Getting settled

This may not be a big deal to most of the world, but today I sharpened a pencil correctly on the unique pencil sharpener in my office.  Hooray for me!

Weekly Update

This week has been especially challenging for the Public Affairs Team in the Philippines. One of the couples (the Bailey’s) had some very bad news from home from their family. Their 36+ years divorced son, with a six year child, had to have emergency surgery for colon cancer. Although they removed the entire colon with all of its complications, it was found that they could not remove all of the cancer by surgery alone. His estimated recovery and the care for his son is thought to be more then he can do by himself, therefore Bailey’s are going home before April of next year, as was planned. With the Dupaix's planning and scheduled to leave at the end of November, where we have had six of us (three senior couples) working in the office, there will be only Mother and me. Oh, we seem sooooo lost at times and overwhelmed. This likely will be the case until another senior couple can be identified, called, training, and arrive here to be some replacement. This bad news was, of course the last thing the Bailey’s wanted, but in light of the situation, their departure will likely be mid-week this upcoming week.

 

On a much cheerier note, Lindsey (our daughter) finally had our sixth grandchild (a little fella) called Ethan Ryan Williams on Thursday morning (here in the Philippine's time). Mother and child are adjusting and doing very well. Their little family has now grown from four to five. Ryan's (our son-in-law) mother was able to be there to help with the two other boys, in light that Mother is here in the Philippines. Now the boy grandchildren outnumber the girls two-to-one. I am sure we all wish their little family the best as everyone adjusts to another voice in the mix. Our thanks and appreciation go out to Lori (Ryan’s mother) for assisting in this wonderful experience back in Peoria, Illinois, where our daughter’s family lives. 

 

Now onto some other updates for us - 

 

This week seemed especially long. As many of you have asked, there were a couple of earthquakes in the Southern Philippines around Cebu and Bohol. These cities are on separate islands than Luzon, where Manila and we are. Many people have been made homeless and are wanting for adequate food, hygiene, and basic supplies. Many churches and other public buildings have been damaged, some of which have stood for centuries. Even some of the modern business structures were damaged beyond allowing people to use or live in them. We have another Church Temple in Cebu, and although the earthquake hit the area, only minor damage was experienced by that structure. As many of you know, our Church has a fast (we don’t eat for 24 hours) each first Sunday of the month and give the value of the money we save on food to the Fast Offering Fund. All of the people of the Philippines have been asked to fast as usual on this upcoming Sunday, but to be more generous than normal in their offerings. Those funds (100% of them) will go the relief efforts in the area - the people of the Philippines helping one another.

 

Our Public Affairs Director (the paid full-time person) Haidi – who just returned from Salt Lake for General Conference and Annual Training and who also has family in the South - left last Wednesday to be there to assist and document the relief efforts. Several hundred members of the Church are volunteers, donating their time and talents to help their follow Filipinos in various work projects throughout the area. Our Mormon Helping Hands (our official volunteer effort) is out and about helping as expected in emergencies, as we do everywhere around the World. One of our Apostles, Elder Andersen - who interestingly enough was already scheduled to visit here in the Philippines - is touring the area and monitoring the efforts to help the people there overall. He is scheduled to come north to Manila next week to visit our Area facility. Although neither Sister Morello nor I can really sing very well, we are singing in an ad-hoc choir for his arrival and remarks. This is especially neat, since we will be close enough to really hear and enjoy his messages.

 

We look forward to Haidi (our Director) returning and some normalcy to return to our little family of Public Affairs, but in light of the Bailey’s immediate departure and with the Dupaix's nearing their end of serving, I am afraid the calm, although very busy life of our Team, will never be the same. Thanksgiving Day season (the US version) and early Christmas Time as especially busy here with an Annual Family Values Award Banquet and the lighting of Christmas Lights at our Temple – where VIP’s and the general public come to enjoy the season. The major fast food company here in the Philippines, Jollibee (bigger than McDonald’s here), is very family focused. They are receiving this year’s Family Values Award. The banquet (a very nice dinner and celebration) is mainly organized and hosted by our Public affairs Team. The CEO and other executives of the company are given the normal words of appreciation for their National efforts to build families and highlight the wonderful things that many good families are doing for others in their communities throughout the islands. Jollibee has an annual award they give each year to deserving families for giving of themselves in volunteer efforts for others. This is their third year of giving such an award, where the families are giving food coupons, cash awards, and a nice trophy. Mother and I met with their corporate marketing personnel on Thursday to finalize the details for the banquet and to organize the invitations to VIP’s, other key opinion leaders, and invited guests to this event coming up at the middle of November.

 

(Just a side comment - It is hard to believe that we have been gone for nearly three months! Time truly goes very, very fast when you are so busy!)

 

I’m still very much involved in improving our Ambassador Outreach efforts and focusing on Foreign Visa challenges for our young full-time missionaries, as they are called to serve around the World. We are planning a briefing/seminar for early November, as well to host those involved in granting travel visas to our missionaries to help them better understand what we are really all about, of our mission and focus. And although we request work visas (the only one that is near to what we need) our missionaries will NOT be taking jobs from anyone else while they serve abroad for eighteen to twenty-four months as missionaries, and that their return home thereafter is assured. We make it mandatory each of them return to their homes and regular lives after having served.

 

One of the other senior couples in our Area Office and Senior single Sister are involved in the Perpetual Education Fund effort, where young people are giving funds (short-term loans) to complete their education and find better jobs – and once they are settled in their careers – they give back their loan so others can get an education as well. This fund is especially helpful to our young missionaries, who on their return home, find it near to impossible to find good jobs without a good education and/or training.

 

Yesterday, some (nearly twenty of us) traveled for over two hours by bus to a rafting waterfall in

the nearby mountains for a fun day of socializing. The rafting was provided by two boatmen, one on the front and another on the rear of this long canoe-like boat. We went upstream first, over large and small rapids, barely missing each of the gigantic rocks that had fallen into the river from the cliffs above. After the many smaller canyon river waterfalls – falling down on us along the way - we reached the largest one at the head waters. Some of the couples took a boat into the fall and adjacent small cave – getting completed soaked from head to toe. After which the two boatmen took us (much quicker this time) back downstream to the lodge where we ate lunch and prepared for our journey back home by bus. This whole experience took from 7:30am until near to 6pm. But it was wonderful and loads of fun!

 

 

Spending time with people doing different things for the Lord as volunteers is lots of fun and totally enjoyable. Our fellow senior couple workers, many much older than us, give so much, expect so little, and do so much good!

 

In a future update, I will tell you of the couple (one of the younger ones) who are building homes for members and others who are in need of some type of permanent shelter with volunteered- and Church- provided supplies. They utilize member-help in one of the villages, about an hour outside of Manila. They are yet another couple making a positive difference for good with little personal reward, except in knowing they are helping those who need help. Although there are less than a million members of our Church here, between the Wheelchairs for the Needy, the Mormon Charities, the Mormon Helping Hands, the Perpetual Education Funds, Public Affairs (our love), and all of the other many hours of volunteer service given by members, the Lord through us is making a difference in the lives of so many.

 

May we be worthy of His blessings and serve our fellowmen with selfless service. This is exactly what our Church is really all about. Our Savior's life was one of service to others. May we do the same. I know this is my prayer and the prayer and desire of so many other members of the Church as well.

 

Lastly, Mother and I spoke in Sacrament Meeting today. She spoke on not being easily offended by the imperfect other members of the Church (like ourselves), and I spoke on the Love of God. I think our remarks were okay, many were very nice in showing appreciation. Mother told of the challenge it was when Jared (name withheld) was hit in the nursery over two consecutive weeks - as a two year old and how not wanting to kill someone was so hard. I spoke of the story of two, WW I brothers serving in Europe and their commitment to one another. Our youth speaker with us on the program spoke of Christ-like service as she helped with a weeklong children’s camp and how she learned to love each of the small ones while forgetting herself. Taglish is the language some of us Americans speak, which is a combination of mainly English with some Tagalog. Apparently she spoke Taglish most of the week and they understood. All in all, the program was good and we’ll likely not speak again while we are here, unless it is near the end of our time. Not only did Sister Morello speak (which takes a lot of preparation), but she also taught in Primary some of the children their weekly lesson (which takes even more time in preparation). Busy, busy as ever!

 

Well that's about all for now. Love you all. May the Lord bless, protect, and grant you every righteous wish of your hearts. Until we meet again, the best of everything!

 

Elder Morello

Well, this past week was interesting. We had an holiday on Tuesday (some Islam annual event), so we
had the day free for ourselves. But Sister Morello had been fighting a viral something, so we just chilled around the apartment. As for Sister Mother’s viral something, she’s just too hardy to let any infection keep her down. She’s back to near normal, like the energizer bunny - running at full speed and making me nuts.

As to the other interesting items of the week - We (our group of senior couples) handle large
displays on family history, building open houses, national family week, etc. which need to organized
into large shipping boxes. They are boxed around the country for stake and multi-stake (this is a geographic area like a dioceses) events. We have had years of old displays - some broken,
others just tired and worn out - stored in our limited space downstairs in our building. They were taking up space that our active displays could better be served from. Therefore, this past week Elder Bailey and I took a day and cleaned, inventoried, and arranged the old/worn-out things to be disposed of and generally cleaned the rooms. I came home (wearing my grubbies) all dirty from head to toe, but the result is we can now find everything more easily and are prepared for the influx of Christmas tokens we give to VIP’s, and Other Opinion Leaders during the Christmas Tree Lighting of the Temple Grounds and other events coming up shortly. Apparently Christmas in most of the Philippines is off the chart - very big deal. They have Christmas Lights and other Christmas things stocking the stores already, with Christmas music playing or being performed in the malls.

I’m still working on the details of an event to invite various Embassy personnel working on our
requests for foreign visas for our young missionaries to our complex to brief them on our Church and
tour our campus. Our plans are for this to occur sometime early in November, if we can arrange the
details and finalize everything. It’s somewhat exciting to reach-out to diplomatic officers to educate
them on our mission and intent of going into the world to share the good news of Christ.

Lastly, the other couples (two other seniors we serve with here in our Public Affairs Office) are just wonderful - they watch out for us, help us, guide us, offer unconditional love and friendship and support us in so many ways. They are just generally “great people.” As each of us do, they have their challenging and joys with family members: some sick with serious illnesses, others dealing with poor life choices, and still others missing the joy of new baby (a grandchild), a big success on a new job, or a work assignment on a family member’s job. But generally they serve without missing a beat and
move the work forward. We have such big shoes to fill as one goes home at the end of November and
the other in the first part of April 2014. Generally I have found that replacement couples do not overlap as we have (one goes home and another comes in a week or two later). Apparently our situation of coming several months before our leaving couple goes home is very unusual, but what's new? Sister Morello and I have always been somewhat unusual in nearly everything we have ever done. Also this might be due to the fact that we are just very slow learners. No matter, we are here, staying for twenty-three months and we will learn to love it with all of its craziness.

This last Saturday, Sister Morello went off to a Women’s (all day) seminar while I stayed home to clean around the apartment and shop across the street for some items. As is nearly always the case, when Sister Morello came home from everything, we had to go again across the street to finish what I had only started. But after finishing up, we ended the day with bowling as couples with three other senior couples from our apartment building. I'm still waiting to break one hundred, so you know how good I am. Sister Morello is still learning the game, having never played before coming to the Philippines. We are certainly the weak members of the group, but we are having fun. Further, as our social group we played Uno cards at the Bailey’s with popcorn, snacks and lots of fun. Socializing as couples has been very nice as we work hard and play hard. This upcoming Saturday, we (about ten couples) are going rafting and waterfall-looking at one of the national points-of-interest. We will take lots of pictures to show, but it seems like a lot of fun and enjoyment for each of us: an all-day event as friends!

Well, that’s all I have for now. I need to start preparing a twenty minute Sacrament Meeting talk that I was assigned yesterday at Church and get prepared for Bazaar (some type of major shopping trip with the ladies) tomorrow. Life is good, may the Lord bless everyone and Lindsey have that baby!

Love Dad Morello,

Earthquake

Many of our dear friends have asked about our safety due to the earthquake that hit near Cebu.  It was a bad one. We are safe and far from the destruction.  But others are affected.  Your thoughts and prayers for them would be great.  

Smells, Climate, Culture & Pace

It’s Sunday evening on October 13^th here in the Philippines, and another exciting week has passed.  After nearly a month and a half here, we are beginning to adjust to the smells, climate, culture and pace.

First the smells – One of our next door neighbors here on the 28^th floor of our apartment/condo complex is Chinese. Apparently it is their custom to prepare garlic rice for breakfast early each day, and the aroma permeates our entire apartment as though you were in the their unit. Waking up to this garlic rice all around you isn’t something I was accustom to in O’Fallon, Missouri, but it is becoming that here.   Rice is served with nearly everything you eat here, whether you are eating at KFC or at other restaurants or just eating with someone else. No matter - there is always a ball of white rice to be eaten. It is often with a serving of chicken gravy as well.  I have now eaten more rice in the month while here than in years in America. 

 

Lastly, on smells - and coordinating with the climate - if it isn’t raining (which it does nearly every day) than it’s hotter and more humid than you can believe.  The rain doesn’t seem to always have somewhere to go, so the streets flood (maybe as much as a foot or more) and the sewers overflow. Everything mixes together.  The smell then becomes this hot, stinky, sewer-like odor, and it all around you and only more rain moves it on.  The best part is that because of all the overcrowding in Manila, no one needs to worry about personal body odor. You could not detect it over this near-to-overwhelming smell of sewer/rain/hot/humid everywhere. 

 

Now to cultures – the Filipino people are just generally happy with smiles all the time.  They laugh at some of the strangest things but are always fun to be generally around.  I just finished a book our Area President shared with me on Culture Shock and living in the Philippines.  It explains how the culture is focused on pleasing rather than results.  No one wants to offend; it is far better to just get along.  If one offends an individual, than you offend their entire family or kin group, so getting along - when there are nearly 15 million people living in this city - is quite an experience.  Even though the highway traffic is just crazy to navigate, it’s like a flowing stream; everyone is generally nice, and it all moves along.  (Only the occasional black SUV with very dark windows who seems to be in some kind of hurry, probably with a paid driver of someone who thinks they are important, disrupts this flow.) Otherwise the traffic just moves along, although very slowly, down the road to your destination.  Streets vary from one lane each way to three lanes, with magically changing third lanes, to five or six lanes each way.  Only when there are dividers in the middle of the road - stopping the other direction from driving towards you without much notice - can you be assured that someone won’t just decide to start another lane towards you down the street.  Traffic light and signs are generally ignored, as it all moves along down the street.  Busses are the masters of the highways during the day and eighteen-wheelers rule at night.  Don’t make them mad though; they will try to run you over if you’re not careful.  Family is everything: the old are taken care of by the middle-aged, and the young are attempting to better themselves with schooling 12 or more hours each day.  The school year is ten months a year, and often some go even during their break in the spring.  Many of the people have mixed Asian heritage. The Philippines have been conquered so many times by outsiders that finding a pure Filipino here in Manila would be near to impossible.  Pure Filipino may exist in the smaller island communities, but not in Manila. 

 

Now the pace – it is crazy fast!  Everyone is going here or there at land-speed records.  People walk in the streets, without regard to their safety, even at night with no light-colored clothing on. Jeepneys and tri-cycles (some motorized and other not) stop and start in the pickup lanes without notice to pick-up and drop-off people for fares, and taxi cabs are everywhere.  Lastly, there are motorcycles everywhere.  If you stop because the traffic has stopped, then the motorcycles dodge in and out around you to make it farther down the street. If you can’t ride or drive then you walk everywhere in a hurry. It is your best choice. 

 

Well, we are loving getting to know this non-western culture. The people are great, the climate is challenging, the smells are strange, and the pace is just crazy... but all in all, we are adjusting.  Hopefully we can touch someone’s heart and change it for the better.

Lastly this past week - since I have been working on an initiative of Foreign Ambassador Reach-out with our Office - on Wednesday, I lunched with the Ambassador from Canada who has been a friend of our Church for some time. I was looking for advice with some of the more challenging diplomats.  His kindness was great and his advice “right on target.”  Getting travel Visas for our young missionaries that serve abroad has - in some cases - been met with refusals.  Our goal is to allow each young missionary to serve where they are called, no matter the country or culture.  Some of these young Filipinos are coming to the US, to some of our northern cities, where they will experience our great winters.  Oh will that be a cultural and climate shock to them, who have never seen nor experienced real cold in all their lives.  No matter, in the near future, I’ll be making visits to some of the more challenging Foreign Embassies, so your faith and prayers on my behalf would be most appreciated.  We continue to host visitors to our Area Offices, Missionary Training Center, and overall complex.  Sister Morello (Pauli) is now writing news articles for our Church Newsroom Website [Mormonnewsroom.org]. This is her real love, and she is totally enjoying writing again. 

On a personal note, we watched General Conference on recorded CD this weekend – ten hours in all (six on Saturday and then four more today- Sunday). This is a week after it was viewed by most of you.  The remarks were great, and it seems a “more direct and personal approach” is being taken by those speaking in addressing the challenges and ills of our day.  After all, we sustain these people as Prophets, Seers, and Revelators and their messages often serve as a fore-warning of the future, if we but heed them.  The challenge for us is not just hearing but daily living by their comments.  The world is ever more crazy by the day.  The President of the US was coming to the Philippines on a personal visit, but with the craziness of Congress, his visit was cancelled. Then Secretary Carey (Secretary of State) was coming, but a typhoon cancelled his visit.  Now no body is coming, and I think the national leadership here is very disappointed.  What they don’t know likely won’t hurt them!  No matter, life goes on, and things are a mess in the US. 

 

My first pension check (deposit) came this week, but I’m still getting paid on the regular payroll as well (about three more checks). It’s nice to get paid even when you are no longer working, but that’s about to end real soon.  Our expenses and income go much farther here. The Filipino pesos are about “two for one”  (about 42%), and everything is far less expensive than in the US.  We are living within the allowance we set before coming and generally enjoying whatever we want, like eating out at nice restaurants when we want or with friends.  We are enjoying treats if we want them or snacks too. And with all of this, I’m losing some weight!  It is likely about fifteen pounds so far, since all of my clothes fit far less tight and the notches on my belts are much smaller.  Mother has been a little under the weather, with a bad sore throat, but she seems to be on the mend.

There are about fifteen to twenty other senior couples serving as missionaries with us. We weekly interact with them at activities, or at least on Monday Nights at Couples Family Home Evenings. Their friendship has made adjusting far easier than going it alone in this otherwise strange land. The friendship and support of the two other senior couples in Public affairs has been just wonderful. I don’t know how we would have adjusted without them. One of them has a grown son with a six year old son with stage 4 cancer.  Your prayers in his behalf (their name is the Bailey’s) would be most appreciated.  He took treatment about a year ago and they thought they had gotten it all but recently it has come back and even worse.  He’s a single dad now, after a bad divorce, and all he wants to do is raise his son.  May the Lord bless them and their son and grandson. The senior couple we are replacing is now down to just five more weeks her,e and they are beginning to feel it. Apparently after serving here for a year and a half or two years, you seem to miss all the fun and want to stay.  They will be home after stopping off in Hawaii for a visit on their way home just after Thanksgiving.  This weekend was the Canadian Thanksgiving and some of the senior couples serving here are from Canada, so we somewhat celebrated their holiday.  Tuesday is some type of holiday here in the Philippines, so we’ll be off and have a day of rest – finally. 

 

Anyhow, things are generally progressing. We are adjusting as we are loving the people and living the best we know how.  May the Lord bless, protect, and help each of you - as He has us - and I’ll write more in the near future.  Love Dad 

 

 

 

General conference

Today the senior couples went to the mission presidents house and watched general conference from last week.  All the sisters watched the Relief Society meeting together.  The rest hymn was, "I'll go where you want me to go."

It was very moving to be there with people who could be doing whatever they wanted with their money.  Only one would have chosen the Philippines.  And yet we had all gone where He wanted us to go and we're doing what He wants us to do.

We came home and saw a gecko climbing our kitchen wall.  I'll live where you want me to live.

Pauli

I was in a meeting today with a group of Filippinos who seriously want to improve the family.  They spent a long time deciding what makes up successful families.  It was hard not to yell at them to just read the Family Proclamation.  This has been revealed!

Really, really good people.  We did end up passing out home evening manuals and Family Proclamations.  There will be other meetings.  We will suggest topics for workshops.  Maybe .......

Pauli

Family Week #2

Another week has come to an end. Again we are without "hot water" as of Thursday morning. Our flash water heater blew-up while Mother was showering. There was a huge noise (a great boom), than white smoke, and that familiar electric burning smell - coming from under our vanity in the bathroom where it is located, but the breaker in the laundry area nearby - did not throw. In light of the all of the electrical issues - we have seen here, this is of more concern then just not having hot water – at this time. Now it is Saturday – three full days of showering with straight cold water - I showered earlier this morning but Mother wanted to wait (stay in bed and read a good book) on the chance that our building electricians were coming (as we had been told) to look at everything, but of course they have NOT come and it’s going on 4:30pm (in the evening) and no visit. So reluctantly Mother has now showered (4:30 pm) and we are both very disappointed that no progress towards any repairs has occurred, especially since we have been here – waiting for someone to come - nearly all day. Since we see - no progress - only the Lord knows when we will have hot water again. It’s like boys or girls camp but on the twenty-eighth floor of a high-rise apartment complex. One good thing without hot water – it makes for a much quicker shower and more time to get ready with other things - in the morning. No matter – it seems the sooner we get one thing fixed than another breaks, who know what thing or things here - will break next.

Mother and I are going to our ward alone, without one of our other senior couple friends - tomorrow, therefore to review the mess of getting there and getting home – thereafter - from Church, I had one of the other Brother’s ride with me to and from the building - just a few minutes ago, to assure I could make it there and home without getting lost forever in the bows of Manila. The streets are not only very crowded with vehicle traffic, if it were possible they are even busier with "human traffic" which is a far greater concern – not to hit someone. People dart in and out of the street without regards to the heavy vehicle traffic whatsoever. Lastly, no matter the time of day - the way to places - is nearly always altogether different then the returning way because of one-way streets – the lack of regards to traffic signs and/or signals – and the general chaos of Manila traffic.

Now for our week, we finished another Closing Ceremony in a town about two hours from Manila last evening, with many of our partner organizations joining us, namely the International Rotarian. We had speaker, music, dance, etc. just the same as the other closing – that we had attended – last Friday afternoon. Our Church’s Family History Display plus five or six people working on local computers to help people – to start – doing research their own family history – was very, very successful. There were lines when we arrived and hours later when we were leaving - there were still people awaiting our assistance. Driving home in the heavy traffic - in the dark - was even more challenging, (if it were possible) with people just walking into the streets with dark clothes – in poorly lite areas, This driving challenge seems to be the expected –the order of things - as one makes their way home - nearly all of the time. The motorcycles, the jeepneys, the busses, and heavy car/van/truck traffic never seem to lighten no matter the hour of the day. It was Friday evening, of pay week - in the Philippines (which is every other Friday) and the traffic is always worse on those evenings.

The National Family Week Closing Ceremonies were wonderful, the Church put it best foot forward again. We met the Stake President and his family, his wife is pregnant with their third child (a girl) on October 19th, and she is ready. Does that sound familiar to anyone? He is great and one of his former Bishop’s (who served 11 years as Bishop) is now - our Public Affairs, Multi-Stake Director. He is wonderful as well. His job is repairs picture frames and we use him on our displays when thing come back broken from being on the road – in various displays with our Stakes. He had spent nearly all week, off and on - at the Mall of this event, helping, leading, and assisting with all of the details of a successful activity. We attended with the DuPaix (the couple we are replacing) since this area and Stake will be ours after their departure, and it is good for us the meet them.

We also hosted a NGO (Non-Government Organization) who is looking at partnering with our LDS Charities, to build medical centers in the small towns (rural area – called barangays) in the Philippines. About a million Filipino pesos, they are looking at us contributing towards their effort. If the project is right, where we serve the needs, often working opportunities for our members, and the local government is completely involved – then we make see our support. We must do it the Lords’ way – where we built "self-reliance" and the local government (the people - generally) have some real "skin in the game." We’ll see, the next step is the see the details and specifics in a proposal from them.

Every day at the Area Office has its’ own challenges, but we are beginning to adjust to the pace, much better!

On Friday, we had another opportunity to attend a Temple Session with the full-time missionaries (both young men and women from in the MTC) in the morning. Nearly everyone in the session was five foot tall or shorter, I feel like a giant most of the time, with every one much shorter than me and they look like they are all teenagers. The Asians look very young no matter their age, even their senior citizens have dark hair (maybe from a bottle) and have no wrinkles.

Finally, after a break to shop for electrical parts at the shopping mall across the street, our electricians arrived discovered that the problems with our hot water heater is in the receptacle, wiring, and plug and are about attempting to fix it – right now. Maybe we will have heater water tomorrow for Church!

Some of the Senior Couples are gather for Bowling tonight, our apartment complex has four lanes on one of the levels which we can play for free. On Thursday night we went to the movies to see "Gravity" which is very suspenseful, nearly never letting you rest with all of the action, but it was a nice diversion. Once in a while we need some "wholesome recreation" to offset the pace of life here.

Life is good, the water is cold, the people are great and we are adjusting. May the Lord bless, support, protect, and grant each of you your righteous desires. Love you all – Dad Morello