It’s Sunday evening on October 13th
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 28th 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
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