11-11-2010 Inspecting Elder's Apartment in the Baguio Mission

Sugar cane being loaded on trucks

Dining Hall of the Lisland Resort all decorated for Christmas

Sugar Cane fields

Inside the Lobby of the Lisland Rain forest Resort

Children in the chapel we stopped at. They are always posing. We found out later that they were neighborhood children and not members. The building manager let them play inside while he and wife was there.

The Elders apartment that we inspected for safety

Elder B, Peter, Paul and the two Zone Leaders of the area eating lunch at Chow King

Inspecting the backyard of the Elders apartment
All of us with the Police Chief

This shows how the trash builds up in the backyards. These are soiled disposable diapers.

Christmas Ornamentation on the door

Backyard of another neighbor

Inspecting the windows of the Elders apartment

Kitchen of the apartment

Front patio of the apartment that is used for hanging out the laundry

Very unusual flowering plant with thorns.

Next door neighbor's back yard.

A couple of months ago President Jensen, Mission President of the Baguio Mission about 4 hours north of Manila had emailed us about an incident that made two of his Elders pretty nervous and rightfully so. Kitty corner to their apartment was the home of an elderly couple that had been murdered. The Elders said they heard the shots and knew of the incident. It was reported that the murderer had entered the home through the roof to rob the couple and then murder them. The Elders reported that the next night there was someone on their roof and went out to see who it was. This scared off the intruder and fled through the backyards of the Elders and neighbors. They felt that the area was unsafe to live and reported it to President Jensen. The Senior Missionary couple assigned to Baguio went to inspect the apartment and area and found that other than the incident it was a secured place. President Jensen gave a cell phone to the Elders for emergencies and then requested that we come to Baguio to inspect and survey the area and meet with the Mayor and the Chief of Police in the area. We took two of our officers with us. Paul Parricho has a degree in criminology and Peter Negrido is degreed also and has military background as well as the President of his Search and Rescue organization named LDS Seagull International. LDS Seagull International has a web sight if anyone would like to google it and find out about the organization. With these two men from our Security Staff they could help with the language and use their skills in the investigation. Also with our officers we picked up two other Elders who are zone leaders for the same area. Elder Burningham took pictures of the area and had a very good conversation with both the Mayor and Police Chief. Both the Police chief and Mayor knew about the incident and assured us that the police officers in the area would check the Elders apartment day and night and even pay them a visit to make sure they are secure and feel comfortable with their surroundings. The home of the murdered couple was torn down immediately for the neighborhood's sake.

Both the Mayor and the Police Chief said that the community had a very low crime rate and that the murder was very unusual. The suspect that has a warrant for arrest is an extended family member who was also the caretaker of the property. The suspect had borrowed money several times from the couple and had not paid it back. The husband of the couple was a retired military officer and also owned a rice field that had been harvested and sold, thus the motive was money. He took off and is still at large. This is a sad thing to happen and did cause a lot of alarm to the Elders living so close by. One of the Elders is from the US and the other a Filipino native.

After we inspected the property everyone was hungry so we all went to Chow King for lunch. This is a chain of fast food restaurants that we had not tried. We were told it wasn't all that good but Elder B and I though it was pretty good. They served the food on plates and not Styrofoam. And the utensils were stainless steel. The price very affordable for Filipino food.

In the evening we stayed at a resort called "Lisland Rainforest Resort" in Urdaneta. It was very nice. Several employees of the resort are members. One of the ladies spoke with us for awhile and told us the church wanted to buy the resort and tear it all down. We are guessing that this was a possible site for the Urdaneta Temple. There is a Stake Center next door to the resort so it made sense to want to put a temple close to it. The owner did not sell the property and the lady was glad because they all feared their jobs would go away. It really is very lush and green with a many trees around. If a temple really was considered for this spot they would really tear out a lot of trees and cottages for lodging as the one we stayed in. The Temple site has not yet been located yet, just announced.