Four baptisms

This is the Dungo family that is joining the church in our Branch at San Ildefonso.

 Elder Tinasas on the left and Elder Arcayos on the right were the missionaries that were teaching them.  The father and mother were baptized two weeks ago and on Friday four of the children got baptized.

The father was able to do the baptisms for his children since he received the Aaronic Priesthood last weekend.  They are a super friendly family and seem so happy all the time, always smiling.  At the baptism service I was privileged to conduct and Sister Swift was one of the speakers.  We did it in Tagalog. The next day on Sunday I also got to do two of the confirmations.

On Sunday we celebrated Mother's Day at church just like we do back in America, only the entire Sunday School program was up in the chapel and was all about mothers, including a slide show, talks, a small gift, and the children singing.  Sister Swift is a super mom.  She enjoyed talking to each of her eight children for Mother's Day, which because of the time zones is a day earlier out here.  We have great children and we love them all.

Primary Activity Day and Wedding Reception

Sister Swift fell and hurt her wrist.

 She tripped on a raised edge of cement sidewalk. She put her hands out to break her fall and later her wrist was hurting so we decided to go get some x-rays.  We went  to a Philippine hospital near by.  It was very clean and modern.  They didn't find any fractures and wrapped up her wrist. 

 Our District (like a Stake but has only Branches instead of Wards) had a Primary Activity Day on Saturday.  These are the children from our branch, the San Ildefonso Branch.  They dressed up in colorful traditional folk costumes.

 Each branch performed some traditional folk dances.

Before the dances they had fun and games.  The Activity Day lasted from 9:00 AM to about 2:30 PM and they had so much fun.  They were so excited to be there.

 This is another Branch, I think Bustos.

 San Miguel Branch primary children.

 Baliwag I Branch.

 Baliwag II Branch.  Anyone remember doing dances with bamboo sticks?

That evening we went to a wedding reception at Eight Waves Resort for Jhoana Francisco who is in our branch and her husband, Beuno.  We were going to the temple too, to see the sealing, but the traffic was so bad we got stuck and missed it and had to turn back.

Bride and Groom cutting the wedding cake.  They had quite an elaborate wedding reception,  Very nice, but I don't know if it would be typical for the members in our Branch.

Baptisms and Hike

Another baptism....

 Brother Dungo and his wife were baptized by Elders Arcayos and Bautista.  Here's a pictures of them with all their family.  They brought a lot of family to watch: six children, two cousins, his Mom, a friend, etc.  It was a special occasion.  They are going to be a great family in the church.  On Sunday they were confirmed and Brother Dungo asked Elder Swift to do the confirmation.

 Here are the missionaries with five of the Dungo children.  The cute little girls really like Sister Swift.  When they come to church they follow her around.  They are planning to be baptized next month too.

 We were invited to a birthday celebration for Sister Calderon, seated in the middle with her husband and two daughters and a son.  We brought a birthday cake to help celebrate.  It was nice of them to invite us and the young missionaries over.

 On Monday we went on a hike up Mt. Manalamon.  We went very early because it's very hot this time of year.  We went with the Jones and Rogers, two other Senior Missionary Couples.  They live in the same city as us in Baliwag, but are assigned to different Branches.

The hike started out through this small cave.  We went in the front and out the back.

 A view of some of the majestic scenery we saw on the hike.  It was very hot though, good thing we left early and brought lots of water.

 A pineapple plant alongside the trail.

 We made it to the top.  The view was spectacular.  After we got back down we had a picnic by the riverside.  It was a fun trip.

On the drive home we saw the entrance to the Philippine First Scout Ranger Regiment, which is their special operation forces.  Good to know they're close by in case we need them.  The Chinese have been building some islands on the reefs in the South China Seas nearby and installing missile batteries and there are diplomatic tensions right now.  The Philippine people aren't really worried.  They tell us America will protect them.

Variety of Activities

We had so many different things going on this past week and a half.

One of the things we started doing was going around to different families and having Family Home Evening with them.  This is our first one, at Sister Letie's house.  She had some of her children and grandchildren over too, and the missionaries showed up.  They taught the lesson and we did the game and refreshments.  Sister Swift made brownies.  Here we are playing "Don't Eat Pete" only we called it "Huwag Kainin Si Pete".  They really like games and it was a big hit.

 Here we are at our fourth FHE. At Sister Alma's and Sister Jenna's, we were by ourselves with the families.  Sometimes we do the lesson or a game or a treat. Here at Sister Josie's house the missionaries taught the lesson and we provided the game, Reverse Charades this time.  We try to have a game they haven't played before.  Sister Josie provided the refreshments, a rice with ginger dish: I think it is called lugaw.

 We had a baptism this week.  This is Sister Jodeline.  She's only 13 and is very shy.  She was baptized by Elder Bautista.

 We went to the Manila temple one day with several of the Branch members.  Angel Moroni on top of the foremost spire.

 A view of the beautiful grounds from the back yard.

The Perez family was being sealed together.  Here we are with them and some of the members that came along.  We also had a blind brother getting his endowments, Brother Roberto.

 It was transfer day at district training and we are loosing two of our missionaries.  We've had Elder Bautista, far left, and Elder Bugarin, second from the right, with us since December.  We are going to miss them.  The are really good missionaries and we got to know them well and enjoyed serving with them in San Ildefonso.  The young missionaries come and go but we stay in one Branch for our whole mission.

 Some of the YW in our Branch came over to visit Sister Swift and do some cooking in our kitchen.  We have a oven, which they don't have in their homes.  Also some of them aren't taught to cook much since their mother's do all the cooking and they believe in the Philippines that cooking for their family is a way they show their love to their families.  They had a fun time.

Lastly, we went to a birthday party.  Josh Gabriel turned five.  He's in the front, with some friends and his Dad and older sister.  His Dad is Gilbert and he's the first councilor in the Branch Presidency.  He is a school teacher.  They have a new house they just had built and had an open house in the front yard.  We got lost getting there and were driving down a very bumpy dirt road full of big holes.  We're lucky we didn't get stuck or break an axle.  We finally had to call and get Gilbert to come find us and show us the way to his house.

Palay Harvest

In the Philippines they eat rice with every meal and there are three Tagalog words for rice.  Palay is rice with the husks still on, like in the field.  Bigas is rice that has been husked.  Kanin is cooked rice ready to eat.  We went to our Branch President's rice fields to watch the palay harvest.

President Bertin, mission president of the Philippines Quezon City North mission, where we are serving, had a daughter and her family out visiting the Philippines and they came out to our Branch to see the harvest and some carabao.  Our Branch President wanted some help while they were out so he invited Sister Swift and I to be there too.

Some of the local Filipino children in a small stand of bamboo.  The bamboo trees are huge out here and make an interesting creaking noise when the wind blows because they rub against each other and it sounds like they are creaking and about to fall.

Sister Swift watching the harvest with some Filipino children.

 A harvest machine driving down the fields.

 An older harvesting machine that had to be hand fed.  For these the rice had to be cut by hand with sickles and put in the back of the machine.

 After watching the rice harvest, we went to see some of the carabao.  They are used for plowing and leveling the fields before harvest, and for hauling in the rice bags on small wagons.  This one got scared when we came up and was swinging its horns around, so they decided he was not a good one for us to get up close too. 

 A smaller and calmer carabao let us get close and pulled people around in it's rice wagon.  President Bertin is near the front of the carabao.  Sister Bertin is in the wagon with her daughter and four grandsons.

 Our Branch President invited two of the Young Women along to help watch and entertain President Bertin's grandchildren.  Joyce and Micalyn.

Joyce and Micalyn riding the carabao, which they had never done before.

Easter

This past week we remember the resurrection and atonement of Jesus Christ.

 Jesus Christ atoned for the sins of all people.  Thanks to his sacrifice we too will be resurrected and thanks to his atonement we can also be forgiven of our sins and return to heaven to live with our Heavenly Father and Christ.

We are thankful to be on a mission for Jesus Christ and to have a role, however small, in helping build and strengthen Christ's church here in the Philippines.

 One day last week we went with our Branch on a temple trip to the Manila temple.  The sister in the very front and the sister in the red shirt were getting their endowments and going to the temple for the first time.  It was a special occassion for them.

 We did have some problems on the trip.  This is the inside of the jeepney we rode in.  It was 2 hours late getting to the temple because they couldn't find one of the members who was supposed to be going, who is blind.  Since we were late most of us didn't get to do a temple session, only the two getting their endowments and their escorts.

It was okay, I did not hear one complaint and no one got upset.  The Filipino people are a very patient and happy people.  They seemed content just being there and we all waited patiently for the ones that got to go in.

 On Saturday we had an Easter Egg hunt.  They put together a nice program with songs and talks and some film strips for the kids.  Afterwards they had a spaghetti meal for everyone.  We had it at the Christmas social too.  Only instead of meatballs it has chopped up hot dogs.

 Here are some of the children taking off to hunt for Easter Eggs.  The children had great fun.

 The night before Sister Swift and some YW and YM decorated Easter Eggs.  The next morning they hid the eggs around the outside of the building.

 On Friday we went to the big Easter Procession in Baliwag.  We were told it is the biggest one in all the Philippines.  Here you can see the crowd and one of the floats coming down the street.

 They had over 100 floats depicting different scenes from the life and ministry and Christ.

 All of the floats had life size manikins.

 The procession is sponsored by the Catholic church in Baliwag, which is the biggest religion out here.

 On Monday I went on a service project to help one of the members in the Branch.  Here is the nice house this family is having built.  It's way out in the country and not at all crowded like the homes in town.

 We were chopping down weeds and brush.  It was very pretty out there.  Those are banana trees next to the two missionaries.

 At Zone conference Sister Swift got a cup cake for her birthday.  They recognize every one who has a birthday in the up-coming quarter.

Yesterday we were invited to the graduation of one of the children in our Branch, James Andrew, who is 12 and was graduating from Elementary School.

Here is the whole family.  His father is the Branch President.