More Pictures

Haulin' cows. Actually they are caribaos

How about a load of chickens?!

Brother and Sister Concepcion who were reactivated while we were in Carissa. We love that family!

Some members of Punta branch.Left to right: Bro Ocado,Sis Madlang-awa( front), not sure who's behind her,Sis Barrios and new baby, Sis Ocado and son,Sis Ramos,Sis Malabanan, Sis DeGuzman, Bro & Sis Tamio, us, Luis Madlang-awa, Bro Soriano, Elder Isip and 3 little girls that I can't remember their names.

MyAnn Armonia- Future Missionary

Sister Salvatos

Paul Balderama

Members of Carissa Branch

President Contado's Family. He is Carissa Elder's Quruom President. Jessa, on right, has her mission call to Hong Kong

Samonte Family

Two cuties.

More cuties.

Base Family. He was 1st councilor and I was 2nd. He was then called as Branch President.

We love this family a lot. Forever friends

The Tamios. Also close Friends

Manangan Family

Myann Armonia

Balderama Family. Hewas Carissa Branch President and then called as Naic District President. A great man with a lovely family.

Gretchen Cabungan. Also planning on a mission soon.

Gretchen and Elders Sanchez and Isip

Kevin Villarante and three young ladies(sisters) who came to our open house and have since been baptized.

It's nice to know

...and missed. We will miss these wonderful people too!

Going Home Missionaries July 2, 2013 and couples and some parents

Going Home!

Elder Griffin with Dietrichs, Paddocks and us.

Elder Grob.

Elder Griffin

Typical Philippine family transportation.

And here we are at the Puerto Princessa airport on Palawan ready to start the next leg of our mission and another new adventure! We're excited!

Wedding Pictures and More

Ina and Jobert's Wedding. Ina was YW President in Punta Branch

Newly Weds

Together Forever

Some of Jobert's Priesthood leaders

Us, Sister Orcas,Sister Madlang-Awa, TheNew Couple, President Balderama

The Chapel in Punta decorated for the reception.

The Wedding Cake

The Malabanan Family at Riaza's baptism. I was their home teacher.

Brother Jovi's Delos Reyes baptism. We did not know them well but he asked that I baptize him.

Also in the picture: Elder Acosta, Elder Durfee, Sister Delos Reyes, and President Geraga.

Marlon, Maureen, Jarrod and new little Janae.The Cielos Family hold a special place in our hearts.

Us at the Temple

The Borja family and the wedding party while waiting for the new couple to come out of the temple.

And here they come! The newly weds- Jun and Manilynn

The Borja Family together on a special day.  They are members of the Carissa Branch

Jun and Manilynn. Wonderful Day.

Sister Stucki, The Newlyweds, and Us

Jun and Manilynn at the reception in Carissa Chapel

Anna Lou Gamazon and Myann Armonia. Myann has received a mission call to the Cagayen De Oro Mission

The DeGuzman Family. He is a fairly recent convert and they were in our temple preparation class.Really a special family and have now gone to the temple since we left for Palawan.

The Tamio Family. He is the branch clerk and she is a recent convert also in our temple preparation class and are preparing to go. Another wonderful couple.

Us with Sister Borja and MariCris. Sister Borja is the Relief Society president in Carissa Branch. She is a wonderful faithful sister who also teaches seminary.

The Geraga Family. He is the Carissa Branch President. He's Great! Always happy!

Wow! Long Time No Talk To.

Can't believe it's been so long since we posted any thing on here.Our last couple months have just been a whirlwind. With the splitting of the mission into the Cavite mission and the Manila Mission we have had to make a concerted effort to prepare for the expected expansion of both missions as the complement of missionaries will expand to about 200 in each mission where now there is just 200 total. July 2 for example the Manila mission received 31 new missionaries and only 18 went home. Cavite was spared for President Tye's first transfer but both missions will get a bunch more next transfer. As apartment coordinators Sis Gwilliam and I had to help find, approve, contract and furnish 8 new apartments.Finding is the biggest challenge because it's hard to find apartments that are big enough and meet the minimum standards required for the missionaries. Then oftentimes the owners are not willing to accept our contract conditions. So we often have to find 4or 5 to actually get one. We really concentrated our our efforts in the Manila Mission because there were no apartments that could hold 4 missionaries that didn't have 4,whereas out it Cavite there are quite a few that only had 2 that could accomodate 4. Also once the split happened andwe went to Palawan the is no senior couple left in Manila to look after the apartments.We really are praying for one to be assigned here but realize there is a huge need for senior couples all over the world. WE SURE NEED ALL YOU SENIOR COUPLES TO COME AND SERVE!!!!! This has truly been a wonderful experience and we see the Lord's hand everyday in this work even in helping find missionary apartments.We have really witnessed some miracles happen! Elder and Sister West moved into our place from Palawan on June 24t to help and we moved into the mission home for a few weeks.We enjoyed the chance to get to know Pres.and Sis. Stucki better although we were all so busy we didn't get to spend a lot of time with them. They are wonderful faithful people and we are so blessed to have them leading our mission. We really miss  the Paddocks, Pugsleys and Wests. They are now all in the Cavite mission so we won't see them much any more. We will also miss all the missionaries that are now in the Cavite mission. Mostly though  we miss all the wonderful people in the Punta and Carissa branches. We truly made some wonderful, eternal friends there and so appreciate all the kindness and love they showed us. Congratulations to MyAnn Armonia and Jessa Contada who received their mission calls just before we left; Cagayen de Oro and Hong Kong! We love all of you so much! We also congratulate Jobert and Ina and Jun and Manilynn on their temple weddings that we were blessed to be able to attend before we came to Palawan! We wish all of you the very best and hope to see you again someday.                                                                                                  On July 15 we finally arrived here in Palawan. We finished up everything we needed to do in Manila the week before so flew over here Monday morning. The Burt's met us at the airport, toured around Puerto Princessa, took us grocery shopping and then brought us down to Narra. We are grateful for all their help and look forward to serving here with them. They are a lot of fun. Who ever thought I would meet a cousin in the Philippines! Narra is a town of about twenty thousand with about 400 church members of whom about 125 are active. We've already visited some and  a couple of YSA girls we invited to come back to church came on Sunday. Narra is a beautiful place. Lots's of mountains and trees and beautiful farmland with lots of gravel and muddy roads so it feels more like home except for the heat. Because of all the the irrigated rice fields and other vegetation it is really humid here. The people are very friendly and I'm sure we'll learn to love them just like we love the people in Cavite.

Success

Ralph Waldo Emerson said "To know even one life breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded ." We still continue to keep busy with the temporal welfare of the missionaries. So at times we haven't had time to write. We don't get to go with the missionaries often but we continue to help our branch members in training and lifting the down trodden and afflicted . Its been a joy for us to serve in these two branches and have grown so very close to these wonderful people here.We have been blessed so much and have received far more than what we have given. Our service to others may not be dramatic non the less its the little acts of kindness, a smile, a hug, a word of encouragement, a visit to the sick that draws us closer to the Savior. This is what he did; he showed compassion to every one! As we follow him and strive to do what he would do if he were here,we in turn are blessed ten fold. We will ever be grateful for the humble people here and what they have taught us. We acknowledge his hand in all things, its amazing we are even here. We know this is where we are suppose to be at this time. We have a strong testimony of that! Our Mission has helped us evolve into something better than we were in the beginning. We will probably be here till the end of June so we can continue to help Pres. Stucki with the split of the Mission. Every one says how beautiful Palawan is so we are excited for the change and look forward to meeting the people there.

Accidents

The other day we saw a bad accident where a tricycle hit a dump truck head on. It was bad, blood everywhere and  I'm sure no one in the tricycle survived; so sad. The traffic over here is really crazy and it is our prayer and our goal to not kill any one while we are here. Each of the senior couples has had a collision with a motorcycle except us so far. Thankfully no serious injuries but certainly scary.One pair of missionaries was on a bus the other day going down a hill when it lost it's brakes hit to cars, almost ran into a Catholic church but swerved and went through the guard rail on a bridge at the bottom of the hill and nose dived about thirty or forty feet down into a river. Missionaries are truly guarded by angels because they came out without a scratch. The two parents of a family in one of the cars were killed and there were several  others injured. The elders were able to help some of the people on the bus get out. Pretty scary!

Palawan

On April 26 we had interviews with President Stucki. It's always nice to have some time with him; he's truly an inspired man and it always gives us a boost to talk with him. In and earlier interview he had mentioned the possibility of us being transferred out to Palawan island but had not said any more about it. This time however he said that he really felt that is where we need to be but said we didn't have to go if we didn't want to and said he knew how much we loved the people in our present area. What do you say though when your  president says he feels it's what the Lord wants us to do? he asked us to pray about it and we have but we already felt that it was right and since have had that feeling confirmed so we are off  to Palawan. It's not going to happen, though, until sometime in June just before the mission split. Pres Stucki wants us to get as much done as possible before the split on the apartments because he doesn't have anyone to replace us so far. So we are going as hard as we can to refurbish existing apartments and find new ones. Busy! but it's all good!

Youth

Last evening I went over to the church to meet a family we had invited for dinner but when I got there there was a young man who was in the midst of some kind of seizure or something and some members were trying to help him but he wasn't responding. He was breathing really hard but wouldn't respond verbally and then he got so he wasn't breathing hardly at all and his pulse in his wrist was very faint and he was cold so we put him in the van and rushed him to the hospital. On the way he started getting really stiff and threw up once; we weren't sure what was going on. Anyway we got him there and they worked on him for awhile and got him stabilized and said he was overheated and was way low on potassium. After awhile he seemed to be ok and wanted to go home but they wouldn't let him go because he couldn't pay the bill. So we had to go looking for his parents but he's the only member of his family and lives with his grandmother and no one knew where she lives. We finally got ahold of the missionaries and they knew but when we got there the grandma had no money so we had to go find his parents. They sent a little boy with us to their house. Pretty messed up family; they didn't really seem to want to do anything but finally the father came with us. When we got there though he had no money either so after talking with the doctor etc. we took him to grandma and hopefully they worked something out to get him out. By now it was 9pm but the family we had invited still wanted to come for dinner so we brought them home and they ate with us and finally left around 11 pm. Another adventure. We sure take for granted all the wonderful blessings we have. A lot of the youth here are really amazing; they have really messed up families but they are very active and faithful. By the way the father of the family we had over for dinner is leaving today to go back to work on a ship. He won't be home again for 2 years. I thought I was in camp for a long time!