This is Where We Live

Our apartment is upstairs, you can see the kitchen window. I am in the parking lot of the chapel with the gate between the mission campus and the chapel in the forground. Below is a picture of the rear of the chapel from this same vantage point.

Above: Here is the entry to the stairs that go up to our place. We have to lock the iron cage when we are away from the office and at night. The laundry room with shared washer and dryer is directly above the entry, our apartment is to the left.

 Above: Nancy at meal time. Dining table and kitchen counter in the view. Below: this is the kitchen with the gas range/oven, refrigerator etc. and Nancy. These are the kitchen windows that you could see in the prior picture. The chapel is behind the fridge....sort of. It's a great kitchen but kind of crowded for two. Everything is smaller in the Philippines.

Below:   Here is the living room, and the front (and only) door. We are really fortunate to have such a nice place.

 Above: this is the hallway from the living area to the bathroom (CR here) to the right and the bedroom to the left.  Below: Here is the CR (comfort room). the commode is to the back, the shower (not seen) is to the right.

 Below: here is the bedroom. I am catching up on my Tagolog language study, as you can see it is going quite well, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

This is Where We Work

 This is the Mission Home driveway with the Mission Home (farthest away) and the Mission Office to the left. We stayed in the General Authority bedroom in the Mission Home for the first 3 weeks here because Elder & Sister Packer, the departing office couple were still here in the apartment. 

Another shot of the Mission Home, Front Door is on the right

Here is the Mission Office head on looking at the front door. The office in on the main floor and two aportments are on the second floor. We live in one (next post) and four missionaries live in the other. 

 This is the Mission Office as you enter the front door. See Nancy toward the back?

Above: Nancy at her Desk. She is doing great on the computer. It's Sunday evening and she is taking care of few loose ends.

 Above: Nancy getting trained by Sister Packer. It was a confusing time for all.


Left; Sister Packer, Nancy and President Peterson, "you did what?"

My first day and my first pen

 Here is Elder Packer showing me the ropes. Lots to learn.  I found the file.

 Here I am in the office after 4 weeks on my own. Kinda getting the hang of things.

The Trip - (April 4-6, 2013)

 Here we are in the Salt Lake City airport at about 5:30 a.m. We started at 3 a.m. at the MTC with Amy picking us up at 4 (she was a little late due phone alarm being set for 4 p.m.) It was really good of her to see us off. So we had an airport breakfast of something and boarded about 7:00 a.m. on Delta for a 3.5 hr flight to Detroit. There we had a 4 horr layover and had a nice lunch in a diner style restaurant and I had a Chicago dog. Nancy had something more healthy. The big plane 747-400 was really cool and we got off on time, flew north the across the artic sea, and Siberia and onto Japan. There was bad weather at Nagoya and the plane couldn't land. We circled for an hour then headed for Tokyo and set down. The ride was really bumpy and Nancy got Casper the ghost white sick and lost her healthy lunch and the two airplane meals. I was ok....nothing like a Chicago dog to keep things a midships when the seas are rough. Continued below.
We stayed on the ground in the plane at Tokyo, then flew back to Nagoya, got off, went through customs, reboarded and flew to Manila, Philippines arriving at 2 a.m. about 3 hours late. We got to our hotel at 3 a.m. to end the 34 hour trip. It is a long trip, but hey way better than a raft or swimming. This picture was at the Manila airport as we walked toward the front door. The ride to the hotel is another story...maybe next post.

The MTC Couples

 This was our district during the first week. Usually there are four couples in a district, but one of the couples for our week was delayed, so we only had 6 missionaries. Bro Jacobs was our instructor in the morning. He is single, served his mission in Argentina and is a member of the BYU International Folk Dancing team. We went to the dress rehersal and saw them perform. They were really fun to watch and Bro Jacobs was one of the stars!

 This is our district again with our afternoon instructor, Bro Porter, who is getting married in June. He asked for some words of advice, I told him to remember the two most important words....Yes dear.  The members of our district, l-r Bro Porter, Elder & Sister Seidel from N Carolina headed to Independence MO, Nancy & me, Elder and Sister Wright from Denver CO and headed for Japan.

 Here are the missionaries who were with us in the office training during the second week at the MTC. It was a good group and we had a good time learning all about finances, newsletters, Excel and Word. Sister Hansen remarked it was like learning here second foreign language. Front Elder and Sister Hom headed to England South mission (was a civil engineer), Middle l-r Sister Shumway headed to Oklahome City mission, she is related to E Hansen, Elder and Sister Adams headed to England South also, and then the best for the back row. Too bad we didn't get our instructors. They were really good and fun.

And finally a shot of the cafeteria, where I put on about 5 lbs in less than two weeks. They serve about 3,000 missionaries per meal with 3 meals a day......that is a lot of vittles.

The MTC Stuff (Week of March 25, 2013)

 Where the heck do I go tomorrow and what am I supposed to study. The MTC was quite rigorous in teaching us new approaches to sharing the gospel.  Here I am in our room at the end of a long day looking through the schedule for the next day.

 It's Wednesday at the MTC and that's new arrival day. It is totally awesome. The "helper" missionaries who have been in the MTC for awhile line up and greet the new arrivals as their cars pull up for the final drop off. Lots of family hugs and Mom tears and pictures and Dad slaps on the back, then the Elders grab the luggage and whisk them away to get their nametags, orientation kits etc.  On this day almost 800 new missionaries arrived with approximately half Sister! Very fun to watch!

We found Elder Cathemer on the day before he was shipping out to Zimbabwe and wanted a picture. Clancy is from our ward and I had him as a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood when we first moved to Florence. Now here we are all missionaries.