreed and gave a wonderful, sweet  blessing to little Alexander (yes his name was Alexander) Lagman.  Elder Whiting was very grateful to be able to participate in a baby blessing this weekend, as we will miss our twin granddaughters' blessing.  Such a tender mercy for us.

So when we think we have seen it all in this country, we see something else we can hardly believe.  While in the office one day last week, Sister Whiting looked up from her work to see a herd of goats wandering around the church compound eating the shrubs and just making themselves at home.  We left shortly after that with instructions to the Assistants that when they left to herd the goats out before they locked the gate.  Then on our way into the office one morning, we passed an old beat up little club cab truck. We see in the back seat a person leaning back with eyes closed, and trailing out the window was an IV tube leading to the IV bag being held aloft by a man standing in the bed of the truck.  Oh my!

We have seen on occasion signs advertising for male and female bed spacers.  We weren't sure what a bed spacer was, or even if we wanted to know what a bed spacer was.  But we learned last week that a bed spacer is another name for a roommate.  Mystery solved!  Even though English is widely spoken here, the way some English words and phrases are used, they just as well be speaking a foreign language!

We leave you with the following scripture that President Russell M. Nelson told the 2016 new mission presidents to engrave on "the fleshy tablets of the heart":

"Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been call of Him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life."  --3 Nephi 5:13--

Mahal Kita
Elder and Sister Whiting

Jeepney of the Week helping out with transfers

Departing Elders with Elder Whiting and Elder Pugh. On couch L-R: Elders Ybanez, Dabi, Webster, Brown, Taylor, Whiting, Bundy, Pugh, Thacker.  On floor L-R: Elders Montenegro, Burton, Faasavalu.  Not pictured Elder On and the
departing sisters, Sister Dequilla and Sister Mepania.

 The leadership of the Mabalacat Stake and their wives at the mission home Saturday night.

The Lagman family with little Alexander who Elder Whiting gave a name and a blessing to.

Goats coming to church.  The new Toyota Corolla we are driving.

Rice planters with big flowery hats to protect from the sun.

Mystery solved! A bed spacer is a roommate.

CSP

It has been a busy and eventful week for us, full of long days and new experiences. On Wednesday we drove over to Cabanatuan very early, to finish preparing the house for Elder and Sister Dansie. We got back to Tarlac just in the nick of time as they arrived a couple of hours later. We showed them around the mission office and did an orientation with them.  Thursday, they were able to sit in on District Leader Training and the Trainer/Trainee meeting, as well as the pre-transfer staff meeting on Friday morning.  After that meeting, they followed us over to Cabanatuan to their home for the next year.  Sister Dansie is the driver and Elder Dansie is the navigator, and they did pretty well for their first experience of driving in the Philippines.  At President Clark's request, we handed over the car that we had been driving to them, and we are now driving a new Toyota Corolla with just 5,000 kilometers on it.  In the States, we would be excited to be driving such a nice car, but it is just stressful to drive it here. Already we have had to slam on the brakes so hard the tires were screeching to miss a trike that cut in front of us, and then again for a dog. Then we almost got broadsided by a motorcycle--all in the three days we have been driving this nice car. We will do our best to protect this new car. It'll be tough!

Friday evening, we had dinner with the Bongabon District leadership in Cabanatuan.  Bongabon District is where the Dansie's will be spending most of their time, so it was good to have them there and to be introduced to the leadership they will be working with.  After the dinner, we led them back to their apartment, in the dark, and left them on their own to learn about the Philippines.

Sister Whiting was asked by Sister Clark to help teach at the first ever visiting teaching convention of the San Jose, Philippines Stake, which is located about two hours north of Tarlac. Visiting teaching is a challenge here because the sisters really don't know what it is or how to do it.  The San Jose Stake relief society asked  us to teach it--for TWO HOURS--on about a week's notice!!  Ahhh! With Sister Clark's extremely busy schedule, it was a challenge to organize the event. But with a lot of phone calls between us and late night preparation, we were able to put together a nice program, including a Powerpoint presentation, getting to know you activities, and a refrigerator magnet and treat.  To illustrate how pinched for time we were, while Sister Clark drove to San Jose Saturday morning, Sister Whiting sat in the back of the car and tied the magnet and treat together with ribbon--100 of them!  But with a lot of prayer and guidance from the Holy Ghost, we did it!  The presentation went well, and the sisters were so appreciative.  At the end of the conference, they presented us with a certificate of appreciation with all of the pomp and circumstance of the Oscars.  After the meeting was over, we must have spent 15 minutes having our picture taken with various groups of sisters--pictures which are surely all over Facebook by now!  There were about 80 sisters in attendance who now know what a visiting teacher is and how to visit teach. On the way home Sister Whiting and Sister Clark celebrated by stopping at a creamery and eating ice cream made from Carabao milk.  It was very rich and delicious.

Meanwhile, Elder Whiting attended  a baptism at the Tarlac stake center, and manned the office.  When Sister Whiting got back, he informed her that we had been invited to give a presentation at a mini MTC activity the local ward mutual was doing--in one hour! Elder Whiting had known about it for a week, but thought Sister Whiting wouldn't be back from San Jose in time, so he didn't mention it.  She didn't know anything about it until the office elders told her it was time to start.  But it turned out okay.  Sister Whiting  just talked about a couple of things from Preach My Gospel and bore her testimony.  We went home soon after and crashed. (Us, not the new car!)

Sunday, we attended the Burgos Branch Conference, which was packed because the stake leaders AND the group from Pisapungan were in attendance.  The group had all crowded into a jeepney and made the drive in to the chapel for the conference.  The chief and his wife, who Elder Whiting had baptized, were thrilled to see us, and gave us big hugs and jabbered at us in Ilocano while we nodded and smiled. After the meeting they had a "linger longer" Filipino style.  They call it CSP--chika chika, snack snack, picture picture.  Chika chika means gossip, so CSP means to gossip while you eat and take pictures.  Haha!

Whenever food is involved, we try to slip out so that we don't have to eat because we are always nervous about the food served at these events.  It is authentic, and prepared way in advance in questionable sanitary conditions.  But we were literally trapped as the car was boxed in by other cars and jeepneys.  So we put on our brave faces and sat down to eat.  Soon, we had in front of us rice, pineapple chicken, pigs feet and greens, and goat intestines.  Sister Whiting refused the goat intestines and pigs feet and stuck to the rice and pineapple chicken, which was pretty good.  Elder Whiting got brave and ate the goat guts, and almost immediately regretted it as his teeth crunched down on gritty stuff. He came home and immediately downed a big Coke to hopefully kill any bugs.  We're pretty sure they hadn't cleaned out the intestines before they cooked them.  Ewww!

We finished off the day by driving to Angeles to pick up a departing missionary, taking him to the mission home where we had much better food for dinner.  Elder Whiting met with and settled the missionaries' financial accounts while Sister Whiting weighed and tagged their luggage. Today, we presented the departing workshop, which is so much fun and so emotionally draining. Transfer week is now in full swing.  Round and round we go!

We leave you with the words from the Primary song, "If the Savior Stood Beside Me". sung beautifully at the branch conference by a pretty little black eyed girl:

"If the Savior stood beside me, would I do the things I do?
Would I think of His commandments and try harder to be true?
Would I follow His example, would I live more righteously?
If I could see the Savior standing nigh, watching over me?
If the Savior stood beside me, would I say the things I say?
Would my words be true and kind if He were never far away?
Would I try to share the gospel?  Would I speak more reverently?
If I could see the Savior standing nigh, watching over me?
He is always near me, though I do not see Him there.
And because He loves me dearly I am in His watchful care.
So I'll be the kind of person that I know I'd like to be
If I could see the Savior standing nigh, watching over me.

Mahal ko kayo,
Elder and Sister Whiting

Jeepney of the Week

Elder Whiting helping get a high centered trike unstuck in a construction zone

Bongabon District leadership wives--Sister Whiting on the left, Sister Clark third from right,
and Sister Dansie on the right

Bongabon District Leadership--President Clark third from left, Elder Whiting second from right,
and Elder Dansie far right

The first ever San Jose Stake Relief Society Visiting Teaching Convention
Guest Teachers: Sister Clark and Sister Whiting 

San Jose Stake Relief Society Convention
Full time sister missionaries in San Jose
L-R: Sisters Rimano, Palang, Clark, Whiting, Canoy, and Perez

Sister Whiting teaching at the San Jose Stake Relief Society Convention

Presentation of Certificate of Appreciation
Sisters Clark and Whiting in the middle

Sister Whiting at the Carabao Research Center Creamery
Carabao ice cream is rich and creamy!

This container truck was trying to go down a tiny alley road.
He might still be there!

Elder Whiting and his goat guts dinner