Pictures of scenery:

Thought you might enjoy more pictures of the scenery.

This animal is called a Carabao - they use him to plow the fields and harvest the rice.

This mother goat and her three kids were really cute.  The moved too fast for me to get a really good picture of the four of them.  But I thought they were soooo cute.

The clouds are really something to see here.  We didn't have clouds in San Diego very often.  I am really enjoying the clouds.  Maybe I will get tired of them when we have had several months of the rainy season.

We think this plant is in the Orchid family.  Not sure about that though.  But I like flowers as you know and so couldn't resist taking this picture.

These are "chips" that are served at Chow King restaurant.  They look like "Styrofoam".  They don't taste too bad, but I surely wouldn't was a steady diet of them.  There are only two places to eat in Camiling if you want to have air con.  Chow King and Jollee Bee.  They are fast food type places.  I think I am going to get pretty tired of them in the next 16 months.  It is too hot to eat anywhere else besides I don't know if I would trust all the little eateries that line the street.  Don't know what the kitchens look like.  Philippine standard of cleanliness is not the same as ours.

Rice workers:

These pictures are of the rice fields and the rice workers.  These men work from early morning until about 4:30 5:00 p.m.  This is really back breaking work as you can see.  They earn as low as 200 pesos a day (about $5).  Some rice growers will pay a little more, but the average is 200 pesos.

Notice they are working in water and the Carabao that is there standing in the water and probably doing his "business" as they work.  Doesn't look very fun to me.

YSA Party:

These pictures are of a YSA party that we helped organize.  When we met to plan the activities, each Branch was to send a representative.  We told them we would have dinner for them.  When I checked with the YSA rep she said to plan for about 20 people at the planning meeting.  So I made spaghetti for 20.  Only about 6 showed up.  I heard nothing from the YSA rep until about two days before the planed event when I got a text saying that it was all set for 6:30 on Friday night.  Elder Weber and I were a little concerned about how many would show since we hadn't heard any announcements at Church and the planning meeting had such a poor showing.  We though may 20 to 30 kids would come.  Well, on Friday the kids just kept pouring in.  We ended up with about 100 kids there.  We played the pass the orange on the feet game.  They had a ball with that.  The we passed the orange under the chin.  That was really entertaining.  Then we taught them a round dance (which is what they wanted to do) Oh, Johnny Oh, Johnny Oh.  That was really fun also.  Elder Weber met some of the kids who were there on the street the following morning and they said they really had a good time.  Pictures of the party are below.

The one thing they didn't take care of was the refreshments.  No refreshments showed up.  We thought about going out to get something, but what do you pick up for 100 kids when no stores are open, etc.  They didn't seem to miss the food.  A good time was had anyway.

Mamonit is a small village in the Santa Ignacia Zone where Elder Weber has been supervising the renovation a home of a member of the Bishopric there that his family is no longer living in to make it suitable for the missionaries to live in.  There was a lot of work that needed to be done.  A line had to be run and a water meter put in so that running water was in the house.  Additional electricity had to be installed so they could have adequate outlets.  There was a tin roof over the house but the walls inside did not go all the way to the roof and so a ceiling had to be put in.  The CR (Philippine word for bathroom) was just a cinder block room with a cement floor and a bucket flush toilet and a hole in the wall at the floor level for a drain.  So that had to be tiled and a flush toilet  and shower put in.  Then it was all painted.  Much more was done, but too numerous to list.  Anyway these pictures are of the Church building in Mamonit with the clouds in the background and the children playing basketball.  Basketball is a favorite pass time here with all the males.

Notice that the basketball standard is held down with rocks that have been piled on the platform.  I have seen basketball standard made of bamboo and plywood for a backboard.  They are all over the area on the side of the street and they play in the street.  There are  basketball standard in every church parking lot that is used constantly.