The Arrival

To all my loved ones,

After being nearly unmet at the Manila Airport at our arrival at 10:30pm (their time) until near to mid-night last evening (which I believe was on Tuesday rather than on Monday as when we left from Utah) and no less than having been flying for near to 26 hours in total air time and lastly having been up (without any sleep for me) for more than 30 hours straight – we finally did meet our promised contact person at the Airport. Apparently several loads of younger missionaries (a combination of Elders and Sisters) had arrived earlier in the evening and they thought we had just missed our flights and may NOT have been coming. Strangely the young missionaries flew from Salt Lake to LA and then onto Manila, allowing them to leave later in the morning and arrive earlier in the day, but this "old couple" were routed through Detroit – which took much longer and made us arriving much later, in the day, nearly the next day. On our flight to Detroit and then onto Japan there were about two dozen other young missionaries who were going only to Japan, for their service – so on our last leg to Manila - it was just the two of us.

Thereafter, we were driven (in the dark of night on the busy streets of Manila) to our new apartment. Met the other two couples in the lobby and were escorted to our apartment. It is in an high rise building (we are on the 28^{th floor – oh boy) near the center of Quezon City Downtown - with a nice two bedroom convenience unit, with a small bath, even smaller kitchen, small laundry unit area - two bedrooms - one of the bedrooms has a queen sized bed and the other has a twin sized bed. One of the bedrooms was claimed for Mother’s clothes (small closets) and the other for mine. Finally, to top it all off - we have a medium sized dining/guest living room area off the kitchen area with a few pieces of living furniture for visitors and/or guest.}

Today, after finally getting some badly needed sleep – we started the day (around 8 am) – by arranged and re-arranged the laundry area (maybe it is five by six feet in total), move shelving units from one room to another – all in making things seem more like home and getting started in the process of making this place our own.

The other couples seem great, one of the sisters made some nice muffins and stocked our refrigeration with canned fruit juice, for breakfast – today, but most of the food arrangements are yet to be fully understood, that is - do we cook a lot or just eat out.

Tonight the other two Public Affairs couples and ourselves are meeting again for dinner and to start to answer the millions of questions we have about the details of living and working in the Philippines.

Apparently there is a nice small Shopping Mall, with a hardware store and a small groceries store - about a block away from our secured apartment complex, we plan on seeing it also - before our dinner tonight, with the others - plus importantly - I badly need a haircut and one of the other brethren said there is one of them in this area - also. We just returned from buying some household goods and additional clothes hangers, from the hardware store, but didn’t see the food and no haircut. We ran into some other missionary couples, the MTC President of the Philippines, his Executive Secretary, and Medical advisor plus their wives at a Bowling alley in our apartment complex on our return from the Shopping Mall, they also seem really nice and offered to help me out with my haircut problems – tomorrow. Our complex has a Bowling Alley, Tennis Courts, Ping pong Tables, and a Swimming Pool as athletic offerings for the tenants. Seems rather nice for us and everyone seems to use them. In fact one of the couples (the husband was a retired High School Football Coach) was asking about my interests, in sports and involvement - as early as last night.

No regular cell phone yet, no internet, no TV, no radio, - but we did purchase a disposable cell phone at the airport (last night) in our attempt to contact Salt Lake for assistance while we were lost but it is not our permanent one nor do I know "how to call it ?" – that is what is the telephone number.

One last note, I cannot send this brief note right now, but I thought I should write my first impressions while there were still fresh on my mind, once we get to the office tomorrow I should be able to transmit things then. Mother is still resting again and now she’s in the shower getting ready for our exploration of the shopping area. We write again soon, may the Lord bless everyone (including us) and we’ll be talking soon once I get things arranged.

For now, love Dad