Sunday February 14, 2010

By some slim chance I was able to get an internet linksys signal so I am entering in a post for today. We traveled out today to the provinces where we went to church in a nice church buildings. It is a branch not a ward. A branch is a small congregation not large enough for a ward. It took 1 1/2 hours to get there through the craziest drivers I have ever seen. Al (Elder Burningham) drove and he loves it. It will be quite a while before I will drive. Its nuts here.

It is a land of extremes. Abject poverty on one side and then mansions and affluent stores. While going to the provinces we went through places that had dirty and littered rivers. We stopped by a older member that Elder and Sister Gibbs know and wanted to say their last goodbyes and give them a gift. This was a really humble circumstance. The house was made of cement and it was a one room with a bed. On the bed was a very frail old man with his wife by his side and three granddaughters. The door was open and chickens were coming in and out. The adjoining room lived their daughter, son in law and children. The daughter just had a baby girl two months ago and she was bathing her on a flat cement structure with a baby blanket on it. She just bathed her by pouring water over her in small amounts. Good baby, seemed to enjoy her bath. The man has been ill for some time but he was sitting up and talking to us. After a few minutes we excused ourselves to travel further to our meetings.

Elder Burningham and myself were introduced to the congregation as the replacing senior missionaries that will be helping out on Sundays. Which means I will brush up on my music skills and practice on a keyboard to play hymns. Believe it or not.

We were asked to speak today and introduce ourselves. Elder and Sister Gibb also spoke and said farewell. Most of the meeting was spoken in Tagalog with very little English. We got the jest of most everything that was said.

After the meetings were over the members got out their cell phones with cameras and wanted to take tons of pictures. I hope to post pictures soon. It will be great. The primary wanted a picture of us with them, the Relief Society wanted our pictures taken with them then the young adults and the priesthood. It was happy. Everyone there was smiling and laughing and snapping pictures. These people love to have their picture taken. One sister in Relief Society that is very small, about 4 foot 6 inches wanted to have a picture taken with me. I really dwarfed her. I am rather spellbound by these people and really taking it all in.

Today is Valentines Day so Happy Happy to everyone. The Primary made a Valentine for us and signed their names to the card. Lovely people. Very Humble people. The ride home was another hour and a half. We have had dinner and now starting to yawn.

Tomorrow we will try to get the internet....at least we will restart that process to obtain it. We have our work tomorrow and then it is a Family Home Evening with President Ho Ching and wife at their house. President Ho Ching will be there till July and then they will move to Utah.

Hope to post tomorrow.