Beautiful Philippines - I'm "home" !!

I am very new to this blog stuff so please bear with me as I learn to upload photos etc. I needed to start somewhere so here I am on behalf of both Roy and I as we commence our mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the beautiful Philippine Islands.

I was born here almost 66 years ago and found it so amazing that we put our assignment into the hands of the Church mission leaders and asked them to send us where we are needed and as crazy as it sounds, I am actually back in the place of my birth! I got to meet with my wonderful father just a couple of days before our flights and he told me stories about his military assignment here that I had never heard. He also reminded me to come with an open mind and told me how wonderful the people were and said I would fall in love with them. Weve only been here since July 13th..... 10 days and I am already in love. We came to what they call the Cebu, Philippines mission which includes almost all of Cebu Island, half of Negros Island and a smallish island called Siquijor. Only 3+ of the 7500 islands of the Philippines! It is much bigger than most people realize and super populated! We are currently in Cebu City which contains several million people with all that a big city includes.... messes, smells, noise and areas that are very first-world, but across the street will be abject poverty. It is VERY warm and VERY humid, but we get out every morning and exercise and day by day we are recovering from our two weeks of special training at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) and the very very long flight! We are trying to get acclimated to the heat and all of the changes.

We are currently living in an apartment/hotel thing that is certainly NOT a Marriott or a Hyatt but we aren't on vacation, we are here to work, and they are taking good care of us. We are withing walking distance of just about everything we need from the gorgeous Cebu Temple to grocery stores and restaurants. The money system is pesos, and we are even getting accustomed to that. We feel safe and are greeted with BIG smiles and probably 50 "good morning" as we walk each day. We are also excited about what we are being asked to do. Initially we thought we would be working out in a district very close to a smallish community BUT .... I think we wanted to get out of the city just bad enough that we got the exact opposite of what we thought.

Our mission president (Pres. Fernandez) is brand new and covers the entire area administratively and spiritually. Many missionaries are young and talk to people about Christ. Other missionaries do much with basic service work in their areas and others focus on education and teaching English to help with business skills. There is a doctor and his wife, finance people & much other work but I can't list it all here.

The mission leaders are usually in their retirement years like us. Not so with Pres. Fernandez. he and is lovely wife are in their mid-forties and actually brought a couple of their teen kids with them. Sis Fernandez is wonderful and works with Pres. Fernandez in many ways to get the work of mission completed. Right now, we feel like we are drinking from a fire hose but will figure things out soon.

OK ... back to our assignment; with only a week into our mission we were asked to take over the housing situation for the entire mission which includes over 200 people young and old. Apparently, the living conditions in some of the areas don't even include indoor plumbing, have bug and rat infestations, filthy water and numerous other problems. Our work is cut out of us and we were a little afraid of such a big assignment right off the bat. Don't even know quite how to do it yet ... but we are learning fast.

This has become too long for a first entry, but I'll try to send a link each week and upload pictures when I get a bit smarter. Love to all of you! We miss our many friends and family in the US!