Dear Family & Friends,

We just experienced another interesting and informative week as we continue to learn about our new assignment in LDS Charities. I have been given a specific assignment to develop an Area Disaster Readiness Plan - including a voice communications system for both local and wide area coverage issues. As nearly all of you may know, that was exactly what I did professionally for more than 37 years, before coming to the Philippines and now I am doing this same thing for FREE. One of the other Senior, Service Missionary Couples - who serve with us and is a tremendous source of information and good points of contact and I visited REACT Philippines, Inc. – a non-profit organization of volunteers who offer their personal communications devices in times of emergencies and natural disasters. They have more than 6,000 members countrywide and we (the Church) are researching joining their organizations to compliment and utilize their resources in times of challenge. History in the Philippines is that during these times of disaster, the communications systems are NOT hardened and they are the first things lost and/or disabled. Certainly that was the case during Yolanda and nearly every other major disaster related events since we have been here. During this visit with REACT, we got to better understanding about them and began the process of developing a sharing partnership/relationship which may best serve and better both organizations. 

Another event was we hosted the Mayor of Sagada, a small community in mid-Luzon, where we had started a few years ago a Clean Water Project, but for a whole host of roadblocks and other issues was put on hold. Our intent of visiting together in our offices was to completely outline (all of the details) to the Mayor, of what it would take to “re-start” this project - so that the people of his community could enjoy clean water. He is in his last term as mayor, having served for more than 10 years and really wants this project to be completed – and to become a part of his legacy of service. I believe our meeting was very successful, since the Mayor, called the next day, and said he had re-enforced the agreements from the several landowners, to use their right-a-ways for the piles to distribute the clean water, and that his budget could pay the re-survey amounts needed to re-assess the entire project. After that survey is completed, fully funded, we will see if there is still enough money in the budget to complete our efforts. Helping people the right way is challenging at best!

Lastly we closed out the week by going to the National Department of Health, visiting regarding furtherance of the National Measles/Polio Campaign – which is already underway (for roughly immunize 13M children) since the beginning of September. Our focus was to deliver our committed epinephrine pens, that are need to counteract any negative reactions the children may have from the measles vaccinations, some 6,000 doses. The Under-Secretary over this campaign, kindly welcomed us, received our donations, and granted us picture taking of this event. This trip of less than 30 kilometers each way took us more than five hours complete, or nearly all of the afternoon and part of the evening. Merely saying the highway traffic in Manila is heavy and very unpredictable, is like saying life is always easy. Words just can’t begin to describe the chaos they call traffic, here. If it’s not a motorcycle, or tricycle (motorized or peddle type), or a Jeepney, or a taxi, or a VU, or a bus, or a truck, or another car – something is always in the road causing roadblocks and/or long delays. Traffic lights and signs are only suggestions and generally ignored. Oh how I love driving in the Philippines – NOT! After the traffic on Friday - I just could bear it another day and stayed around the apartment (all day) on Saturday. They have been installing new traffic lights, where they used to be U-turns on the main highway (C-5) into our apartment complex and traffic lights are NOT anything like you would think they should be. Some times of the day the road may be one-way and other times two-way, sometimes forced right or left turns sometimes not, all depending on the law enforcement and mood of the police. Remember in the Philippines it isn’t wrong unless the police choose to enforce it, and are there to do so! 


Love you all, we appreciate your continued support, may the Lord each of us.


With Love the Morello’s