Week 1

Leaving Manti - Heidi-ho and away we go:

Good-bye snow!

Last view of the Temple at night

Last look at the Manti Temple

 Training in Salt Lake City:
Our training began at the Bountiful Temple.  We were instructed for three days by Brother and Sister Walker.  They are the former President & Matron of the Salt Lake Temple.  Sister Walker is the daughter of President Hinckley and we had a good laugh as I told her about Wallie's comment about "following the Prophet" and his own passing, when word was received that Pres. Hinckley had passed.  There were ten couples and one single sister (who is 83 years young and on her fifth mission) at the training.  Three were called to Washington D.C., one to Boston, Massachusetts, two to Brazil, and one each to Madrid Spain, Stockholm Sweden, Kyiv Ukraine, Hong Kong China and us to the Philippines.  We enjoyed our time with Elder & Sister Harris and especially our final night spent with 40+ of our kids and grandkids at Golden Corral.

Elder & Sister England

It's official!

Elder Harris & Elder England

           

Elder & Sister Harris

Carlos Santos - Temple Department
our driver

We left Salt Lake at 8:35 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 13 heading to LA.  As many of you know, we arrived there to find our flight to Tokyo was cancelled because of snow.  We spent four hours working with Delta and Church Travel to get us another flight.  We were able to get a direct flight on Philippine Airlines at 9:00 p.m. and what a circus.  Too many details to tell here, but we did meet a couple from Utah who is Cindalyn Maylett's cousin Mary Ann.  They were on a diving trip to Cebu City.  We boarded the plane exhausted and hungry and were fed supper.   We finally got to sleep and at 2:00 a.m., they woke us up to feed us breakfast.  We tried to sleep again, but they served us lunch a couple of hours later.  There were many delays and we had to land in Guam to refuel but finally after what seemed eons of time, we landed in Manila at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 15.  We completely missed Valentine's Day and I kidded Edward about not having a gift for me and he reminded me that he was taking me to the Philippines.  Nice try huh?  We met our driver and proceeded to travel to Quezon City, where the temple and our apartment are located.  What a ride!  Imagine 12 million people (I think they were all on the road that morning) sometimes 3, 4 or 5 painted lanes with 6, 7, or 8 lanes of cars  jockeying for road position.  Scary!!!!  We passed some pretty humble abodes, mostly tin and cardboard, but the thing we noticed were the happy people.  

Elder England

Our driver

Welcome missionaries!

Apartment door

We have a lovely apartment, small but doable, and very clean.  Some of the missionaries here had stocked the apartment with food etc. to do us for a couple of days until we can go shopping.  We have "new everything" and it felt like being newlyweds and setting up our first apartment - oh! we are!  After somewhat settling in, the Temple Recorder visited and asked if we could meet with President Cuyong to be set apart as temple workers.  We did so after cleaning up (we sure were tired of the same clothes for three days) and were greeted warmly by all the workers there.  They are excited to know I can play the piano and organ.  We start our shift on Tuesday at 5:30 a.m.  The time/date change is a little challenging!  We go to bed at 5:30 p.m. (the sun goes down at 6:30) and we wake up at 2 or 3:00 a.m.  We seem to get lots done until the sun comes up at 6:30 but we are ready for bed again! We went to Church yesterday and it took us about 20 minutes of more scary driving to get there.  There wasn't anyone to play for meeting and when the Bishop found out I could, I thought he was going to kiss me!  It was an interesting meeting.  Some of it was in English and some in Tagalog.  Relief Society was really raucous! These sisters have been through so much this past year with the storms and earthquake but they are happy and were fun to be with.  Here again, part of the lesson was English/Tagalog.  I will get pictures next week of these resilient Saints and their mode of transportation to Church.

Well, signing off as our Preparation Day is beginning and we get to go shopping!