October 14th - 26th

I didn't get the opportunity to blog last week or rather I didn't take the time to blog. It seems like everyday I think of something I need to tell everyone and then forget, so I have started to make notes, now if I can find the notes, I will be in good shape.

On October 13th the office had a devotional with Elder Quentin Cook, Elder Jay Jenkins and President McClure. They did a question and answer type devotional, it took everyone by surpise so there weren't that many questions but it was informative and enjoyable. Elder Cook was very comfortable and really is an ordinary man with an extra ordinary responsibility. The office put together a choir for the occasion and did a good job. Filipino people do love to sing, they often do not have pianos in Relief Society or other meetings besides Sacrament Meeting, so someone gets up, sings a few bars of the song, says okay and we all sing and it sounds great. All the hymns are sung in English and I am grateful for that.

One of the sisters that works in the office was determined for me to try horseradish, so she brought some to work and made it into a salad. I found that what they call horseradish is not what we call horseradish. Philippine horseradish looks like a cucumber that is corregated and has a very bitter taste. The sister sliced the horseradish very thin and mixed it with onions and fish and some sugar. I ate some of it, but my stomach paid the price all afternoon. I think I have said before how anxious they are that we like their food. Everything they want you to try, they will tell you what part of your body that particular food is good for, I can't remember for sure but I don't think horseradish was good for digestion.

Most of the apartments here do not have clothes dryers, fortunately ours does but to use it we have to hang the dryer hose out the window. They do not have dryer sheets here, but the washer does make a buzzing sound when it is time to put in the fabric softener, most of the time I catch it. We really are so blessed in the US with such modern conveniences, I feel like I have stepped back in time about 30 years or more when it comes to household things and equipment.
I will never get used to the brooms here, I've thought about giving up sweeping because I get so frustrated doing it but then the dust bunnies get so bad I get the broom out for another try, unfortunately it is just as frustrating as the last time I used it.

I was looking at a visiting teaching report in one of the wards we were visiting and I was surprised to see that there were 12-16 sister on each route, some of the routes had a 100 % and all of the routes had at least visited some of the sisters on their routes and the traveling here is so bad and costly for many of the visiting teachers. Some of us are so lame in the US compared to the Filipino sisters dedication, they also work out of their homes as we do, have young children and many of the sisters on their routes do not have phones.

Sister Clark and I rode to Tarlac Stake with a driver on Saturday. It was a wonderful, the trip, took us about 2 1/2 hours and was outside of Metro Manila. It felt like a road trip in the country to me, so relaxing and refreshing. Everything was green, lots of sugar cane and rice fields. I really think I could live in a Nimpa Hut here in the Philippines, I like them. I would like to visit a shanty town before I go home just to see how the people adjust and live in their shelters. The people are so happy, I keep thinking they must have a secret inside their shanty towns that we don't know about.

A lot of the senior missionaries here read novels, that really surprised me, Sister Clark said we can do what we want on our down time. I don't think missionaries every have a down time from being a missionary, at any rate, reading novels on my mission is not on my list of things to do and going site seeing is not a priority either. I hear all the time, oh we will have to take Sister Burwell here or there, if I went to all those places, I'm not sure when I would have time to do my assignments.

I feel really proud of myself, we were sitting in a gospel doctrine class on Sunday and the teacher was teaching about forordination, I know that because she said the word in english, at one point the teacher and one of the sister got into a discussion that was getting a little heated, of course it was all in Tagalog, but I somehow sensed what the problem was and raised my hand and explained that I could not understand Tagalog but maybe I could answer, so I explained that we were forordinated to certain callings in the pre-existence but we are given our agency and it is up to us to be worthy to receive the forordination in this life, the sister immediately began shaking her head yes, the teacher agreed, she had left out that bit of info and the lesson preceded. The gospel is true everywhere in the world!