Baptism for Eula

We went to Eula's baptism on Saturday.  They are in our branch. They have 3 more children and one is in young women and her sister is the first counselor in YW and now I (Sister Swift) am the 2nd counselor.

 There was a bonsai display at the mall and we also saw that on Saturday.

 Some of our favorites:

 Elder Swift thought this was a great idea.  There are a couple of places in the mall where the children can drive little motorized cars for a small fee.  By the way, the malls are very very noisy.  They play really loud music all the time and sometimes people are singing Karaoke.

 As I said before, Christmas season begins September first.  On the first you can tell people " Merry Christmas", just on that day only.  I think when it is closer to Christmas you can say it also.  Here are some city Christmas decorations that we drive by on our way to church and back.  Also whenever we are in the grocery store we hear them playing Christmas songs. 

Serving in San Ildefonso Branch

We are assigned to be members of the San Ildefonso Branch in the Baliwag District of the Philippines Quezon City North Mission.

In the above picture, we are with Elders Barcarse and Articulo teaching a large group of children.  Their grandmother (lola) and aunt bring them to church and they all want to be baptized too.  Some of them have Tootsie-pop suckers that Sister Swift gave them.

 We went to a District YW meeting.  These are five of the YW in our Branch.  The one on the far right and the one in the black skirt are their leaders.

 Every Tuesday we have Missionary District meeting.  There's personal study time, then a workshop and lesson, then companion study, and then language study.  The foreign missionaries study Tagalog and the local missionaries study English.

 Just outside our housing area there is a house and a yard with pigs and ducks and chickens.

 A fighting rooster on a leash.  Cock fighting is legal here.

 Last Monday was transfer day for the young missionaries.  This is the Baliwag Zone (four missing because sick with pink eye).  You can pick out the three senior missionary couples.

 This is Elder Coombs and Salisbury (he's from Washington too).  They are the other set assigned to our branch.  We have four young missionaries serving in San Ildefonso with us.

We saw this on a walk.  Across the stream is a small home that they have to cross a foot bridge to get too.

 We got invited to a Family Home Evening with a family from our Branch.  They served us dinner, which was very delicious, had a lesson, and we played some games.

 A market near where we live.

 Cooking babingka at the town center in Baliwag.

Sister Rodgers and Sister Swift.  The Rodgers and Jones are good friends with us now.

Baliwag

Baliwag is the town in the Philippines where we are living.  In this post we are showing some pictures we took around Baliwag.

 This is what traffic looks like.  It's very crowded and there lots of traffic and people.

 Another crowded street around the town center.  This is a very crowded area.

 Besides cars and buses there are three modes of transportation.  Lots of motorcycles which are the best for darting around slower or stopped traffic.

 These are called tricycles.  They are motorcycles with side cares that people use like taxis for getting around.  People don't pay much attention to traffic lanes.

 This is a jeepney used for transportation.  It holds about a dozen passengers.  Most people don't have cars and they pay to ride either the tricycle or jeepney.  Surprisingly we do not see very many bicycles, just a couple now and then.

 This is the clock tower that's in the town square of Baliwag.

 War memorial in memory of World War II when the Philippines were invaded by the Japanese.  The Philippines fought side by side with Americans during the war and General Douglas MacArthur is a big hero over here.

 A large Catholic cathedral.  The majority religion here is Catholic.

 Ceiling inside the cathedral tpwer.

 Statue of Mose and the Ten Commandments.

 In the town square we each had a Bibingka.  They only cost 55 pesos, which is just about a $1.20.  It is cooking under the coals.

 The Bibingkas are like a hot custard, but are called rice cakes. It is a traditional Christmas food.  Oh, it case you didn't know the Christmas season begins September first in the Philippines and lasts through Christmas.  You can see a little of it under the green leaf. It was about 6 inches in diameter and was served with shredded coconut. I (Sister Swift) really enjoyed it.

 Here is a tiny Dunkin Donuts.

 A large number of the signs (the majority I think) are in English.  Most everyone speaks at least some English, but very little is spoken here in the province or at church during talks or prayers.  I know some of the members can speak it quite well though, and will interpret for me if I ask.  A lot must be able to read it too.

 Of course the McDonalds is in a modern building.

Church and Visits in Philippines

It's been a busy first week for us in the Philippines.  We got out to our area on a Thursday and have been to church two times now.

 This is the town where our Branch is located.  We're assigned to the San Ildefonso Branch in the Balican District in the Philippines Quezon City North Mission.  We live in the town of Baliwag.

 This is the small Branch building.  Pretty nice.  They have offices and classrooms downstairs and the chapel upstairs.

 We frequently see cows (bukas) in the fields.  This one was by the road.

 The oxen are called Carabaw.

 Here's two missionaries at their house in St. Miguel.

This is us with one of our missionaries and a sister from the church, Sister Priscilla, who seems to just love Jacquelyn.  After we visited her house she went with us to visit the rest of the people we saw that night.

 Elder Barcarse and Articulo.  Local Philippine missionaries assigned to our branch.  They took us out on Thursday to visit seven families.  Then on Saturday we went out with Elders Coombs and Salisbury from America.  We got drenched in a heavy rain and had to walk through lots of water to get to one house.

Here's all the senior missionaries ( the two on the front right are leaving.)  President and Sister Bertin are seated in the middle.

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.