Happenings the last month

We have been keeping very busy and we noticed that it's been almost a month since the last blog update so here are some of the things that have been happening.

In September the church in cooperation with the World Health Organization and The Philippine Department of Health was involved with helping in the effort to have all children 5 and under be immunized throughout the Philippines for measles, mumps and polio.  Church members would go house to house, all houses not just members, handing out information on where parents could take their children to receive the free immunizations. The members who participated were encouraged to wear the yellow helping hands vests so they could be identified as being from the church.  The response from parents to have their children immunized was good.

The last week of September was family week and the church participated with other religions at an iPeace celebration.  iPeace is a group of churches and organizations coming together for the betterment of communities.  The church was invited to participate for the first time last year and because of the great response was invited again this year.  The young missionaries set up a booth where they were able to teach about the church and give out church literature to those interested.  We went down with two of the other temple missionary couples on Monday and helped them set up and Elder Henthorn and Elder Sorensen went back on Saturday afternoon to help at the booth.  There were referral slips which individuals interested in learning more about the church could fill out and then the missionaries would contact them for an appointment.

The first Saturday in October a church group from Dubai in the UAE (United Arab Emirates) came to the temple for several days to perform ordinances.  They were able to come at this time because that weekend was an Islamic Holiday so they were able to all get off work at the same time.  They brought with them over 700 family file names that they wanted to perform baptism and confirmation for as well as some of the other ordinances.  One of the couples is from Sri Lanka and they received their endowments and had their three children sealed to them the first day they were here.  Because of the time differential between the Philippines and Utah the General Women's Conference was being rebroadcast that weekend and the temple was closing early.  Since this was the only time this group could come, the temple made arrangements so that they could perform baptisms after the temple had closed for the day.  Arrangements were also made for them to perform baptisms on Monday even though the temple is closed on Monday.  We were able to help them in the baptistry on Tuesday afternoon, the last day they were here, and they completed the last of the family file names they had brought.

Last weekend was the rebroadcast of General Conference, one week after conference again because of the time differential, so we were blessed to participate with the members here.  Many members the internet so they come to the church to see conference.  The Saturday schedule was 8:00 am - 10:00 am Priesthood Meeting, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm Saturday Morning Conference and 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Saturday Afternoon Conference.  Sunday was 9:00 am - 11:00 am Sunday Morning conference and 12:00 noon - 2:00 pm Sunday Afternoon Conference.  Very few members can go home between sessions so they stay all day and bring food with them to eat at the church or buy something at one of the close food stands or markets.  It is nice to watch conference in your home but there is a special feeling being in the church with other church members while being taught by the Living Prophets and Apostles and other church leaders.  One advantage of watching conference a week late is we were able to have the text of the talks on our tablets and instead of hurriedly writing notes we just highlighted the parts of each talk that touched us as we followed along. On Sunday the temple missionaries prepared food for the young full time missionaries to eat between conference sessions.  The food was set up in the canteen in the patron house.  It is always so fun to associate with the young missionaries and see and feel their great enthusiasm for the work.

Some of the temple missionaries heading out to pass out information to local people about the free immunizations.  They are walking toward the temple and you can see Angel Moroni above the tree behind the power lines.

A church member trying to help comfort one of the children as local residents wait to have their children immunized.

Sister Sorensen with Sister Pickett and Sister Jopson at the plaza where the booth was set up for Family Week.  Sister Pickett is from Arizona but could easily be part of the Pickett family from Fayette.  The structure in the background is Fort San Pedro.  Fort San Pedro is the oldest and smallest fort in the Philippines. Built by the Spaniards to repel sieges by hostile natives and Muslim pirates, the fort was deemed finished in 1738, some 200 years after it started construction. 

This was the booth where people could come and learn about the church.

The Church's Booth showing information about the church, videos were always playing and plenty of church literature available including copies of the Book of Mormon, in English and Cebuano of course.  Elder Sorensen was able to talk to a group of young women about the temple, families and family history and gave each of them a Proclamation on the Family.

Two of the Sister Missionaries talking to a group of young women about the church.  Behind them one of the Elders is talking to a brother about the church.  

This is the group from Dubai with members of the temple presidency and temple missionaries.  The one young man on the back row has received his mission call to serve in Provo, Utah.  The group represented members from various parts of the world working in Dubai.  

This is the Church Leadership for the Dubai group.  Bishop Johnson is in the center with his wife and his counselors and their wives are on both sides.  The Arriba couple on the right of the picture are from the Philippines.  When the Dias family were sealed in the Cebu Temple the sealer was Brother Alfornon the father of Sister Arriba.  

The Dias family from Sri Lanka who were sealed while at the temple with the Dubai group.  They were in church with us Sunday, which was fast and testimony meeting, and the oldest boy, who is eleven, gave a very strong and powerful testimony for someone so young.  The gospel strengthens and blesses families all around the world.

Feeding the missionaries on Sunday.  The Sisters got to go first.

The Elders filling up their plates.  Yes, there was food left over after the Elders were finished so the temple missionaries go to eat also.

President McCurdy, Philippines Cebu Mission President, on the left watching his missionaries.

This is most of the missionaries that enjoyed being fed by the temple missionaries.

Some of the Sister Missionaries wanting a picture of the Temple Missionaries.

The Temple Missionaries, we love helping the young missionaries and associating with them in the work.

Harvest Time

We do miss the changing of the seasons and even the changing of the days.  Being close to the equator means the temperature doesn't change very much, there are no real seasons like we are used to (just hot and hotter and rainy and dry) and the sun even comes up and goes down pretty close to the same time all year long. Here it is September already, we can only tell by the calendar, and all of you back home are harvesting gardens and enjoying the fruits of your labors realizing that the first frost is getting closer everyday.  Here in the Philippines the harvest is on all year, though some fruits are seasonal, so we thought we would share some of the fruits that we get to harvest by walking down the street to the local fruit stands or when we go to the stores.  There are many more than we have listed.  We can also get imported fruits such as apples and oranges but our blog shows fruits grown in the Philippines.

An open fruit market.  Almost every fruit you could want in one place.  The large green fruit is Jack Fruit which we tried but we didn't really care for it, kind of a texture thing.

The bottom container is Avocados.  Sister Sorensen has to have Avocados every week.  She learned how to know the ripe ones by shaking them.  The top container is Mangosteens and the middle one is Mangos.

Bananas, all shapes and sizes and also different colors.  We like the yellow ones and there are different sizes of those.  The green hanging bananas are for cooking, fried boiled and with brown sugar on the outside.  Notice the watermelons also.

This is a Red Banana, that is the color and not just an over ripe banana.

Lanzones.  Lanzones was originally native to the Malaysian peninsula, with the Malaysians calling it “langsat.”

Lanzones opened showing the fruit inside.

Limes.  They are very small but definitely are limes

Mangos.  Sister Sorensen has to have mangos almost every day.  The mangos you can buy in the United States don't even taste like the same fruit.  We simply love sweet mango shakes.

Mangosteen.  they cannot legally be imported into continental United States due to concerns that they transport insects into the country.

This is the inside of a Mangosteen.  You eat the white parts.

Papaya. We haven't eaten these yet.

Philippine Lemons.  They look different but taste just like lemons.

Pineapple.  We love the fresh pineapple. The one on the left is different than the one in the middle. The fruit on the right is called Durian.  It has a very unpleasant odor and we can tell out in the hall from our apartment if someone has brought some up.  We haven't tried it yet but will before we leave.

Pomelo.  These taste like a sweet grapefruit.

Rambutan. Its name means "hairy " and is derived from the Malay word rambutan. The fruit inside is white and looks like a lanzone..

Watermelon (Pakwan), red and yellow.  Both are good.

The Rest of Cebu Island Trip

This is our fifth week back from the temple closure in July and we are having wonderful experiences in the temple.  The last blog talked about our swimming with whale sharks which was only one day of our trip around Cebu Island during the closure so we will now finish up with some of the other things we were able to see here in the Philippines.

We were at the beach several times and at this particular one as we were looking for sea shells we noticed that if you stood still for less than a minute many of the small shells started moving.  Baby hermit crabs were everywhere in the shells.  These two are in Elder Sorensen's hand.

This is Tumalog Falls.  We loved being here.  The volume of water coming off the falls was far less than other falls we have seen but with the outcropping of rocks and the water being dispersed in numerous directions creating a fine mist, it was just beautiful and peaceful.  Notice the large bamboo plants on the right side.

Elder and Sister Sorensen enjoying Tumalog Falls.  It's great being Senior Missionaries.

Sister Sorensen enjoying the peaceful atmosphere while soaking her feet in the pool at the base of the falls. 

There were all these little fish that came up and were giving Sister Sorensen a foot massage.

This is Kawasan Falls, much more commercialized than Tumalog Falls but beautiful.

If you wanted to you could get on a raft and actually go into the falls, for a price of course.  We stayed dry.

Walking back to the van from the falls we saw this Nanny with her Kids enjoying lunch.

The last night we spent on our trip was at the Virgin Beach Resort which was highly rated by some on the web.  As we continued down a long mostly dirt road we were beginning to wonder.

The welcome sign seemed to be a little damaged, what could that mean?

This was the resort.  We were the only guests there and survived the night but were glad to be on our way.  This area was hit hard by the earthquake and typhoon that devastated areas of the Philippines last year.  We could honestly say that "at one time" this was a nice resort.

We were at the North end of Cebu Island which is highly agricultural as can be seen in this picture.  We loved the open space.

This is one of the many sugar cane fields that we passed in this area.

This was by Bogo still in the North.  Cultivating a field using Carabao, which is an Asian water buffalo and the National Animal of the Philippines.

Swimming with Whale Sharks

The second week the temple was closed we decided to make a complete trip around Cebu Island to see more of the Philippines.  The first place we stayed was at the Garden Stay Resort in Lagunde which is close to Oslob where we planned on swimming with whale sharks.  We were not disappointed.  Just a few facts about whale sharks:

✦ Whale sharks are massive creatures. The largest whale shark to have been recorded weighed 47,000 pounds and measured 41 feet long.

✦ The dot and stripe patterns on a whale shark's body are like human fingerprints. They are unique to each individual shark.

✦ Whale sharks have about 3,000 teeth set in 300 to 350 rows. However, these animals being filter feeders, the teeth are not of much use.

✦ They have very big mouths, almost 5 feet (1.5 meter) wide.

✦ Whale sharks live for 70 to 100 years, with some living for an even longer time.

✦ These species of fish are slow-moving. When they are moving in water, they have a speed of not more than 2 to 3 knots per hour.

✦ Female whale sharks are larger in size than the males.

Pictures just can't come close to sharing the experience of swimming with these amazing creatures but here are just a few to share with you.   Sorry the pictures underwater aren't better but they were not taken by a professional photographer but by the boatmen that took us out to the whale sharks.

The four couples that went together.  Left to right starting in the back: Elder and Sister Johnson, Arizona, Elder and Sister Sorensen, Elder and Sister Henthorn, Washington, Front, Elder and Sister Decker, Arizona.

This is Toni owner of the Garden Stay Resort.  He and his brother own this home and rent it out.  Toni was a wonderful host. 

Entering the Garden Stay Resort.  The Johnsons and Deckers stayed in the cottages on the right and the Henthorns and Sorensens stayed in the home just past the van.

Yes it can be tough sitting at the edge of the ocean seeing the waves roll in and watching the sun set. 

This is in Oslob where we had the wonderful experience with the whale sharks.  At first we went to the structure on the right for orientation.  We were cautioned not to touch the whale sharks because you may injure them.  There can be a fine and time in jail for intentionally touching one.  There were zoologists present to watch all the visitors and insure the whale sharks were not harmed in any way.  If we had sunscreen on we were told to wash it off before going in the water.  The boats you can see are where the whale sharks are.  They are fed everyday starting at 6:30 am until noon so they will come to this area for people to see.  This day there were seven sharks who had come in to feed.

Yes they really are sharks as you can see in this picture.

This is Elder Sorensen with a very close encounter.  Twice he had to move out of the way so a whale shark didn't hit him as it swam by.  At one time the fins and tail of one were within inches of hitting him.

Just how big is this whale shark?  BIG

Sister Sorensen warning the sharks to not get too close.  At one time we were surrounded by three whale sharks. Notice the one behind us here.

Whale shark coming through.  Elder Sorensen can be seen just behind the dorsal fin and Sister Sorensen is in the pink on the right.  The foot is one of the boatmen that took us out to the sharks.

Elder and Sister Sorensen getting a close up view of a feeding whale shark.

Yes they have very LARGE mouths.

Sister Sorensen just above a whale shark.

Elder Sorensen floating as a whale shark goes by.

Did we really just experience this?  We were only allowed thirty minutes in the water but words can't explain the emotions it created..