Week 5

October 3, 2010

Dear Family,

Well week five is now a part of the history books. All in all it has been a good week. We have had some very wet weather and I am amazed that the ground can absorb this much water. Wednesday the skies opened up and the rain came down is sheets. I was sure that there would be some flooding but luckily none was encountered. The storm lasted for most of the afternoon. Thursday and Friday is rained most of the day although not as hard as on Wednesday. Still, I would think that the ground is saturated – I guess when the soil is not pure clay it really doesn’t matter. The land is beautiful. The trees and vegetation are very lush and green.





Monday evening we were invited to the Smith’s for a special Family Home Evening. They had purchased a pig and had a member feed it and care for it – they named him Fred. Monday Fred gave the ultimate – he was roasted over a pit in the front yard. They had invited about 70 people (missionaries) – it was nice. We had a storm roll in about 4:00 pm and the weather cooled down just right. As soon as the sun went down the frogs in the fields began to serenade us (it sounded like cows were mooing only in a lower bass key) they were really loud. Elder Swensen one of the senior couples wanted to go out and catch the frogs. The food was great but I must admit that it was a little strange to have Fred in the same room as you were enjoying him for dinner – it was just a little too personal at times.

The Smiths cooked 10 large rice cookers of rice – it looked like a mountain of rice but the Elders took care of it without a problem. It was fun to have all the Senior Couples and President and Sister Howard together for a preparation day.

Tuesday morning we went to Zone/District meeting. Our Elders are just great – they have a goal of 25 baptisms for October. It is fun to be with them. We meet with them and when they split out into their planning session Mom and I go into another room and study. We went to a small

bakery and bought some muffins for the Elders – the baker wanted to know how come we were buying so much and I explained that we had twelve young teenage missionaries that were hungry. He laughed as we talked to him. He told us that he had lived in California for a number of years but he had to move back to the Philippines because it was too hot in California – I had to laugh at that as I was wiping sweat from my forehead. It is still hot and very humid.

(Elder & Sister Smith, Pres & Sister Howard,Dad & Mom, Elder & Sister Swenson)

On Saturday we went to the Binan chapel so mom could watch the General Women’s Broadcast. We receive General Conference and other broadcasts a week after they are held. I took my scriptures to study while mom would view the broadcast but when I saw that only about 15 sisters were there I decided to stay and watch (the meeting was broadcast at 1:00 in the afternoon so not many sisters could attend at that time). I didn’t think they would kick me out so I stayed. It was a great broadcast and we had an enjoyable time talking with some of the sisters after the meeting. They are a remarkable people and I am humbled by their faith and trust in the Lord. They wanted us to come to their branch every Sunday. We told them that we would start visiting all of the Branches once we were more familiar with our assigned branch.
Mom took all of the pictures from the Branch FHE activity and put them on a piece of poster board. We took that to church on Sunday and put it on the wall – the people loved the pictures. They stood and looked at the poster at every break between meetings and after the meetings and we decided that we would leave it up until the next activity on October 16. The people love to have their picture taken.

There are a lot of barbers in the small villages but I just don’t feel comfortable with going there yet. But we decided that since it is so warm all the time we both needed to get our hair cut. We went to one of the malls and yes we had to endure more loud Christmas music. The haircut was quite an experience. Some of the barbers especially in the malls dress like women and it is difficult to tell if they are men or women. I was lucky and got a barber that was a ‘manly man’ (I think). They don’t use electric clippers – it is all cut with scissors. I got a shampoo, haircut, blow dry styling J and a scalp massage all for $4.00. There were times when I thought that he was going to smash my head in his hands but after I relaxed a bit it wasn’t so bad. Mom had her hair cut quite short and when we came into church Sunday morning one of the counselors in the Branch Presidency was taken back and said, “O Sister Morgan” and then stopped – the Branch Mission leader came by and joking said, “Sister got her hair cut”. The Counselor didn’t want to say anything to offend but the look of surprise on his face was just great

Have a great week!
Love, Elder and Sister Morgan (Dad & Mom/Grandpa & Grandma)