We have 3 huge malls that are across the street in various directions.  Ken took this picture on August 23 at Ace Hardware in Fairview Terraces mall.  We've been forewarned that it's extremely noisy and busy in the malls from about September through December.  Christmas is celebrated for about 4 months of the year here.

We have been reassigned and are moving on August 21 so this week's post is a summary of the last couple of months.

     Our assigned mission president has been changed.  July 1 we said farewell to President and Sister Bertin and welcomed President and Sister Hughes. He has run a business with offices in Asia for over 20 years so he and his wife are familiar with the area.  

    Those who speak and teach radiate the love of the Savior and his gospel. There are many elderly members who also share these feelings, but due to mobility and financial difficulties are unable to attend church. One miracle we saw was with three young brothers.  Our district has been "mapping" members of the branches.  This means that you locate the member's house on a Google Map and put a pin where it is.  That way all the members' houses can be found.  You must realize that houses do not have addresses and many of them are not located on roadways but are several minutes walk from a roadway along a dirt path.  The branch members who have not been mapped appear on the list as red words while the others are blue; so you know who has not been "mapped".  Our branch was 98% done and we only had a couple of people left to find.  One person was named Venn Nephi and he was 12 years old.  Bremners knew him because he had been baptized in their branch in October of 2016 while he was living with his aunt who is an active member.  Subsequently his mother returned and took him and his two younger brothers, age 2 and 4 to San Ildefonso (about 25 km away).  Then the mother got a job in Saudi Arabia and left her three sons in San Ildefonso.  She left them at a boarding house in the care of two people who are in their twenties, are not related, and did not expect to have a ready-made family. 

    So Nephi's records were transferred into our branch and it was our job to find him.  The only clue we had was a contact number for the lady who is his caretaker.  The numbers that the aunt had were not working and we felt that there were no options except this one number for the caretaker.  So we drove to San Ildefonso and picked up the missionaries to help us. Elder Tobias (who is Filipino) called the number and the lady agreed to meet us and take us to Nephi.  We made a visit there and while we were there Elder Rodgers called the aunt and Nephi talked to her.  We made arrangements to pick him up for church on Sunday.  He didn't have any shoes so we bought some the night before and then picked up Nephi for church.  He is a deacon so he passed the sacrament and then went to Sunday School and Priesthood meetings.  He got along well with the other deacons and gave the closing prayer in Priesthood meeting. 
     The aunt talked with her sister and arranged to have the children come and live with her. She went with us on a Sunday evening and we picked up the boys with their few clothes and took them to the aunt’s house. They have since been enrolled in school. 
     We feel like finding him was a miracle.  Since we had so few clues it was unlikely that we would have found him without the intervention of the Lord.  It reminds us that He loves His children and directs his servants if they will "go and do" like the original Nephi did, "not knowing beforehand" and He watches out for them, especially if they are young. 

     We have many times received the Lord's help as we serve here.  The narrow roads is challenging at best. We rely on our phone GPS to help us get around and find people. On one occasion, we were coming home from Manila and our GPS stopped working. We needed to reset our route home but unfortunately our data had also turned off. We found out later that the phone was in airplane mode.  We stopped on the side of the road and were unable to get a signal. We were alongside the MRT tracks (LRT) and managed to connect to the wifi there and reset our coordinates to find our way home. Other times we needed to stop and pray and ask for help particularly in getting out of very small congested streets (alleys).  We have been to members' homes who live far away from the church. The roads to some members’ homes also take you to the Eagle Cement Co. which is the largest Cement company in Asia. Hundreds of trucks a day carrying 40 plus tons of bagged cement mix drive over these cement roads. These roads are broken up so badly that they are nearly impassable. 

    We have met so many people who have connections to Canada and even Calgary. A few weeks ago we met a young man, Jerwin Butuhan, who was visiting his parents in our branch.  Jerwin was a companion to Mark Bautista on their missions in Northern California. Mark and his wife Brielle and their son Denmark are living in our home while we are here. 

    Our Tagalog language skills are very limited. The talks and prayers are mostly in Tagalog. Most hymns are in English and when Sister Rodgers and I talk, the talks are in English.  The foreign missionaries (English speakers from North America, Austraila, Samoa, etc.) speak almost always in Tagalog. We went to the Temple last week and the sessions were all in English, although when we asked for assistance, some workers could not help us and sent us to someone else.   

     Summer is over and the rainy season has begun. The temperature dropped to the low 30’s with very high humidity and we get several heavy rainstorms a day. We have never seen it rain this hard; it comes pounding down. Umbrellas are often not helpful in some of these downpours.  There is localized flooding due to the amount of rain which sometimes causes school to be cancelled.

  The Area Presidency has asked that every member work on his family history and complete the “My Family” booklet.  It began with branch and district councils working on their booklets and taking group pictures with their books open. In the next two weeks we need to take a group picture of our branch members with their books open showing their work. 

   The gospel is true. It truly blesses families if we stay close to the Lord.    

These are the people at our branch farewell party

Manila temple on August 15, 2017

   

On August 12 our branch participated in the district activity "Youth Got Talent 2".  The 2 means that it is the second year they've done this. We won a certificate.  Actually every branch that participated won a certificate.  The district president, President Chavez, is the white haired gentleman at the back.

This is a photo of Rambutan.  It is a fruit which grows on a tree here.  It is white and tastes kind of like a grape.  You take the skin off and eat the inside except for the big seed which is inside the white part.

These are the missionaries in our branch.  Yesterday we had a Missionary Coordination Meeting for the first time.  Yay!
Left to right: Elder Tobias, Elder Lorenzo, Sister and Elder Rodgers, Elder Brown, Elder Carino.

We had a zone activity this morning.  It was planned by the Zone Leaders and was called "The Best Zone Activity Evah!"

Elder Lorenzo's t-shirt says "This is what the world's cutest missionary looks like"

The activities were based on the Book of Mormon and included making a flag ala Captain Moroni, the Zoram Chase, building a Rameumpton from paper cups, Ammon and the scattered sheep, etc.  It was very creative.  The teams were the Bremnerites and the Rodgerites.  The Rodgerites had more points at the end and so won the trophy.

These two ladies are "iron horses".  They both joined the church while younger and raised their children in the gospel.  Both have children and grandchildren who have served missions.  Sister Prescila on the right was recently in the hospital and when she got out she was cleaning the church building the next day.  Sister Naty on the left also helps clean every week, inside and outside.  She is the mother of the branch president as well as many other branch members.  We've decided that the multi-generational family gives stability to the church and has a lot to do with the permanent establishment of the church in an area.

San Ildefonso branch had a Relief Society party on August 5, 2017.  The theme was "Getting to Know You".  As you can see I fit in like a sore thumb.  Our relief society president,  (Sister Mary Rose), is seated second from the left.  Although she is Filipino, she is a returned missionary from Australia and so speaks wonderful English.  The primary president, (Sister Sheila), is standing second from the right.

Elder Rodgers had his first baptism on this mission.  It was a child of record from our branch and he home teaches the family.  Erica Mae Santa Maria Decamon - 8 years old with her mother and grandmother and two siblings and us.

On August 3 we visited the Barasoain Church (started in 1885) in nearby Malolos.  This is a historic building because the  Philippine Revolutionary Congress was held here in 1898-99. The first constitution was drafted here.  We went with the Bremners and the Wests and because there was no caretaker evident we went up into the bell tower (and saw some BATS!!)