Cooking for God's Army

In The Book of Mormon is a beautiful story of a group of young men who had never been to war. This is what it says, "Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; they had been taught by their mothers that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them." In the end they fought a great battle (they knew if they lost their families would become servants to a very unrighteous king.) This what it says, "But behold to my great joy, there had not one soul of them fallen to the earth; yea, and they had fought as if with the strength of God; yea, never were men known to have fought with such miraculous strength; and with such mightly power did they fall upon the Lamanites (their enemies), that they did frighten them; and for this cause did the Lamanites deliver themselves up as prisoners of war.

As we work with the 150 missionaries in the Philippines Cauayan Mission we see men and women of equal faith. They are courageous to stand and bear testimony of the things they believe are true. Missionary work is tough, it's hot and some people are very cruel, but this mighty force forges ahead because they too know that if they don't doubt, God will help them as well.

This past week we had a wonderful Mission Tour with Elder and Sister Edwards where we were taught at the feet of master teachers. All came away edified.
Our dear friend, Brother Pete and his lovely wife and friends prepared the three luncheons (we split the mission into thirds). One day they had to cook around a city-wide all day brownout. Even without power he was able to get the job done. We are so indebted to these wonderful people. I made mini-carrot cakes for all, with the help of Sister Eveland and Sister Martine'z who gave up their P-day to come and bake with me.


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You will notice that we also baked cookies and brownies for different events that week.  



Baptisms in Cordon

Cordon is a lovely little town at the base of the first mountain pass leading into Nueva Vizcaya. It has the nicest, cleanest gas station in our mission and so we always stop there for a break (bathroom/CR) whenever we are passing through. It is also where Elder Sister and Elder Macaisa are serving. Recently we attended one of their baptisms. I was able to meet a very special girl there. Her name is Jolly. She was playing the piano with such enthusiasm. She had one month of lessons last summer and that's it. But boy does she have music in her soul. I'm anxious for the Shaners to come and spread some more music training throughout our mission for people like her. During the baptism she was one of the speakers. (Her friend was getting baptized.)Wow! She was a fantastic speaker as well. I think she's a super kid and at the age of 9 I can only imagine what kind of young woman she will become!

A Surprise for Sister Martine'z

A few Saturdays ago we had "Jun," the church's fix-it man, here to fix our electronic gate. His two sons and wife accompanied him. It was fun for me to visit with his sweet wife, who is an elementary school teacher in Santiago. At the beginning of the year they had a favorite missionary serving in their ward. When I met them, both boys and Jun's wife asked me about her. It just happened that she is no other than our dear Sister Martine'z who is serving right here in Cauayan. I was feeding them a little merienda (snack) when I heard a noise at our door. It was Sister Eveland and Sister Martine'z dropping by for a quick hello. You just wouldn't believe how excited that family was to see her!

Brunch at the Mission Home

Once in a while President and I invite a companionship over for brunch. On this day Sister Pence and Sister Certicio came. They helped us make the delicious breakfast which consisted of fried potatoes, bacon, scrambled eggs, breakfast rice, and blueberry breakfast cake. We really enjoyed cooking with and dining with these very special missionaries! Bon Apetit! Most of all we loved visiting with them.

Only in the Philippines...

I tell you it is quite an experience to be living here in the Philippines. I am continually  amazed at the sites I see as we travel throughout our mission.

Most stores have box boys. They grab a flattened box and then fill it with your groceries. They tie it up tighter than a drum with this plastic twine. At the end they always snap it and if it makes a really loud snapping sound, then they beam with pride! This boxer is one of my favorites. His English is very limited but he always is so happy to carry my boxes to the car for me. I always say to him "how are you?" And I taught him to answer "AWESOME!"



We often see birds hanging upside down from a bamboo pole on the side of the road. This day I asked President to stop so that I could take a closer look at the birds. Much to my surprise these ducks were still alive and when I walked up to them they started squaking! I guess customers want to know that their dinner if fresh!






People are so creative here and can make something lovely out of nothing. In this town all of the yards had beautiful bamboo fences, using this same design. You could see them stretching as far as the eye could see on both sides of the road.

School is back in session

The school girls were heading to school. I loved their pink skirts!

The young men wear black pants and white shirts at this school.

Summer vacation here in the Philippines is April and May. June starts the new school year. Children here wear uniforms, even to public school. Their school day is much longer than in the U.S. Most children begin class between 7:30 and 8:00 and then at 11:30 they get a break and time for a nap. Then they are back in class from 1:00 to 4:00 or 4:30. Families are very serious about education and the Philippines has a very high literacy rate and college graduate rate. The sad thing is that even with a college degree, jobs are so scarce that most clerks in stores have degrees in business management. To run the credit card through the machine at the gas station you have to have an accounting degree. I see so much loss of human resources here. They are bright and educated without opportunity. It sure makes me appreciate America--the land of opportunity.

Tropical Sunset

It seens like whenever I see a beautiful sunrise or sunset I am without my camera. Here is one I enjoyed the other night. I love how the palm trees become black sillouettes in the foreground.

Paddad Young Women

Paddad Branch in Alicia District has an amazing group of Young Women. We recently visited their branch and they asked if we could take a picture with them. During the Testimony meeting so many of these beautiful young women got up and bore precious testimonies of how they know God loves them and what miracles they see in their own lives. It was extremely touching. They have an equally strong young men's group and as we mingle with them we can't help but feel that they are the future of the church here in this region and with them, the future looks BRIGHT!

Flowers in our courtyard--Mom this one's for you!

My mother has always loved flowers and taught me the names of many species. I wish she could see some of the beautiful flowers here in the Philippines. They are amazing.

We have a beautiful little courtyard between the Mission Home and the Mission Office. It is full of lovely flowers including orchids and other blooming plants. This one just bloomed. The photo doesn't do it justice. It was huge the blossom as about 6 inches tall. The red was so vivid and at the ends of the petals were bright purple tips. The red and the purple together was simply breathtaking! So mom, this shot is for you!

Aurora Branch, Roxas District Fireside

Elder Balaich invited us to speak at a fireside he had planned for the Aurora Branch. There was a great turnout and we had fun. The activity started with a game (our bridge building game that we often do at our trainers/new missionary training). Elder Balaich divided up the branch into 6 groups and gave each group a package of drinking straws and a roll of tape. The object was to see who could build the highest and strongest tower. Once completed the groups had to test the strength by adding hymnbooks to the tower. Some toppled over but some held many, many books!
After that I spoke on What's Important. Actually we did an object lesson, where everyone participated and we evaluated a bunch of really great things--whittling it down to what is truly important such as faith, family and friends.
President followed with a talk about serving our fellowman through fast offerings and other acts of service. He spoke about some Saints in Africa that fast for 2 days because they only eat one meal a day and how the give more money in fast offerings than they use in the area. Those same members walk for miles to church without wearing shoes. Sometimes filipinos complain of being so poor but really compared to those in Africa they have it really good.
We left when they started showing an hour long movie and serving refreshments because President had to meet some missionaries in the office that evening. We loved mingling with the saints in Aurora Branch. Great job Elder Balaich and brand new companion--Elder Horlucas!

A great young couple joined the church in Tumauni (about an hours drive from Aurora) and later moved to Aurora. While in Tumauni they got to know Elder Isaac Brown from Utah. When they had this darling little boy they named him Isaac after Elder Brown! He is just a beautiful baby!

These Relief Society sisters were busy figuring out their strategy.

The single adults became a team.

This Lolo (grandpa) worked with some of the young men.

The younger couple in the foreground are Isaac's parents.

Mom, dad and two sons decided to work together as a family.

Miss Personality "Anne" loves Elder Balaich and the camera. Everywhere I went she followed me and got in most of the shots I took!

Here teams tested the endurance of their towers. Were were amazed at how many hymnbooks some of them could hold! Winners got some chocolate sent from the US by Elder Balaich's family. Can you believe he was willing to share chocolate?

Only in the Philippines...

On Saturday Sister Russell, Sister Breese and I headed up to the fiesta in Ilagan. They had about 100 little shops in portable tents. It was around 100 degrees and those tents were so hot. But on the way we stopped and took a few pictures. It's quite interesting what you can see here--only in the Philippines!

On the side of the road was this little meat shop and proudly hanging was a cow's head complete with the eyeballs intact. We stopped and got a picture but failed to ask how much the head cost.

This motorcycle with little side cart passed was trying to pass us. Not sure how much wood he was toting.

And then there was the motorcycle with side cart full of chickens. The chickens' heads were flopping around either they were car sick or they realized they were going to market. They looked like they had totally given up all hope!

If you don't want beef broccoli there's always the spicy chicken feet. (We opted for pizza instead!)

This pizza parlor is owned by members of the church and in this picture they show the concept of tithing. On the tenth slice there was a tithing envelope and money. We thought that was really cool. It's one of the few pizza parlors in our mission that serves anything close to the kind of pizza we are used to in the U.S.

Specialized Zone Leader Council--The Mission Brain Trust

On Wednesday our zone leaders arrived by 4:00 pm for an overnight zone leader council. We called it our Mission Brain Trust where our leaders put together their ideas to change some of our mission policies and direction.

They came prepared to speak about a quote from President Monson which says, "Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved." When they arrived they were handed a list of top concerns for our mission. They were asked to select the top 4 and rank them in order of importance to them. From that we selected four topics. Then the zone leaders selected a plastic egg from a bowl. In it was their team assignments. We had four groups of four elders. Their team captains then drew out a card with their assignment. Each group was given 90 minutes to create a presentation expounding on their topic, they could use lds.org as a resource and ask for help with object lessons etc. Their presentation was to be interactive and at the end they should have an action plan in place that each zone could roll out in the near future.


After a delicious dinner of President's Chicken Cacciatore and a big green salad, the first two groups did their presentations. Wow! They totally blew us away. They were so insightful and well done! We were totally impressed.

Elder Anzal, Bangal, Lucernes and Brown tackled: Mission Culture. What is our mission culture? What can we do to improve it?

Elder Katoa, Nielsen, Riner and Pincock's topic was: How do we increase the number of prepared and worthy convert baptisms?

Group 2 may look like a bunch of slackers but they put together a very riveting presentation on "How can we raise the level of performance of our current trainers and prepare future trainers?

Dinner was enjoyed by all.

A little ping pong in our side yard.

The presentations were fantastic. Great goals were set and our mission leaders are raring to get things moving.

This group had Elder Brown serve as a visual aid. The group posted excuses that we sometimes use for not reaching our potential.

Where's the popcorn? During our free time, these elders enjoyed watching a Disney movie.

Have you ever seen so many people playing basketball in flip flops?



Elder Ellis, Cabanacan, Mabanta and Naylor pondered over their topic which was " What can we do to increase the number of lessons taught each week?" 

 Later that night they had an hour for leisure activities such as ping pong (Elder Cabanacan was the champ), basketball, or some opted to watch a Disney movie. (Resue Down Under). After that we served milkshakes and a variety of homemade cookies. Bedtime was at 10:30 and President and I are happy to report we never heard a peep out of any of them. THey were up by 6:30 and ready for breakfast by 7:30. We served breakfast rice and pancakes. Wow! They ate a lot of pancakes.
Next the other two groups did their presentations. Again, we were so impressed. During our time together we put together a zone leader choir number to sing at our next transfer meeting and a handfull of the elders gave their 3 minute talks on the assigned topic. We typed up a recap and checkoff list for each zone leader to take home. We felt it was a highly productive meeting.

Roxas District Conference

This sister comes to church regularly but it's been many years since her husband came. He promised us that he would come next week. We  hope he will as it would be a great blessing to him and his dear wife.

I accidently shot a picture of President's foot but I thought it might interest you to see the floor of the second home we visited. It was a mud (wet from previous night's rain) floor, not even, with lots of rocks. I am amazed how the people live in this type of condition with such grace and style despite floors like this!

This is the second family we visited. The father and mother (who was at the pump washing clothes) haven't been coming to church for sometime. The daughter in red comes all the time. Her sister (next to her in the white t-shirt) doesn't come much. They were such pleasant people and seemed to appreciate our visit.

Sister Russell taught the importance of having the spirit with you as you  guide those lead. Those in attendance were all leaders.

Elder Russell taught about the changes found in the new handbook of instructions.

We began the conference by visiting some of the inactive families in the area. President and I had a wonderful time being in the homes of these wonderful people! Elder and Sister Russell came and helped me do the auxillary training while President trained the priesthood leaders. Later we spoke at the Sat. evening adult session. On Sunday we held an early morning session for new converts and investigators. There was a really good turnout. That meeting was followed by the general session. We love the wonderful Saints in Roxas. They are mostly farmers and work so hard.