VACATION ALREADY

After being here less than two weeks, we had three weeks without missionaries because of a big open house that was planned for the MTC in the second week. This left the week before and the week after as a sort of vacation time. President and SIster Taylor took us to a wonderful place called Sonya's Garden down south about 40 miles to a city called Tagaytay, which is off a lake created by the volcano Taal. (no view of the lake or anything, but it's much cooler down there)

It was a wonderful place. We stayed two days and had massages and good meals and lots of rest. Sonya is a wonderful older woman who always had the dream to build the place and have people come and enjoy it. It's a large complex with many cottages, greenhouses, a restaurant, and a spa area.

The food was great, all organic and grown right on the premises, mostly vegetarian, although they cooked chicken for us at Sister Taylor's request. They pamper you horribly. It was like an English resort in the early 1900's. We took lots of pics.

Elder Armstrong right outside our cottage, some of the gardens behind him.

The main room in our cabin. Up the stairs were two more bedrooms and another bath with a shower.

The showers were all open areas in the bathrooms that were lined with smooth pebbles. Above is a bowl of fresh flowers in the shower.

This is the smaller bath room, the shower head is on the right.

Humongous staghorn fern by the outdoor dining area. Mom would have loved this!

Lunch table: delicious mangoes, tomato filled with caribou cheese, olive oil, and fresh basil, hot dog (!?), fresh herb teas.

Another staghorn fern.

Sister Armstrong relaxing with some tarragon tea in the restaurant area.

The following pics are the results from a flower arranging class I went to there. The woman who did the class was a master of simplicity.

 Above:  Jack fruit hanging on a tree. YUMMMM!!! They grow all over here.

Another strange looking...fruit? I don't think this one is eaten. A lot of the plants all around outside are all the plants I used to grow indoors in California...coleus, arrowheads, wandering jews, etc.

Passageways through the gardens are full of overhead arches like above.

Blew this pic up a little so you can get some perspective. These are spiders on the roof of one of the greenhouses. The 'small' one on the right (or even the smaller ones above) are much closer to the size we are used to seeing spiders.

Some flowers:

 Two of the greenhouses:

 Sonya's water supply above.
Here's a good example of electric wiring practices in the Philippines:

A better picture of the 'bidet':

Sonya, President and Sister Taylor, and us:

 Above is Elder Armstrong with some garlic chips. They taste great chopped up in rice!

Wow, that took a lot of time! Signing off for now. Next time I'll post pics of the missionaries...they're the best part!

We miss all of you but we're so glad to be here! In the temple the other day I realized that I finally feel that we've given everything we have to building up the kingdom of God on earth. That feels good!

Well, things can get interesting here. The biggest group this MTC has ever had is here now. So far, we've had at least one (& possibly three) impacted wisdom teeth, bloody stool, bloody emesis, allergic rashes, plantar warts, visual disturbances, anxiety disorder, and probably some others I can remember right now. The fun one was the bloody stool. The missionary doesn't speak English much at all, but with his companion's help they managed to get the bloody stool idea across. I was having very little luck trying to clarify some details so I could figure out why he was having them. I suspected hemorrhoids, and asked him several times, but he said no. I took him to Arman, who happened to be handy then, and he tried to help. He conferred with the missionary to clarify some things for me, then tried to translate. He couldn't think of the word he was thinking of and finally came up with "gonorrhea". I kept my face expressionless & explained that was a sexual transmitted disease. The missionary understood that and backed into the wall saying "no, no, no!!!" and laughing. Finally we determined that he did have hemorrhoids. I'm working hard on Tagalog skills and making progress, but I have a LOT to learn!!
I'll try to add a bunch of pictures this afternoon. After about 6-7 weeks I'm finally starting to feel like myself again. I'm finally beginning to feel good and I think Elder Armstrong is also. We work really hard here. I don't think we ever had more busy days when we owned the business, but I like this better!

The First Week

February 11, 2012 Amazingly, we manage to get up Saturday evening in time for dinner and get our first taste of Filipino food . . . and we like it! I don't last much longer than dinner, but Elder Armstrong gets a quick tour around the facilities with President Taylor. Sunday morning we find that we, along with Br. & Sis. Riddle, are scheduled to give our testimonies in church that day. All these missionaries make the Spirit very strong. Here is the membership list of our branch: President and Sister Taylor The President's 1st & 2nd counselors: Brother Martinez and Brother Barramedes, and their wives. The Nurse Specialist and spouse, who is also the President's executive secretary (that's us). Elder Boehme (the Area Medical Advisor—read 'missionary doctor') and his wife. Whatever missionaries are in the MTC at the time (along with the translators that come with them). Of course, the missionaries change every 19 days, but the three senior missionary couples and the two counselors and their wives remain the same. It is difficult for the counselors because they have a home ward where their children attend church, but they come here every Sunday (and other days as well). Our missionaries come from Austrailia, East Asia (India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Thailand, Mongolia, Singapore, etc.), and the Philippines. This is not a complete list, but that's all I can think of right now! They are mostly sent back to their own countries to serve their missions, but not always. One missionary is here now is headed for Salt Lake City. Sunday afternoon after church we get 'trained' for our new jobs. Elder and Sister Riddle have about 2 hours before dinner, and then their drivers will come to take them away. They aren't looking forward to the trip home. Sister Riddle is very concerned about how her husband will tolerate the trip and they upgrade their ticket to first class. We find out later that Br. Riddle had a blood clot when he got home anyway. (He's now out of the hospital, though). Sunday evening Elder Boehme gives a fireside about Family Home Evenings. He holds a mock FHE where some missionaries play the roles of a family and he asks Elder Armstrong and I to play his dead grandparents, who sit and look on. After that, one group of Filipino missionaries begin calling us grandfather and grandmother, touching the back of our hand to their foreheads in the way they show respect to elderly people. They are very fun. This MTC is currently undergoing construction and reconstruction. There was previously a building here that housed all the missionaries. According to those who lived there, it was awful. It was filled with black mold (from the moist weather) and then there was a sewage backup (on the carpets)! I don't know how long they had to live there like that, but President and Sister Taylor are still a little traumatized, I think. Two new buildings have been built, one for housing and offices and the other for a huge (HUGE) gym with wood floor for the missionaries to exercise in (they're currently meeting out in the parking lot at six am, rain or shine.) This picture is the new gym building. It's HUGE. Bottom level is where the temporary cafeteria is. The gym area is 60 x 90 feet that give the missionaries the ability to play two cross court games at a time. (great...more injuries)

In the foreground is the old building that's being renovated. That's where our apartment will be when it's done. The two new pods that house missionaries (and us temporarily), the receptionist desk, and many class rooms are in the background.

This is the area office building, which is right next to the MTC...same parking lot.

This is pod one, where President and Sister Taylor live, and the breezeway between that & pod two, where we live. When the first building was ready, everyone moved over here. We're currently staying in temporary housing (2 missionary rooms joined together). It is very nice and clean, with shiny tiles on the floor that you can almost use as mirrors. We have an apartment stove and a sink in the kitchen, plus a microwave and a bookcase. There's a strip about 1.5 feet of floor space and a counter about 2 feet long. (not conducive to large prepared meals!) There's a refrigerator just outside the kitchen, a small dining table, a TV, some chairs and a leather couch in the rest of that side. Then there's a door into the bedroom area, which has some large, portable wardrobes and there's a bathroom area with door to toilet on one side and a door to the shower on the other, sink in the middle. Brother Dobson, a construction engineer on site here till the building is complete, came in to inventory all the things in our apartment the other day. He looked in the kitchen for the stove and said, “Oh. You don't even have a stove in here!” I was relieved and very happy to hear him say that. I certainly wouldn't want to complain (this is a VERY comfortable place to be...I keep thinking of the first vision I had of the Philippines where were hacking through the jungle with machetes to go give village children immunizations!) but it would be nice to have a real stove and a little counter space! Apparently, we'll have much more than that: a bathtub, an island with chairs, a real dining table (we could even have company over!), a bathtub, and a walk-in closet!

Here's a picture of the Manila temple, it's across the street from the MTC. Thankfully, there's a tunnel that goes under the street for pedestrians! As you can see, it's undergoing a complete renovation and so isn't currently open. We hear it will be a few more weeks until it opens again.

The food in the cafeteria is generally excellent, although fairly predictable: the menus is usually white rice, stewed meat, and cooked vegetable. We get green salads occasionally and fresh fruit every day. Sometimes it can get interesting, though. Here's a pic of our snack one day. If you don't recognize it, it's a Filipino hotdog with banana ketchup: