Welcome to the Philippines Cauayan Mission!

"From the fields of Ilocanos lies a mission so dear." That is the beginning text to our dear mission song. We sing it to welcome every new batch of missionaries and we sing it at many gatherings. The words go on, "beloved mission, at it's best, we'll seek to serve and love and pray, beloved mission, we will go on, with Spirit of course, Preach My Gospel as source, armed we'll go!" And as we send home one batch the work goes on as we greet another one.
This group arrived early in the morning (around 5:45 am) we gathered in the Mission Home, visited a few minutes and then sent them to bed. A couple hours later we had breakfast, each missionary had their first interview with President, we held a very brief orientation and then we headed over the chapel for our transfer meeting where their trainers and many of their fellow missionaries were eagerly waiting to meet them.

 Elder Robinson, Elder Smith and Elder Amoi enjoy their welcome brunch.

 Elder Amoi and Elder Bluth.

What a great group of amazing missionaries! From left to right: Elder Buness, President Carlos, Elder Robinson, Elder Smith, Elder Amoi, Elder Bluth, Sister Hoopes, Sister Forcadas, Sister Amis and Sister Carlos.

Saying Goodbye to a very special batch

This wonderful batch arrived at the mission home around noon. They weighed their suitcases (some of them had to start giving away some of their belongings to make their weight for their flights ahead), and had their final interviews with President Carlos. I saw many teary eyed missionaries come out of his office that afternoon. At 4:00 p.m. we held a departing missionary fireside and people came from all over to hear these missionaries' final testimonies and say goodbye. It's always wonderful and sad. Then we dined together on Pres. Carlos' famous rudiyaki chicken, knelt in our final prayer together and took them to the bus stop. I am so grateful to each of these wonderful missionaries who gave their all to the work here. This mission is forever changed--each one left a mark on the people here.

Their song was beautiful! The spirit was so strong. Sister Pence was at the piano. (How how we'll miss her incredible talent!)

 Missionaries come to pay tribute to their fellow missionaries.

 The rudiyaki chicken was as delicious as ever!

 Time to dig in!

 Goodbye Sister Pence, Elder Lien, Sister Benes, Sister Lorico, Sister De Castro, Sister Monsalud and Elder Kelson. We love you all--you were amazing missionaries!

Santiago--A Character City

Santiago is the second largest city in our mission. As you drive through town you will see the mayor's picture on flags hanging from every telephone pole. Despite her vanity she has started a campaign to make her city character driven. In the middle of town is a large round-about and each month a different character attribute is displayed. The attributes include things like gratefulness, honesty, kindness. This month is was Prayerful. I wish all cities around the world were focused on such lovely attributes for their citizens.

Zone Days at the Mission Home

Each quarter President Carlos interviews each missionary. During this quarter President Carlos decided to invite each zone to come to the Mission Home. The zone traveled by jeepney or vans and arrived by 10 am. While president was pulling out one missionary at a time, we asked one of the best cooks in the zone to teach their fellow zone missionaries how to cook one or two dishes. Everyone helped and lunch was prepared. Each day brought a whole new recipe of delicious food.
After the cooking class and lunch we showed 17 Miracles (a great movie about the Wiley Martin Handcart Company). Missionaries could play board games (Uno, Mexican Train, Clue, etc.) We also played Concentration on a giant concentration board. As teams matched musical phrases or tempos we would stop and talk about them or beat out the pattern. By the end of the game missionaries felt more comfortable leading the music in our meetings. It was a full day but so much fun to spend a little time with each zone!

 Tuguegarao Zone with Sister Monsalud as the chef of the day!

Cauayan Zone with Sister Roncal and Sister Dhikao leading the cooking.

 Tuguegarao Zone stopped for a zone photo

 The beautiful sisters of the Tuguegarao Zone

 Elder Cajumban helped with the chopping of the chicken for Cauayan's Zone Day

 Elder Lien and the Naguilian Sisters are busy chopping.

 Nueva Vizcaya zone gathering in the living room of the Mission Home.

More NV zone members.

Elder Wooden, Young and Schmidt are chilling.

Finishing up lunch! It was delicious.

 NV Zone is watching the movie. There were lots of tears with this one.

Playing the musical concentration game.

School Uniforms

While waiting to pick up guests from the little Cuayan Airport, I visited with a young mother and her three children. Her two daughters were in their school uniforms. Every school (public or private) has a uniform. The children look so cute in them.

Alicia District Conference

The new year brought a number of district conferences. This is our time to meet with the members in a specific location. On Saturdays President Carlos trains the priesthood leaders and I generally train the auxiliary leaders. It calls for a very busy weekend, but we love these conferences. In some cases we work in tandem with an Area Seventy who has been asked to preside at the conference.

The Alicia District is really a strong district. I believe they will someday soon become a stake. For this conference I asked the Russells to come and help me with the training. They did an excellent job of training about working with our less active brothers and sisters.

I spoke about Reverence in our meetings and held a Q&A section on the New Handbook of Instructions, which came out last year but we have found that many of our members aren't familiar with it yet.

 It's Elder Russell's turn to share some ideas with the sisters.

 Sister Russell got them to think about a hypothetical family and how they would help in the rescue effort.

Papayas

The tropical fruits in the Philippines are wonderful. Right now we're in the middle of mango season and mangoes are everywhere for a very cheap price. There is nothing more delicious than a ripe mango. I've made lots of mango salsa, mango desserts, mango jam and we love to each a mango for breakfast.
There is also lots of pineapple, papaya, bananas, and other fruits that we've never seen before.
Whenever we're on a drive I can always spot papaya trees with the fruit hanging under the umbrella of leaves.

Health Check Up

We were invited to go to Manila and have an executive health check up at St. Luke's. We decided to go earlier this year. Wow! Was it ever thorough. We had an ultra sound of every body part, x-rays, blood tests, mamograms, colonoscopy, etc. St. Luke's is truly a world-class hospital. While in the wellness wing, we met people from all over Asia and the South Pacific there having similar check-ups. The only sad part was that we had to fast several of the days (it was a 2.5 day check up) and it was hard to walk by Pizza Hut and Dairy Queen in the lobby. (We don't have any of those restaurants in our mission.)
While we were there we did get to go to the famous Balikbayan Handicraft Center in Makati. It is 3 floors with tons of handicrafts from carvings, to weavings, paintings, purses, furniture and jewelry--it is jam packed with tons of cool things.

 This is the view from our window, you can see how densely populated Manila is, in fact (according to Wikipedia) greater urban Manila is the 5th largest city in the world with a population of 20,654,307. But it is the most densely populated city in the world.

 Here we are waiting to check out of the beautiful St. Luke's Hospital.

 The famous Balikbayan Handicraft Center. This is taken from one balcony looking down on another floor. It is totally jam packed with wonderful native products.

 I loved looking at all the beautiful pearls and shell necklaces.

While in Manila we were able to spend some time with two of our dearest returned missionaries, who happened to marry each other!

The Lakers Have Arrived

We received a fantastic gift in the form of two very eager senior missionaries. The Lakers come to us from a little town outside of Provo, Utah. He was just released as a stake president and she is just the sweetest mom, grandma, mother, wife, friend you could ever meet. We already love the Lakers. They are currently receiving training as our new office couple. The Breeses head home in the near future, but before they go President wanted to give them ample time to train their replacements and spend time in Angadanan, the branch where they have served for the past almost 2 years.

Besides offices duties, the Lakers are offering leader and member support in Naguilian, a precious little branch. They love it and are bringing an optimistic and upbeat spirit to the congregation.

 The sister missionaries are the first to greet the Lakers on their first Sunday.

 The  Naguilian Chapel.

 The Lakers jumped right in and started visiting with the members.

The side yard of the church is full of roosters and chickens.Elder and Sister Laker love to garden and are already considering a ward garden utilizing part of the side yard.

 The Lakers have a fan here in the Philippines! This little guy is walking around with their name on his shirt!

Special Visitors Come to Cauayan Mission!

 While waiting for the plane to arrive we were visiting with President Younga (Stake President from Tuguegarao and the CES director Brother Armistad when a Catholic nun walked by and did a double take. She recognized her former student from Davao, President Younga. As a very small boy he had gone to a parochial school and she was his favorite teacher! What a small world.

Our mission was blessed with a visit from Sister Wixom and Sister Dibb from church headquarters. Accompanying these wonderful leaders were Elder and Sister Nielson and Elder and Sister Ardern, both counselors in our Area Presidency.

 We traveled from Tuguegarao to Ilagan Stake Center for an afternoon of training with Primary workers and an evening devotional with Elder and Sister Ardern and Sister Wixom, General Primary President. We were amazed at the number of faithful saints who traveled far and wide to attend the sesssions.

 This group came in a large truck on plastic chairs. They drove over 3 hours to attend. I wonder what would have happened if the driver would have had to hit the brakes.

 The people love Sister Wixom. She is a dynamic and wonderful speaker and leader.

We spent the night in Tuguegarao and helped take the visitors to the airport. It gave us time to chat with Sister Dibb (Pres. Monson's daughter and counselor in the General YW Presidency as well as Elder and Sister Nielson.) Our wonderful assistants were also able to join in our breakfast.

Elder and Sister Nielson's Visit

 This wonderful couple always has their house full of grandchildren. She is a dressmaker and makes beautiful wedding dresses and gowns.

 This dear sister is also a seamstress and was making school uniforms when we arrived.

 The family has 9 children and several grandchildren living in their home. The mother was washing clothes in a basin when we arrived. It looked like an endless pile of clothes to wash. She told us she washes twice a week.

 We loved visiting this family whose father happens to be ill. They have six beautiful children. Their house is actually on stilts with steep stairs leading to the living room. There is a wonderful spirit in their home.

The senior couples stopped by for cheesecake and time to chat with the Nielsons.

We have been richly blessed with the visit from Elder Brent and Sister Nielson. Elder Nielson is serving in the Philippines Area Presidency for our church and he was scheduled to conduct a priesthood leadership training here on Saturday morning. He was willing to do so much more than that one meeting while they were here. On Friday afternoon they met with half of our missionaries and taught them for three hours. That evening we held a devotional for members and people can from far and wide. It was truly inspirational! After the priesthood leadership training on Saturday morning, they repeated the training from Friday afternoon for our other half of the mission. Then on Saturday evening Elder Nielson dedicated the precious little new chapel in Gamu, Burgos District. One Saturday morning Sister Nielson and I had fun going to the palenke (open markets) and then visiting five different families. It was wonderful to spend a little time with these sweet families.

We feel like our buckets are full from their wonderful, inspirational talks. We all learned so much.

The Ugliest Rooster in the Philippines

One thing I'm going to miss when I return to the US is the endless supply of roosters and chickens walking freely through the streets and through homes. There has been many a lesson where a chicken walks right through the living room area. Each morning we wake up to the roosters crowing. They are everywhere we go!

Recently I was in Cabatuan, visiting with two of our sister missionaries and I saw the ugliest rooster in the Philippines. It may be the ugliest rooster in the entire world. It looked like it had taken a bath in oil and had open sores all over it's body. Cock fighting is huge here and I assume this poor guy had taken quite a beating in a recent fight.