Interesting moments

Today as we walked the complex our guards noticed a problem at the guard house at the gate of the temple. There was no access from the guard house to the street before the gate and barriers. The door was to the inside pedestrian walkway. No one caught this early on and the guard house is almost finished. After taking a few pictures and talking about it I (Sister B) went back to the Stake Center to take some more pictures, particularly of the chapel. As I was looking for it, I asked a lady there where it was and as we were conversing and introducing ourselves, she said she is an assistant to the archectect. I told her that we found an issue with the guard house and needed to talk. She found the archectect and we started for the guard house where we met our three guards and Elder Al. Obviously there needed to be a change so they started the procedure to do so. Glad we found it today as time is now clicking away until the temple is dedicated June 13th.

Still more pictures

Temple at Sunset

Temple Patron Housing

more pictures

Above is the chapel in the Stake center.
From the pulpit towards the cultural hall and stage.

These are Elders helping to clean the Patron Housing lobby for their

community service. I sent this picture to some of their families from

my phone.

This is Al in the ERC. He is looking over some resumes from candidates for a guard
in Cebu. We have to fill one more spot.


Looking up towards the temple from the parking lot in the middle of the complex.

Cebu Temple Complex

We are in Cebu where the Temple has been handed over from construction to the church. We met with the contractor and project manager and the Temple President, his counselor and wives and other employees connected with the 3 year building of the temple and surrounding buildings.

It is an awesome task to build this temple. The project manager who is from New Zealand said he had to learn alot of patience. The construction workers are not as skilled or precise as we are used to so some work had to be torn out and redone. This tried the patience of the contractor and project manager. I am going to post some pictures of this magnificent complex. It is the most beautiful and best constructed building in all of the Philippines.

Today is our Anniversary

Today is our anniversary.....42 years.

the last couple of days

Yesterday was Saturday and we just took time out. We traveled about 10 miles to a mall called Asia Mall which is the 5th largest mall in the world. Well, it was huge but it all looked expensive. We bought a couple of DVD's, Julie and Julia and National Treasure 2. Both very good movies. We had lunch there also and that was nice. We met some gentlemen who approached us first, kind of surprised us. They are Americans and LDS as well. They approached us and said, "Well, hey there you are". And proceeded to ask about the Church goings on here and the new temple and so on. It is really quite nice to see Americans....kind of like getting a glimpse of home, right out of the blue.

Today Sunday, Al is not feeling well again. He texted the Dr. (Elder Jafek) and asked what to do. At first it was Imodium but then he was running a temperature and would not take the antiobiotics that I purchased until the doctor said he could. I texted the doctor and he said to start the antiobiotics and wants to see him in the morning. Also prescribed was the BRAT diet. So I have been cooking rice and getting him to eat it along with apple juice. And then he sleeps, sleeps, sleeps.

Tomorrow, three of our guards are moving to Cebu. There was one other but his wife did not want to go so there is a post for that position now in Cebu. We will be leaving on Wednesday for Cebu and come back to Manila on Friday. It will be a quick trip. We will stay in the Marriott.


So no church for us today, Elder is sick. I am watching Julie and Julia again and its really very entertaining. And inspiring. I made some homemade bread today as well.

Visitors from the USA

Will and Kelly Larson visited with us today at our complex. We are standing in the sun so we are squinting a bit. Not to mention its hot. It was great to visit with them today. Fun to have visitors from the USA. We took them around the temple and through our office and showed them off. Thanks Will and Kelly for coming by.

Cebu, on our way

Last evening we attended a temple session with our four guards that will be taking posts at the Cebu Temple Complex. We had a meeting afterwards and a light dinner I had catered in. It was a real nice event. One of the officers was having difficulty with moving to Cebu. Had to do with the rent payment and as he is not paying rent at this point. Moving to Cebu and paying rent was not going to be comfortable for him. As of this writing, he and his wife elected not to move. So there will be a job post made for that position.

What was enjoyable last night was sharing experiences with our guys about being guided by the spirit in our lives. Each officer had an experience to tell where they had been guided. Our present supervisor Jess here in Manila had many experiences to tell how the spirit guided him in his position here. He told of how he felt inspired to not schedule a guard in the morning shift a couple of days ago. Then received a call from that officer saying he had a slight accident with his motorcycle and couldn't come in until later. Jess told of how he was guided by his Bishop some 16 years ago about looking for a house for his family and how he was able to do that miraculously. Miracles in his life he could relate. The other officers, Manny, Lot, Alex and Edwin could also testify how they had been helped in their personal lives by the Spirit of the Holy ghost. All have strong testimonies of the gospel.

Jess related the events around the dedication of the Cebu Temple. As the Temple was being dedicated by President Hinckley, the sun shone through the clouds directly on top of the Angel Moroni. It was distinct as Jess told me and that many felt the Holy Ghost testifying of the acceptance of the House of the Lord.

I don't remember if I had posted the story of when some helicopters some years back were trying to bomb the temple here in Manila. The NPA was trying to destroy it. This was 1987. Bombs dropped could not hit it. The bombs were dropped and then their course coming down moved outside the temple complex. There was some smoke from the bombs and then the temple couldn't be seen. This was seen by all those around. The Temple has not been bothered since.

Birthday in the Philippines

Yesterday the 20th of April Elder Al celebrated his 67th birthday.. but he says he's 29 so we will just have to believe it. We stayed home waiting for internet connection....all day. By the time they finished around 2 pm. it didn't make sense to come into the office since Elder can now work from home. The housekeeper came yesterday also so....we have internet and a clean apartment.

Tomorrow we will attend the temple with our guards that are moving to Cebu next week and have some refreshments afterwards. The guys had some challenges finding affordable comfortable housing but as of this morning they said they had found something. Their wives went with them so they could see where homes and schools were.

We hope this turns out alright.

A new week

This morning four of our security guards and their wives are flying to Cebu to look for housing and schools for their children. They are all very excited for this opportunity. And they will be very busy.

This morning the Security department had the assignment of doing the weekly devotional. We had the devotional twice this month. The first time one of our guards spoke and today Elder Spoke on the Spirit of Elijah and how it has blessed our lives doing geneology. His talk was well received. We got into our office and have had several Elders and sisters visit us to tell us how much they enjoyed hearing about New Family Search and of its capabilities. I am glad we were able to do so much geneology and sealings in the temple while St. George.

Yesterday Sunday we drove out to our branch for church. It is a long way out there with much traffic. There is no way one can nap on one of these rides nor can you fall asleep at the wheel. It is totally chaotic. I tried to look away from the road to see if there were homes that looked interesting. Way Way out there I saw some. I look forward to the times when I can see open beautiful country. For right now we are seeing squater housing, poverty ridden areas and open air markets called wet markets. When we came back into Manila it actually looked pretty good in comparison. I do miss St. George Utah and the United States. I look forward to the opportunity when we see other parts of the Philippines with beautiful beaches and lush landscapes. When we visited our branch yesterday we were welcomed with opened arms and told how much we were missed. We haven't been able to attend our branch for about a month due to trips to Cebu and conference. It is nice that they appreciate our presence.

Busy time here

We have been extraordinarily busy with putting together our Security team for Cebu and replacing guards for Manila. It's coming together. We have a contract for our agency in Cebu. We are flying our Supervisor and OIC's from here to be at post in Cebu to look for housing with their wives. We have them in training for cameras and CCTV's in Cebu. The crunch is that we are taking over Security at Cebu, a 11 1/2 acre complex on April 29th which is a week from tomorrow. The uniform is a Barong which need to be replaced here in Manila and new ones in Cebu. A tailor has been called to assist with this. Thank goodness.

The even more exciting event is that the wife of the Mission President of Manila was missing all night. That caused us all to have anxieties. We got calls in the middle of the night...however, Elder's phone was turned off as he caught a contaminate and didn't feel well. So they called my phone. Story is that Sister went to the store by herself without her cell phone, used her credit card at 6:30 pm and then did not return home. Her dear husband was in a panic...and so were the rest of us. The sister was brought home this morning in good shape. She had become disoriented, lost, out of gas and no cell phone to call anyone. Lesson was learned by all of us. In a different country...you use all precautions.

Bread baking in the Philippines

I thought I would not be baking bread here but I found whole wheat flour and all purpose flour, yeast, honey and salt. And voila....whole wheat bread in the Philippines. Many items are passed on from other senior missionaries. We received a handmixer with dough hooks. Works good. What I hope to find or receive is dough enhancer and gluten. In the picture you will see a basket with a couple of mangos in it. Our security supervisor over our guards brought five of them to us and we have been making smoothies. The mangoes here are really sweet. Yum.