First Week of Temple Closure

The temple was closed for two weeks for maintenance beginning July 14th so the temple missionaries took the opportunity to see more of the Philippines close to Cebu.  We went with four other couples to the Island of Bohol, which is a two hour boat ride from Cebu City, on a fast boat.  It is hard to truly convey what it was like but hopefully through pictures you will get a feel for what we were able to experience.

This is the type of boat that we traveled on to the Island of Bohol.  Some of the baptistry groups use this type of transportation to come to the temple. There are lots of seats inside and no one got sea sick either going or coming back.

This is the Oasis Resort where we stayed.  It is located on Panglao Island just  across a bridge from Bohol.  It was a nice place to stay, remember we are in the Philippines though, and was very close to the beach.  The food here was very good.  The owner actually lives in Cebu not far from the Temple.  He was here when we were and visited with us several times while we were eating.  He was impressed with how the church takes care of its buildings and helps people.

This is an old Catholic Church and school built in 1872.  It sustained damage from the earthquake that hit the Philippines on October 15, 2013 just one month before the Super Typhoon hit.  The epicenter of the earthquake was in Bohol.

This is inside the church.  There was some damage in this area but more on the opposite end from where I took this picture.  It was interesting that they allowed pictures in the church but not in the museum which was also in this building.

This was a different old Catholic Church in another part of Bohol that received extensive damage in the earthquake.  There were numerous old churches in the Philippines that were damaged either by the earthquake or the typhoon.

We stopped at a small zoo, maybe a dozen animals total, where Sister Sorensen wanted to play with this iguana. 

Sister Sorensen playing with Melia the Burmese Python.  It was hard to hold up because of how heavy this snake is.  The world's largest python was here last year when the missionaries came but it died a month after they saw it.

Men working in a rice pattie. Rice is the number one staple food in the Philippines.

This is a bamboo bridge that we walked across, mainly to say we did.

A close up view of how the bamboo was woven to make the bridge.

We had to stop at the Tarsier Conservation Area.  Philippine Tarsiers are among the smallest primates in the world and are only found in the Philippines.

Tarsiers are nocturnal so we caught them while they were trying to sleep.  They eat mainly insects but will eat other small animals such as lizards.  The biggest threat to their survival is habitat destruction.

This Tarsier opened his eyes part way to see what was waking him up.  They are small enough to easily fit in your hand.

We had to visit the chocolate hills of Bohol.  The chocolate hills consist of no less than 1268 hills. They are very uniform in shape and mostly between 30 and 50 meters high. They are covered with grass, which, at the end of the dry season, turns chocolate brown. We were there during the rainy season so they were green not chocolate.  Geologists have not reached consensus on how they where formed. The most commonly accept theory is that they are the weathered formations of a kind of marine limestone on top of a impermeable layer of clay.  Many of the hills experienced land slides during the Bohol earthquake.  

While we were in Bohol there was a typhoon that hit Manila and caused several deaths.  We were far enough south that we got some  of the rain and wind.  Some of the waves were fairly high and I was glad we weren't in the typhoon.  As we were watching the waves crash into the shore this Filipno walked out into the waves and then started swimming out to the boat on the left.  I didn't want to try swimming in this rough water.  Shortly after he made it to the boat two more men went into the water and swam to a different boat.  They were checking to make sure their boats were safe.  There were two boats that sank here this day because of the waves. 

Our final day in Bohol we took this boat out to the Island of Balicasag to do some snorkeling.  The wind had died down so we were safe.  What a beautiful area and a great snorkeling area.  There was a steep drop off out just a small distance and there were lots of fish there.  One of the other guides was feeding fish close to us and there were so many fish around him it was amazing.  To bad we don't have an underwater camera to share with you.

These are a few of the resident of Balicasag.  We sat here and ate food that we brought and they were very willing to sell us items to remind us of our trip.  The tourist trade is the main source of income for the residents. 

Sister and Elder Sorensen walking barefoot on the beach.  We never expected this kind of experience on our mission.