One P-Day in the Mission

Monday is our 'p-day,' or 'preparation day' in the mission.  We actually have a lot of flexibility in our scheduling, but for the young missionaries, it's their day to shop, do laundry, clean house, email, play - - everything they need to do to prepare for the coming week.

Tony and I start our Mondays (after he runs 8-10 km, I should say!) with about three hours of skyping with our kids and grandkids, which is such a great way to stay connected with them!  One granddaughter we have met only over skype, since she was born in Ohio just before we left on our mission.  It'll be fun to see if she likes us as well in person.  : )

This last Monday, after skyping, we got ready and went to an activity in Mangaldan with all the missionaries in the zone.  When we arrived, they'd just gotten the new zone t-shirts they had printed up.  These were designed by Elder Virina and depict every one of our missionaries as some super-hero.

We've had a transfer day since this was taken, and several of these missionaries are now in other areas.

The artist, who has now completed his 2-year mission and went home this week.

We watched the movie, "Ephraim's Rescue," which is a sequel to "17 Miracles."  Both are stories dealing with the ill-fated Martin handcart company of Mormon pioneer days.  I brought some homemade chocolate chip cookies and brownies, which are always a hit, as few homes here have ovens.

After the movie, some ladies served lunch, which we just took a couple bites of, to taste it, before we had to leave.  It was delicious - - jackfruit and shrimp cooked in coconut milk and seasoned with garlic and Magic Sarap (pretty much like bouillon granules).

Our next stop was Calasciao, to the tailoring shop of President and Sister Franco, who had made some clothes for us.  Tony had ordered a barong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barong_Tagalog) and I, a two-piece dress. 

President Franco is Second Counselor to our mission president, but he's not a full-time missionary.  He's a tailor and operates this little shop in the public market.  It has about six sewing machines and a serger.  They've been very busy making school uniforms for weeks but fit in our little job, as well.  His awesome wife is sitting way in the back, on the right side.  Shops like this in the market have three walls and the front is open. 

Next on the agenda was to meet with some sister missionaries and talk with a potential landlady about an apartment they'd found.  They've had so much trouble with an unresponsive landlord and had been watching for another place they might move into. This one looked very promising.

 Unfortunately, we found out a few days later that the owner didn't like the terms of our contract and the deal was off.  That happens sometimes.  Back to the search, which just involves the missionaries doing a lot of looking and asking around.

It was beginning to get dark by this time and we headed home to Manaoag.  It's never a good idea to be on the road after dark, and we avoid it whenever we can, but even in July, it's dark by 7:00.  

We do see some incredible sunsets here.

Once we were home, Tony made us some BLT's and we watched a movie on youtube.  So, that was our day.  Every day is a little different for us, and, like I said, this was a P-day, not a regular workday at all - - just a fun day I wanted to share.  : )

Birthday Balut

On Sunday, in one of the branches we attend, some young women approached me after church meetings.  A couple of these girls are piano students of mine, so we know each other pretty well.  One of them said to me, with a big smile, "Sister, I think we need to have a birthday party for Elder Shamrell, because his birthday is tomorrow.  We will come over and help."  She was very insistent, so we said for them to come at 3:00 the next day.  We knew it would be a fairly long trip for them - - probably an hour, by jeepney.

Sometime after 3, we got a text that they were on their way, late, because of the heavy rain.  When they arrived, there were just two of them, who are some of my favorite piano students (if I'm allowed to have favorites!) and who are sisters.  They had their 8-month-old nephew with them, whom they were babysitting.  Their dad had driven them over in his trike (again, probably an hour's drive) and dropped them off.  Later, he came back and joined us.  And we texted the Manaoag sister missionaries to come over, which they did a little later.

We had a good time, assembling pizzas and baking them.  (Most Filipinos don't have ovens in their homes, so getting to bake anything is a novelty for them.)  We didn't bother putting olives on the pizzas this time, since nobody here seems to care for them.

After we ate, Jayza, one of the sisters, pulled out her present for 'Elder Shamrell' - - balut!  Balut is a delicacy here in the Philippines, though some of us non-Filipino types are not so excited to try it.  It's a duck embryo, boiled in the shell.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_%28food%29

Elder Shamrell is a good sport.

Jayza shows him how it's done.

You open the top so you can sip the broth first.

Then into the bowl it goes.

Yum, yum.

A little baggie of vinegar was included, and you add some salt, too.

What's that hard thing in there?

Hmmm.

Analyzing . . . .

It tastes like a combination of egg yolk and chicken liver.

Who else wants one?

Jasmin and Jayza with their nephew, Prince.

Sisters Finau and Belaro were with us, too, though this pic was taken later.

It was a great time with good friends.  It was beginning to get dark outside and the Labis family got on their way home, then the sister missionaries went back to their work.  But we were glad those girls decided we should have a party.  : )  

Our Easter Weekend

What an interesting place we live in, and such an interesting period in our lives!  The Philippines, of course, is a primarily Catholic country, and there are evidences of that everywhere, but the town where we live, Manaoag, is actually a pilgrimage site.  Religious holidays always bring throngs of people here, and Easter weekend is the biggest.  The Catholic church here has received "basilica" status, and there is a shrine on the grounds behind the church, where people come to light candles and pray before a beautifully-gowned statue of Mary.  Legend has it that Mary appeared to a young man here in the 17th century and told him to build a church there.  "Manaoag" is derived from words meaning "she calls," and people definitely answer!  I read last week that the town was anticipating a million people coming over Easter weekend.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Manaoag

We were a little surprised to see that Lent isn't acknowledged more here than it seems to be.  Our previous experience with Lent had been to see Mardi Gras or Carnaval celebrated right before Ash Wednesday, followed by 40 days of reflection, sacrifice, and repentance, until Easter.  Here, we saw people marked with ashes on Ash Wednesday, as expected, and then the carnivals and festivals all began, in every town!  And they went on for weeks, with lots of extra market areas opened up along the streets, additional food vendors in the plazas, and carnival rides in some of the towns.  But, on Good Thursday and Friday, many of the malls and other businesses closed down, and the radio stations went off the air.

Corn on the cob

Palm Sunday, with some fancy braided palms.

Buko juice -- made from young coconuts.

On Good Friday, Tony was gone all day, doing small repairs in some of the missionaries' apartments, and I stayed home.  A neighbor had told us there would be a procession, at about 2 pm, he thought.  At 2:00, I took a walk around the town but didn't see anything looking like a procession getting started, so I went home.  It was really, really hot that day - - it's been in the mid-90's with at least 50% humidity - - and it took some doing for me to go out again at 3:00.  Still nothing, so this time, I asked a policeman what time the procession would begin.  "The procession?  Oh . . . um . . . maybe about 4:00?  No . . . exactly at 5:00."  Wherever his sudden certainty came from, he was right, and I was able to watch the whole procession go by, just a block or so from our house.  Fortunately, the sun was going down by then, and the heat was more bearable.  I perched on a wall, where I could see thousands of devoted people walking past.  I can't say who all the statues represented, all regally robed, but the last appeared to be Jesus, lying in a glass casket.  Each statue was carried on a small platform, surrounded by lamps.

There's a crucifix, kind of hard to spot in this pic.

So many heads of black hair!

Later that night, President Monahan, our mission president called, to see if we would be available to drive to Manila the next day.  This was a bit alarming, as we'd hoped to never have to drive in that city!  Manila was our first exposure to Filipino driving and it is such a huge city that the whole idea was really unnerving.  But he needed a ride for a young sister missionary to a medical facility there and couldn't do it himself that day. Fortunately, his wife would go with us, and she's a lot more familiar with the city and the route.  So . . .

We picked up Sister Monahan in the morning and drove to pick up the sister missionary in Binalonan.  There is a sequence of three expressways that extends nearly to Urdaneta from Manila, so most of our trip was pretty fast sailing.  At one point, though, we did discover that we'd taken the wrong route and had to backtrack, which cost us some time.

Were it not for our wrong turn, we never would have discovered that the Holy Land is in the Philippines!

And Mexico!  Who knew?!

 Four times in each direction (to Manila and back), we had to stop and pay a toll.  Most of these toll stations took just a couple minutes to get through, but the last one, closest to Manila, even with over a dozen lanes, took us about 20 minutes.

After we got off the expressway approaching Manila, the main street we had to take was undergoing a lot of construction, which bogged things down quite a bit.  Otherwise, I think the traffic might not have been as bad as we remembered.  I can think of two reasons for this:  1. It was Good Saturday and business was slower.  2. We've become more conditioned to Filipino driving.  All in all, the trip to Manila took us about five hours.

We went to the Missionary Recovery Center and got our young sister situated, where she would stay while undergoing tests and treatment at a hospital nearby.  We enjoyed a nice visit and dinner with two senior missionary couples living and working there, then got on our way back again. 

Not too far down the road, we passed that last toll station we'd gone through on our way into Manila.  The lines of traffic by that time stretched at least a couple miles, and I felt so bad for the people in those lines at that point.  I'm sure they must've spent at least an hour, waiting there.  A lot of people would be going to Manila for Easter.

Our trip home, amazingly enough, took only three hours.  No heavy traffic, no long lines at toll booths.  Where the expressway ends and we got off, there was a lot of slow-moving traffic headed onto the expressway, going the other direction.  We saw several tour buses and large open-bed trucks lined with chairs - - oh, yes, they travel this way, too! - - and thought of all those people who were likely headed back to Manila after visiting Manaoag.  They would have a very long night on the road, and sitting in line for toll stations.

We weren't sure on Easter morning which branch of our church we would be able to attend.  With so many people in town and traffic being diverted onto our little street, it was sometimes hard to get out of our driveway.  If this were the case, we would just walk to the Manaoag chapel, a 12-minute walk.  But we were able to get out, so we drove to San Jacinto, which is a tiny branch, more in need of our help.  I ended up playing piano in Sacrament Meeting there, which was nice and simple, with three speakers telling the Easter story and of the Atonement of Christ and its importance in our lives.  (Well, that's what I gathered from what I was able to undertand!)  After three hours of meetings and classes, I had one piano student, and then we drove on to San Fabian, where there are branches meeting both in morning and afternoon.  So, after similar meetings and classes there, and two more piano lessons, we were pretty well fed, spiritually and socially.  : )

San Jacinto chapel

San Fabian chapel (photos taken on a rainy day in August)

Well, since we were already in San Fabian and there was mail in the back seat for the missionaries in Lingayen, we decided to make a quick (30 minutes each way) run to Lingayen before heading home.  Tony made a wonderful dinner of fish, baked potatoes, veggies, and fruit salad for our Easter dinner.  Later on, we were able to skype with some kids and grandkids in Germany, and thus ended our Easter weekend.

Each holiday we spend here in the Philippines is another new experience for us, with some differences and some similarities to our customs at home.  We're so grateful for this experience, and we're grateful for the wondrous blessings and promises that are ours, thanks to the sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Happy Easter to you all . . . after the fact.  : )