Arrive in Philippines

We got to the Philippines after two days of traveling.  A 2 hour flight from Provo to Los Angeles, a long layover, a 15 hour flight to Hong Kong, and then a 2 hour flight to Manila.

 This is the Mission President's home for the Philippine Quezon City North Mission.  We got to stay there for two nights.  Our second and third nights.

 It's really quite nice inside.  I'll add a picture of us and the mission president and his wife when they send it to us.  They're really nice.

These are a set of pictures taken of some of the local housing and streets we saw driving around Quezon City getting our immigration paperwork down.  Junior Elders took us around to get everything done.

 Two carts really loaded up.

 We saw some poor sections of town.  On the first night there we got to our hotel a little after midnight.  I went out to get some water and pop.  It was still busy out with lots of cars and people.  I saw two little children (about 4 and 6, years old) sleeping on the bare concrete of a pedestrian overpass.  They had no pillows or covers or blankets.  There were no parents or adults watching over them.  It was sad.  On the way back I saw them still there, with no adults anywhere in sight.  I wanted to do something to help but there was nothing I could do.  The gospel of Jesus Christ has the answers to the world's problems, so in a way we are doing our parts, however small, to help bring people to Christ and solve the world's problems.  I'm going to remember those children whenever I think I have it hard, because I really don't.

 A business.

 More of the town.

 The city streets are really busy with cars and jeepneys and motorcycles with side cars.

 This is the waiting room at the place we got our driver's licenses. In case you thought our DMV is bad.

 One of the city streets.

 One night we went out to dinner with the other senior couples at a big modern mall.  We ate at a TGIF and then went to Cold Stone for ice cream.  They sang and danced like back home.

This is our house in Balliwag, Philippines.  We'll put up more pictures of it in the next blog.  It's the white house in the middle of these two yellow homes.  We're in a  nice gated community.  We really attract a lot of attention though, being the only non-Filipino's there.

We're glad to be there though and we're having a good time.