A carabao herd in a pond. They are actually water buffalo so obviously are drawn to water.

We saw this Jeepnie today and thought it was wonderful.

We had a District Primary Summer Fun Activity on Saturday
May 27, 2017. Every branch provided games for the children and after lunch they had each branch do an international dance.
The San Ildefonso branch were dressed in yellow and blue Hawaiian Hula skirts.

The man in the back is our District President - President Chavez.

On May 15 our District had a service project where every branch provided community service for a project that each branch would organize.  Our branch (San Ildefonso) went to a local school and cleaned out the gardens.  We weeded and raked, etc.  for about two hours.   We got to be Mormon "Helping Hands".  You can see that there were other groups which also helped, one of them being the Philippine army.

This is a photo of Ken standing beside a papaya tree in the school gardens.

These signs are on the highway that we use almost every day.  They really aren't necessary because traffic never goes fast. When there's a 100cc bike in front of you, believe me, slowing down is just redundant.  They also put these signs before church and school zones.

We saw these little huts on a trip to San Miguel on May 9.  If people here can't buy a lot, they squat and build wherever they can and from whatever they can.  These were twig, cardboard, and plastic bag shelters and probably have just one family living in them, but not necessarily just one.

This is at the entrance to the town of San Miguel which is the furthest part of the mission and just past our town of San Ildefonso.

Bulacan is the name of our province.  When another mayor is elected there's going to be trouble.

We have gotten a laugh from these signs.  Hope they amuse you too.

Doesn't this apply to all of us?

The following sign says, Beware of holdapers and carnapers.  Holdapers translates as "robbers" and carnapers doesn't translate. It is a made up word to describe a crime.  But we think we know what it means.

We are taking online tutoring in Tagalog from BYU-MTC.  Our tutor, Garrett Giblette, was a missionary here in the Philippines several years ago and now he's attending BYU.  He came here for a visit and stayed with us for one night, May 6, on his way up north to his mission area.  He also tutored the Bremners so we took a photo of all of us.

On May 5 we had another Senior Missionaries activity.  This time we went to a rice farm and rice mill and learned about rice.  The photo shows rice growing in a field that has been irrigated.  If rice grows other than during the rainy season, it needs to be irrigated.

This is a rice harvesting machine.  It is very progressive and most rice is still cut by hand but once in a while you see a machine.

The rice comes out of the harvester and is put in 50 kg bags.  They are very heavy but Ken is very strong and can lift them at will.

They still use the convenient carabao to move the rice from the field to the trucks which will take it to the mill.

The carabao is a patient and long-suffering animal and can be sat upon by western tourists.

President and Sister Bertin on the carabao.

These are the other western tourists who attended the rice "workshop".

An ice cream vendor showed up out of the blue and Elder Dickson (from Newark N. J.) bought ice cream for all the children who were following us around like they couldn't believe they were seeing twelve tall (mostly), older, Caucasians in the middle of their Bulacan (province) fields. 

After the rice is taken off the field and before it is taken to the mill, it must be dried.  In this area of the Philippines they dry it by laying it out under the sun on a road or a driveway or another large cement surface.

At the mill the rice is separated from the bran (which is used to feed swine or ducks) and bagged for sale.  The 50 kg. bags of rice which come from the fields must be carried up these stairs and emptied into the milling machine.  (Elder Bremner is on the stairs.)

This is the milling machine.  On one side is President Joven Cruz, of the San Ildefonso branch and on the other side are Elders Bremner and Dickson.

This is our group at the end of our rice "workshop" at the mill.

This is a family who belong to the San Miguel branch.  Typically their family transportation is a motorcycle which is slightly larger than a mo-ped.  A typical trip to church is on one of these but if the family is too large to fit onto a "bike" they must use a jeepney.  The biggest problem with people staying active in the church is that if a person has to pay to get to church and pay to get home, it is difficult to do it more than once a week and if a member is financially challenged that member cannot go at all.  Some live a great distance from the church which makes it even harder, and more expensive, to attend.  The branch president of the San Miguel branch has to go to 3 or 4 meetings a week and it costs him almost half of his weekly salary just to travel to and from the church each week.