Dear Family & Friends,

Another great week on our mission has now passed; we worked all weekend with the Filipino National Day of Service.  This is a day where the LDS Church in particular leads the way and partners with various local governments, or GNO’s to do a “Mormon Helping Hands” Project within their community.  The individual Stake (like a catholic diocese) selects the project and provides nearly all of the labor and some of the expertise for the project.  We have hundreds of Stakes in the Philippines and there were hundreds of projects to select from.

The particular event we attended and captured in our narrative/pictures was in Cavite, about a two hour drive from Manila (to the south.)   We started early around 5:30am to drive down in hopes of missing the crazy Manila (always heavy) traffic on getting out of town, but of course it was heavy as always and delayed us really getting really on-the-road on the expressway to the South. Cavite had partnered with a GNO and one of the local community governments (called a barangay) to build additional housing units for the poorer members within their area with a simple 12 by 25 feet included a small kitchen area structure for their families.  There were about hundred plus units already inhabited with a total of 600 family units planned or under various phrases of construction.  Our 650 plus members from two Stakes & one District poured the flooring on about 20 individual family housing units – mixing the concrete by hand (with sand, gravel, cement, and water) and then hand carrying it to the site.  It was about 96 degrees plus 60 to 70 percent humidity, in full sun.  It had rained (at the site) the night before and there was mud everywhere.  In fact we nearly buried our church car in the soft mud while driving into the construction site following one of the leaders.  Additional to pouring the floors they dug the footer holes for an additional hundred individual family units.  These holes were a meter (H) by meter (W) by meter (D) for the main superstructure footers and a half meter (W) by a meter (D) for the walls (which are made of cinder block.)  The footer digging was particularly hard because the soil was hard or very rocky and much of it took using picks in addition to shovels.  Nearly two-thirds of these footers were completed by the eight hours of our project were completed. To understand the layout - a housing unit is made up of four or five individual family units tied together under a common roof.   Additional to the 600 total plus - individual family units being built on this site – it is planned to also build a club house (of sorts), a playground, an athletic (recreational) structure, and many grassed (landscaped) areas for the various families to enjoy and use.  A major undertaking by anyone’s definition but for our Church it was very, very hard and very time consuming.  Apparently the Church has worked (or at least some of the nearby members) have worked at the site during the earlier phrases of construction.  All in all is was wonderful to see the hundreds of people, all engaged and working hard to benefit their fellow’s citizens.  Additional to our 650 members some of the residents to offset their housing joined our teams of people to either guide or assists as well.   Many “Mormon Helping Hands” made the day goes fast and the work worth doing!   After driving home (the two hours) back into Manila (thru the normal heavy traffic) – Sister Morello and I just crashed for the balance of Saturday. 

One Sunday after the normal church meeting starting at 10am, but then following our return home, in the afternoon - since there is a Catholic Church located just next door to our 40 story apartment building - formerly called Pope John II before Sunday.  Since the Pope received sainthood on Sunday afternoon (in Philippine time) we watched the renaming, then second Easter celebration, and Sainting ceremonies viewed on a large screen TV in our mall.   After the viewed ceremonies the local Church held renaming mass and other activities well into the evening, much the same as they had during last week’s Holy Week.   Living next to a “no honking zone” where we thought it would be very quiet because of the Church being there - has become one of the busiest areas in the entire mall.  No matter another afternoon/evening of much activity of singing, music playing, preaching, and community voicing has become normal to our little part (corner) of the mall.

On every Monday morning - we have an Area Office Devotional, where one of the staff members - give an inspirational message (of around fifteen to twenty minutes) with songs and public announcements at 7:30am.  Our new drive time to our offices is about fifteen to twenty minutes (but now both ways) so we get up around six to be at the offices for these events.  Normally our work day begins about 7:30am and ends most days around 4:30pm to 5pm.  The critical fact is most of the time we work a business day schedule but often like National Day of Service or Earth Day our days are much longer and out in the sun.  The weather here (that is in Manila) has been especially dry since the first of the year with droughts to the north of us.  It is very hard to believe but flooding to the south (of the Philippines) and droughts to the north.  The weather here is so varied and changeable in minutes.  The rain when it comes (the average 90+ inches / year) comes by the buckets but when it doesn’t rain we have droughts.  The poor farmers, who mainly grow rice – have to deal with each too dry or too wet – and this doesn’t account for all of the twenty plus typhoons each year.  If there were a people who need a break in life than the Filipinos surely are those peoples. No matter they smile all the time and are generally happy and cheerful.  A lesson for the rest of the world to learn from and to follow.

Sister Morello and I have learned much, enjoyed even more, and are sad to announce and realize that nearly a third of our stay here (in the Philippines) is coming to a close, as we serve the Master.  May the Lord bless, protect, guide and direct your lives as you attempt to follow His Commandments.   We love and miss each of you and look forward to the day seeing you in person in fourteen or fifteen short months.

With Love, the Morellos