We arrived back in Calgary on August 20, 2018.  Friends and relatives were there to greet us.

We left our apartment on Sunday, August 19 to spend the night in the Hotel Jen, close to the airport.  On the way we stopped at the Mission Home and took pictures with Pres and Sis Hughes.

This is a beautiful souvenir of our mission.  It was given to us by

 Pres and Sister Hughes on August 15, 2018.

This is our Novaliches Zone taken today Aug 14,2018. It is our last zone/ district meeting. We will miss all the wonderful Elders and Sisters.

Even though this is the rainy season, there has been a surfeit of rain in the last week.  Flooding has occurred in many areas of the mission.  This is a video that Ken took at the front of our apartment.

   

Security guards are stationed in many places here.  They inspect your purse and person at every entrance to a mall.  They're stationed in a "guard shack" at the entry of every housing development. 
Since we've been here for a year we've made friends with many of them. 
This is Pathricia Pondug, a security guard for The Redwoods.

The guard at MacDonalds, where we buy our Monday breakfast of Egg-de-sol.

The guards at the entry of Redwoods

The regular way to describe people you graduate with from schooling, go with to the MTC, go with into the mission field is to describe the groups as a "BATCH".  Thus the missionaries who left on August 8 were the August Batch. We were included with them, even though we're leaving on the 20th.

This is a photo of the August Batch, taken the day that they left.

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Elder Bryan, with whom we have worked closely was also transferred on that same day.

Sunday, August 5 we attended Novaliches Ward and took photos of our friends in that ward.  The man beside Ken is Bishop Movilla.  Christina, his wife, is on the far left.  Fe Crescencio is standing beside her and in front is Jorlyn Manila.  Those three ladies were the specialists in the ward who helped update the records.

On August 1, 2018 we drove 6 hours south to Taal Lake and Taal Volcano.  We took Brother Mausisa from Don Antonio Ward as our tour guide.  This photo was taken at an overlook of the lake and you can see Taal Volcano in the background.

The road down to the lake reminded us of the Going-to-the-Sun road.  At the lake we took a boat to the Taal Volcano island.

Elder and Sister West from Arizona were also with us on the trip.

Once we got on the island, we hiked up to the volcano.  It is an active volcano which last erupted in 1977.  Inside the crater is Crater Lake and along the shore you can see venting and steam rising. 

There is an island in Crater Lake.  So it is an island with a volcano with a lake with an island.  

For a year now, we have been having FHE once a month with all the missionaries living in our apartment building.  This photo was taken after FHE on July 30.  The Ogdens, on the far left are a couple who arrived in the middle of July. Leslie made the treat for FHE that night.

 

One thing we will miss about the Phillipines is the lushness of the growth.  There is so much rainfall that green things grow easily and they grow tall and big and wide.

On Sunday, July 29 we attended Don Antonio Ward.  We haven't been there since last November and it was nice to see all our friends and say goodbye.  We took photos with Brother Herman Mayo, the ward clerk who helped us lots and Skyped with us on a couple of occasions because he had better wifi at home than at the church.

This is a photo with Sister Farrah Mausisa on the far left and Shemaine Tuble on the far right.  Both of these sisters worked with us in finding homes of lesser-known members. The other two girls are also in YW with Farrah (16).  Shemaine is an RM and a counselor in the YW presidency.

This photo is of Jimson and Danica Baluyot.  Their baby boy, "Nemo",  (yes, named after a fish) was 1 week old.  Jimson is the second counselor in the bishopric. His father's name is Jimmy.

We were trying to make some bookings online for hiking the Taal volcano which is close to the city of Tagaytay.  These two comments that we ran across were rather amusing.  A person can rent a horse to ride to the top of the volcano, or it can be done on on foot.

 We were also looking at hotels to book for a night and to our delight, a toilet and toilet paper were available.  One would assume that these items were available without calling special attention to them. 

I know we've said a lot about the traffic, but that's because it has an enormous impact on our schedule.
This is a typical street that we drive through.  Usually there are no sidewalks so people walk on the street. There are also MANY motorcycles and trikes to wade through. Ken was driving the big mission van with 7 missionaries in it when I took this  photo out of the front window.

We took this photo of a house on the way home from church on the 22nd.  The walls are patchwork and are built to keep the rain out - but every critter that wants to come in has free access.

This little boy lived next door to the patchwork house and like all children here, accepted his life as normal and enjoyed his childhood.  He was learning about a pulley system as he played with his teddy bear.

We attended  church in Bagong Silang 1st Ward on July 22.  We worked in this ward a few months ago and have many friends there.  The Relief Society President, Sister Castro, is standing in front of Ken.  She helped us a lot.

Ken took this photo on July 21 in Caloocan.  This is an apartment building.  It is named after Noah and we thought that was ironic considering the second picture which was taken a block away.  The rain here is so torrential that this flooding happens after only a few minutes.

Brother Torres of Sampaguita Ward is the man who was baptized as a child by Mark Cahoon many years ago.  We saw him at church on July 1 and Ken was wearing his Canada Day tie, so he gave it to Brother Torres and wore an extra one home. The sister missionaries took this photo the next Sunday.

We saw this truck on the road on July 15.  It looked familiar to Leslie but Ken immediately recognized it as the Stampeders' logo.

We found the house of a Phillipine "hoarder".  

Sometimes there is a sign outside that says "Junk Shop"

There is also a dog laying in the middle of the road, which was rather inconvenient.

Speaking of inconvenient, goats sleeping on a major road are also in the way.

We went to the last zone conference of our mission yesterday, July 9.  

This is Novaliches Zone.  

The zone leaders are on the right next to Leslie: Elders Slade and Quilloy.

We've mentioned "towel-heads" before.  In this culture, it's acceptable to walk around with a towel on your head.  Some of the missionaries get used to this, even if they are from North America. 

This is Elder Every, from Washington State, at zone conference.  He is a hard-working, diligent missionary and is always the winner of the "Preach My Gospel chase" game that is played at every zone conference.  He must have the book memorized!

We are grouped with the next "departing batch", even though we depart two weeks later than transfers.  So we went to the temple with them on July 5.  The mission provides a witness couple for the sessions with missionaries.

On the left are two assistants, Elders Yates and Caya-os.  On the right are the ones who are leaving, Elders Absantra, Bulanon, Rasmussen and Lucana.

There is a dinner at the mission home for departing missionaries the night before they leave.  We took this photo on June 26.  These are all missionaries that we've worked with closely.  From the left, Elder Morris (from Las Vegas), Meyer (from Sandy, Utah) and Richards (from West Jordan).  

On June 20 Ken and Leslie were in charge of organizing a Senior's Activity.  Because we haven't done a service project since we planted trees in the landfill, we organized an activity where we took food out into the community and fed the children (and also a few adults).  These are pictures of the activity.

The kids came running up the hill to get their soup.  Some of them brought their own containers. They formed a line, and waited for their turn. They must have done this before because they knew the routine.

This picture of a little boy is a visual representation of the experience.  Even though we've lived here for over 16 months, we were still touched and surprised by the poverty and humble circumstances of these children/families.  They were very gracious and thankful for the food we gave them.

This is a picture taken after the activity was over.  The lady on the left wearing the blue T-shirt is the RS President of Batasan 1st Ward, Fedelina Rimando, through whom we organized the activity.  She is also employed by Social Services.  The older woman in the purple T-shirt is Sister Rimando's mother, who cooked the food.  We gave Sister Rimando the money to buy the food and  her mother cooked the soup.  The girl on the far right in the burgundy shirt is Princess Rimando, Fedelina's daughter.  She recently returned from serving a mission.

We have noticed that the Philippines is really a culture of contrasts.  Today we drove to the Bazaar in downtown Manila and saw some sophisticated and modern buildings, but on the way we passed some slum-like dwellings that are also located close to these areas.

People rent this beautiful apartment building but laundry is still done by hand and then hung out to dry in the sun.

This is Congressional Road, a lovely 6-lane road, which is a pleasure to drive on, except for the cows and goats which wander at will.