Week 58

October 22, 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Kelli Ann!! Hope you had a wonderful birthday. 

Kelli Ann Morgan

This has been a very busy week as we have processed and said good bye to the going home missionaries, completed the transfers for the next 6 weeks, processed 10 new missionaries that arrived on Wednesday and managed to keep the office running. 

Early Monday morning our ‘going home missionaries’ came into the office with all of their luggage. They needed to weigh everything and see if they were able to make the weight limit for their flight home. After that chaos was over, they went to an area chapel for instruction in finding a job, resume writing and job interview skills (this is very important for the Filipino missionaries and is a great service for them). Early Tuesday morning we were over to the mission home with the missionaries to do any last minute travel or release concerns. We then went to the Temple with them and had dinner and had the farewell testimony fireside. 

Elders Ramos & Comenta, Sis. English, Elders Curwen & Tomlinson

 Early Wednesday morning the missionaries were off to the airport and/or bus terminal and we were off to the chapel helping with the transfer meeting until about 1:00pm. Ten new missionaries arrived at noon from the airport. President began his interviews with the arriving missionaries and then sent them out with the city elders to work for the afternoon. Thursday we were over at the mission home for the orientation of the newly arrived missionaries. We presented a portion of the training about how to complete the Baptism and Confirmation Record correctly and also about how they would get their mail. We had 3 elders that were going directly over to the island of Palawan so they stayed overnight Thursday in the office with us so they could make their early morning flight out to Palawan on Friday. We enjoyed having them in the office with us. We joined them in reading aloud from the Tagalog Book of Mormon and then had prayer with them. 

We will see 2 of them again soon since they are going to the same area where we will be assigned in December. On Friday evening, all of us in the office decided we should have a ‘we survived’ dinner so we went to the Texas Roadhouse here in Manila to celebrate. This morning we sat down and looked at the calendar and realized that it starts all over again and we will do this all again in 6 more weeks!

While we were at the Area Office on Friday afternoon, we ran into 2 of our missionaries at the Medical office (mom had the Church physician look at her ingrown toenail while we were in the Area Office). One of the new elders that arrived this week was sick and we found out that he had to be admitted to the hospital. He had developed a cyst on his tailbone and it needed to be drained. Since President and Sister Stucki were at a District Conference in Palawan for the weekend, we were asked to watch over him and make sure that everything is okay. We went out to the hospital this morning to check up on him. He is doing well and will be released Sunday afternoon. That is quite a welcome to the Philippines for him – at least they took him to a good hospital. 

So this week has been very busy – all of the processing in addition to the regular day-to-day office routine. We sighed a sigh of relief last night. We made it through a transfer. Maybe there is some hope for us.  We are looking forward to Sunday.

Once again, we are doing well. We are so fortunate to be here and have been so blessed to be assigned in the Philippines. Manila has made me a very aggressive driver and I have learned to have one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand on the horn while driving in the city. 

We hope that you are all doing well. We hope that the kids are enjoying school and that all of you are happy and enjoying life. We again thank you for your love and your prayers. We continue to pray for each of you every day. Keep on doing good and pressing on. The time is certainly going by fast for us. We do miss you all very much. We wish that we could give everyone a big hug. We love you so very much. Remember to BE good, DO good and BE men and women of Christ. And as always, always remember to say your prayers.

Love,

Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Janene and Grant

Week 57

October 15, 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings from Manila. We are becoming a little more accustomed to the office and are busy getting things ready for transfer week next week. We hope that something doesn’t get forgotten in the process. Our biggest fear is to have forgotten something and leave a missionary stranded somewhere on the way home or forget something and not pick up a new missionary at the correct time. There are just a lot of little things that need to be done. 

mission office

front yard

Our routine is pretty much the same each day so there doesn’t seem to be a lot to write about. We check e-mail numerous times during the day to check for new missionaries that are assigned to the mission and then we prepare welcome packets and letters for the new missionaries. We work on packets and arrangements for those missionaries that are completing their missions and are going home. We take care of the day-to-day operation of the office and then anything else that is needed. Everyone asks us how we like the office. It is demanding and also very rewarding, but it isn’t what we were doing before in meeting and teaching people. We’re not complaining in any way –it’s just that this work is different than what we were doing before.  We have found that It is very easy to just get involved with the work and find that it is 7 or 8 pm at night and we had not taken time for lunch or dinner. We are enjoying the challenge and the opportunity to learn the different aspects of the mission administration. We have spent a lot of time this week in making travel arrangements for flights for the president and missionaries being transferred.

We are doing well. The Lord has blessed us in so many ways. We love to read and study the scriptures every day. We are almost finished with reading the Doctrine and Covenants together (our reading of the Book of Mormon in Tagalog is still going along but at a slower pace – we are in Mosiah 7 –but it is helping with our Tagalog) and then we will begin reading the Book of Mormon again. We love the Book of Mormon and our love for and appreciation of this book grows deeper every day.

We hope that everyone is doing well. We hope that you are all healthy and happy. We continue to pray for each of you every day. We certainly feel the strength of your prayers and support. We love you all. Thank you so very much for your love, prayers and support. Hopefully or schedule will become a little more regular so that we can talk to you on Skype. We miss you very much. Please take good care and give all of the grandchildren hugs and kisses from us. 

Remember to BE good, DO good, and BE men and women of Christ. And always remember to say your prayers. 

Love,

Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Janene and Grant

P.S.  It has been interesting that over the past few weeks the Lord has blessed me by bringing thoughts and remembrances into my mind. If you don’t mind, I would like to share one with you. Some of you may remember our Patriarch in the Stake. Patriarch Ficklin was the first patriarch that I had the privilege to ordain. Every time we would see each other he would always, always remind me to say my prayers. Then with a twinkle in his eye he would smile at me with his special ‘southern hospitality’ Louisiana smile. Shortly before he passed away, mom and I went to visit him. He was not doing well and we couldn’t tell if he recognized us. His wife, Katherine, told us that he was not aware of much now but she diligently stayed by his side. I sat down on the side of his bed and took his hand. He held my hand for a long time and would occasionally open his eyes. Every time he would loosen his grip on my hand I would gently pull my hand from his hand. But he would then tighten his grip on my hand and hold on. We talked with his wife and reminisced about the times we had together. After some time I stood to leave and Patriarch Ficklin held my hand even tighter (I was accustomed to this since that is what most older people in the nursing homes would do to me when I would come into their rooms). I started to shake his hand again and then said that we would need to leave. I told him that I loved him and he opened his eyes and looked directly at me and told me to ‘always remember to say my prayers’. Then I recognized that twinkle in his eyes. He knew who I was. He was a remarkable man that will always have a great impact upon my life. I think that is why I always end these letters with a reminder ‘to always say your prayers’. 

Love,

Dad

Week 56

October 8, 2011

Dear Family and Friends, 

What a wonderful week this has been. This morning we are here in the Mission Home listening to last week’s General Conference Sessions. We have looked forward to this time. It is a special time that we can get together and listen to a prophet’s voice.

As we look back over this week there is not anything remarkable or interesting that has happened. We continue to learn new things about our new assignment in the office. It is a totally different assignment for us but we are grateful for this assignment and know that there is a reason that we are here. 

President Stucki has asked that we prepare the office to be moved around January 1^st, so we have a lot to do. We currently live in an apartment inside the mission office. It is a little different because we have the office elders and assistants continually in and out of the office and staying late to finish work. Part of our work is to get the elders out to work their area by 6pm each evening. The new office couple will be living in an apartment close to the new office so they will not have to deal with this. It should be fun.  We get to go back to our first branch to attend church on Sundays since that is where the Swensons attended church and President Stucki asked if we could go back and help them as we had opportunity. It will be good to see old friends.

  

We said goodbye to the Swensons on Tuesday evening. They returned home on Wednesday morning but not without some excitement. The Area Office had difficulty in getting Elder Swenson’s passport (the US Embassy could not find it). So, he needed him to go to the US Embassy on Tuesday to get a temporary passport to leave. After a few hours of frustration, the Embassy finally found his passport and could now process it. They finally delivered his passport after 10pm on Tuesday evening. We can only imagine what anxiety that caused. We were happy that they were able to fly out on time. They did a wonderful work here and will be missed. 

We hope that everyone is doing well. We understand that the first snowfall of the year already blessed you. We hope you are staying warm and dry. The weather change is always so beautiful and signals a definite start to a new season.  We are still experiencing rain and warm weather. We have been blessed with a couple of days this week with sunshine but last night we again had a heavy rainstorm. It is so predictable. Part of our responsibilities is to keep a watch on the weather to monitor for typhoons and severe weather so that we can notify, prepare and plan for emergencies that would affect the missionaries. We found a number of websites that give us the weather forecast.  The funny thing is that the 30-day forecast is the same every day – Temp 82 degrees 65% chance of afternoon showers.  So, we look for the monsoon storms and see what is developing. One of the most interesting sites is the earthquake monitor. It shows all of the earthquake activity around the world. We were very surprised to find that the southern islands of the Philippines have earthquake activity almost weekly (there have been 4 quakes since Oct 1 that measured over 4 on the Richter scale). 

Well, we are doing well. We are happy and busy. We look forward to the new challenges and the opportunity to learn new things. We hope that you are all doing well. We love you and pray for you every day. Thank you for your love and support. We hope that you are all healthy, happy and enjoying life. Remember that it just doesn’t get any better than this!  

We love you. Remember to BE good, DO good, and BE men and women of Christ.  And always remember to say your prayers.

Love,

Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Janene and Grant           

Week 55

October 3, 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

This will be a short note just to let everyone know that we are safe after feeling the effects of two typhoons within a one week period. We are officially tired of rain and are anxious for the rainy season to end. We were very fortunate to have the typhoons pass by us on the north so we received just some wind and lots of rain. No serious damage. We were unable to do any outside work Tuesday due to the typhoon. We had 2 small trees that blew over in the yard and some windows needing repair but that was the extent of the damage. The Elder’s apartment and the Sister’s apartment both received some water damage to the floors. The windows in the Elder’s apartment are rusted over and can’t be closed so they got the most water damage. The rain got under the floor tiles and began ‘lifting up’ the tiles. One of the Elders walked on the tile and broke 3 or 4 tiles. We are all fine – just getting tired of the rain.

This has been a very busy week for us. Sunday I taught the Priesthood lesson and the Temple Preparation Class and then Mom and I taught a Young Single Adult Fireside about dating and manners. This was fun because we had to find out about dating practices and customs in the Philippines. We spoke with a few of the branch members and some of the missionaries to learn more about the customs. We learned that the man could do things to earn ‘pogi points’ (pogi is a conversational Tagalog word that means handsome but in this case it would mean to earn gold stars, or brownie points). So we talked about manners and how they could earn pogi points with the girl and her family. We had some good fun and laughs with the single adults. The District President is concerned that the single adults are not dating or looking for a companion but they seem to just ‘hang out’. Sounds just like back home in the States. We hope that we did some good. 

Monday we were off to the Mission Office in Manila to continue training. Each trip to Manila we would move some of our things to the office. We have found that this kind of living is difficult especially when we needed something and realize that it has been packed and in a box somewhere in the office now. We traveled back to our apartment in Naic each night since we felt that it would be most appropriate to be in the apartment compound with the Sisters and Elders. By the end of the week we had completely moved out and we brought our new senior couple out to Naic on  Saturday. We are living in the Mission Home until next week when the Swenson’s fly home. 

On Tuesday and part of Wednesday we experienced the typhoon. The Elders and Sisters asked if they could come over to our apartment to get ‘dry’. It was nice to have them but it did make things somewhat difficult to do - the final packing and cleaning of our apartment in Naic, study, etc. We fixed them breakfast and lunch, talked, studied and just got tired of being ‘cooped up’ in the apartment all day long. It was a good experience for all of us.

 On Thursday we received 7 new missionaries from the Manila MTC. They came out of the MTC 3 weeks early on an ‘off cycle’ transfer. We don’t understand why this happened except we needed to be trained in how to do all of the things that were required for processing new missionaries – this was one of those tender mercies shown to us so we could experience these things before the current office couple left. 

In the middle of the ‘off cycle’ transfer a new senior couple came in on Thursday. 

Elder and Sister Forinash are from California but after they retired they moved to Logan, Utah. Elder Forinash is a retired sheriff from Los Angles. They will do a great job here. Mom and I were assigned to orient them and teach them the ‘survival techniques’ they need for the Philippines. They will replace us in Naic so we gave them a few driving pointers on Friday afternoon/evening after they had received their Philippine driver’s license and then they drove and followed us out to the apartment in Naic right in the middle of the second typhoon on Saturday. We couldn’t think of a more appropriate way to introduce them to their mission in the Philippines. 

We showed them some of the places in Naic, the church, the bank, the utility company, the post office etc and then took them to the grocery store. Later that night we drove back to the mission home in Manila.

Early Sunday morning we drove back out to Naic to attend Church with Elder and Sister Forinash and introduce them to the members and the area. I taught our Temple Preparation class and then asked our new senior couple to finish with the last 2 lessons. It was more difficult than I thought to say goodbye to the Maragondon Branch. As I look back on our short stay here, I think that getting stuck in the rice field helped us to draw closer to the members than anything else we could have done. It is strangely funny how the Lord works that way sometimes. It feels good to know that we were able to complete the paperwork to request a new church building and teach temple prep. The members were so appreciative. The members that we were able to visit cried when we told them goodbye. It was difficult to leave but the Lord needs us in another capacity now. President Stucki has asked us go back to our first area to attend church on Sundays until we leave. It will be nice to go back to those dear friends and members. 

We have 2 more days to train with the Swenson’s before they leave. There is so much to learn and so little time. We pray every night that we will not make any huge error that would hinder the progress of the mission. It is really a heavy responsibility but we are excited about the opportunity to learn.  It will also be enjoyable to work with the office elders and assistants. Late Saturday evening I asked if we could start each day with a morning devotional and planning session. They were excited about that idea and I think that it will bring a greater unity and attitude into the office. 

We hope that you are all doing well. We love you all. Thank you again for your prayers and love. We know and we feel that those prayers are keeping us safe through all of these experiences. The gospel is certainly true. It is good to be a member of this church. We are looking forward to watching conference this next weekend. We know that Heavenly Father is watching over you. Please take care and remember to BE good, DO good and Be men and women of Christ. An always remember to say your prayers.  

  

Love, 

Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Grant and Janene