So, what are we doing here, anyway?

Our call as 'Member & Leader Support' missionaries means several things, and sometimes I think we're just starting to learn what our job is!

We've been assigned by our mission president to assist in seven branches of the church here in this area.  The Urdaneta Mission covers, pretty much, the province of Pangasinan, with is about 2100 square miles.  The seven branches we serve are in the five towns of Manaoag, Mapandan, Mangaldan, San Jacinto, and San Fabian.  We attend Sunday meetings in two branches each week, and try to meet with branch leaders, also, to see what needs there are that we can help with.  Some of these leaders are fairly new to the church, themselves, and don't have the background that would help them in their callings.  (Remember, our church has a lay ministry - - unpaid and not professionally trained.)  We can provide training and support for these leaders.  Occasionally this is by specific assignment from our mission president, but more often it's at the request of local branch leaders, or maybe that we see a need and approach it.  We're also trying to promote more missionary work among the local members.  So, much of this part of our calling is kind of self-directed.

                                                            Our chapel at San Fabian. 

                                     Some chapels are smaller, like this one at San Jacinto.

I've also been asked to provide some music training.  About 10 women and girls in the branches had begun piano lessons with the senior missionaries here before us, and most of them have continued with me, and I've added a few new ones, too.  I'm certainly no great pianist, myself, but have enough knowledge to help these students, and it's fun.  Most of them have already completed the church's piano course and they learn hymns from the book, Hymns Made Easy, and some have moved on to Simplified Hymns, and they all play in Sacrament Meeting.  Before the senior missionaries started teaching piano lessons here, piano accompaniment in church meetings was pretty scarce and congregations just sang a capella.  So, while at home a pianist is usually pretty accomplished before accompanying in sacrament meeting, here in the Philippines, any level of skill is valued and utilized.

Another thing we've been asked to do is to secure and prepare housing for the new missionaries coming into the mission.  Well, we actually have four assignments involving apartments:

• First, we inspect missionary apartments in four 'zones,' quarterly.  This is to check not only on their housekeeping practices, but also to see if the places are in good repair and if there are any landlord issues.  Tony brings his tools along, because we're always finding faucets or light switches that need repair. 
• Secondly, we've been converting some 2-elder apartments to 4-sister apartments.  This sometimes requires some upgrades and moving in more furniture, etc.  (I'll tell you more about Filipino housing another day!) 
• Third, a few apartments have just proven to be too awful for our missionaries -- repeated flooding, leaky roofs, theft, electrical issues, unresponsive landlords -- and we're having to find better places for them.  This is done mostly by the missionaries and members by word of mouth (no craigslist here), but we have to check out the places they find and get them approved and take care of getting leases signed, etc.  
• Our fourth task is similar:  finding places in new areas where we'll be adding missionaries. With the increase in the number of new missionaries coming in, we've been busy with this, too.  We have new missionaries coming every six weeks, with a large increase in the number of sister missionaries, especially.  This is due to the lowering of the minimum age requirement a year ago.  (Young men can now serve a mission at age 18, rather than 19, and young women at age 19, rather than 21.)  So, these are exciting days in the mission field! 

                                        Getting ready for group photos at a transfer meeting.

Our four sister missionaries here in Manaoag:  Sisters Va'enuku (Tonga), Augustin (Utah), Bonifacio (Philippines), and Palmer (Utah).  Bonifacio and Palmer have now been transferred and replaced.

So, we are keeping very busy, but we are loving this life!  It's a good mix of spiritual and physical kinds of work.  Getting to work closely with all these young missionaries is great, and we love the Filipino people, too.  I love seeing new areas and each new (to us) apartment or house is remarkable in one way or another.  So much of what we see here makes us grateful for the comforts we've always been blessed with.  This is an incredible experience and we highly recommend it!

                                                   Sunset over the river near Dagupan