Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Dear Family & Friends,


Another week has come and gone, now it’s the first of September, the rainy season has fully arrived here in the Philippines and almost daily there are either heavy thunderstorms and/or lots of rain. This year, thus far, there has NOT been any widespread flooding, mainly because the storms only last for a few minutes or hours at the most, but should it rain (like it does intermittently) for any time at all, we should expect there will be some if not a lot of flooding. Virtually there is nowhere for all the water to go, but flood. We park at our apartment unit on the fifth basement level (below the ground), and we have been parking for nearly five months in a never ending water puddle. Since this is the bottom basement, apparently this water is seeping up from below through the concrete slab from below our parking slot and pooling under our car. It is so very nice to daily walk through water puddles to park or leave the apartment. Our ongoing frustration with this situation is that apparently they (the apartment administration people) cannot move us to another spot, although we pass many hundreds of open one’s in going down (to the fifth basement level) to our parking spot or they cannot seem to fix the problem. Day after day we walk through the water puddles to drive into the mess they call Manila traffic to go somewhere or to come to the Area Offices. We are continually reminded “It’s more fun to be in the Philippines.” [That’s the media promotion slogan for travel to the Philippines] 


Now onto some more pleasant notes, we started the National Mass Immunization Campaign for children zero-to-five years old for Measles and Polio. The kick-off, this past Monday morning, was hosted by the National Department of Health, at their headquarters. The President of the country, President Aquino, attended, greeted, spoke, and watched a few selected (brave) children being immunized. Our Area President, Elder Ian Ardern, also attended, greeted with the President, the DOH Directors, & other co-sponsors the large gathering of people, the local/national press, and other visitors from the nearby community at this event. See our FACEBOOK for pictures. While some of the selected first children for this national campaign (13 million is total to be immunized) were being immunized, our Church (through LDS charities – our group – us), as one of the co-sponsors funded the purchase of a small bear/dog like stuffed toys which was given to the children to comfort them after they were each shot. The children loved the toys, which they hugged a lot. This stuffed toy which we had purchased some 20 thousand of, is to be distributed (to the children) at our meetinghouse (Chapels) which we offered for DOH’s use and are going to be used for this event (during this campaign will be going on all of the month of September) This is truly a national project which is going on all around and throughout all the Philippines. Just one of the many projects we oversee and manage as we serve here, LDS Charities. 


Still seeking out other new projects to sponsor, but as I stated before, we have pre-measured, pre-packaged solutions and our solutions don’t always fit the circumstances. Tailoring our projects to our “real life” situations is a skill we are just beginning to understand and/or to learn. Keeping everything on-budget and on-time is another talent we are refining as we service in this new capacity. Our co-senior missionary couple over wheelchairs has being challenged to do far more with much less, and often the ends don’t meet. Only 67% of the year has passed in terms of budget allotments, but in many cases we have spent more than the year’s total amounts. Some of the categories in our budgets our limited by Salt Lake guidelines and often they are NOT just enough. “Doing more with Less” - seems like I’m back in Corporate America, I think I must have heard that nearly every day - I was working at Motorola. No matter the situation we all seem to want to do more and spend less, challenging when you see people doing so much with so very, very little. 


Love the challenges, learning more and more each day, and every day there is something new to do and handle. We love the people of the Philippines; they are so very kind and willing to share and help one another. Good Christian people doing their best in many challenging and poor living situations. May the Lord bless them bless each of you, and may His work continue to Move Forward.


Love Pauli & Mike Morello

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