I took my first trike ride on Saturday.  I actually rode a trike twice on that day.  Once from the Palanke to the Romulo Church Building and then later from our house to the Romulo Bldg. for District Conference.  Elder Weber was already there attending the Priesthood leadership meeting.

The following pictures were taken in our home at a Zone breakfast we had for the missionaries in our zone.  I fixed fruit, french toast and since you must have rice at every meal, I made rice pudding.

 Elder Horsburgh on the left, Sister Krix (who lives next door to us) and Elder Crisostomo.

 The Sister on the left is Sister Bernarte and Sister Bagano is on the right.  Sister Bernarte left to go home the following morning.  She had finished her mission.

 Elder Weber waiting tables.  Sister Pardinas and Sister Anderson who live next door to us.

 All the people here remove their shoes when they enter you home.  These are the missionary's shoes outside our front door.

 We have a very talented group of missionaries in our Zone.  Several of them play the piano and three of the Elders have beautiful voices.  They sing and play for us often which is truly a delight.

You've heard about Mary's Little Lamb, well we went to church Sunday in a little branch called Birbira and were surprised when we walked in to see this dog under a chair on the back row.  This picture is of Elder Weber sitting in the chair and the dog is under his chair.  I asked the Elders if this was one of their investigators.  He said no he was a more regular attender than some of the members.  He stayed through the whole block schedule.  Most of the members left after sacrament meeting.

 This is a "trike" (three wheeled vehicle - motorcycle and side car.  These are used for hauling people as well as cargo.  This one has three people on the seat and three in the side car.

 Picture of the traffic as we are leaving Tarlac to come back home to Camiling.  It had started to rain.

 More traffic pictures.

 

 This is a really nice "trike".

 This is one loaded with cargo.  I have seen them even more loaded than this one.

 Ladies selling their vegetables at the Palanke.

These are rakes or rough brooms that are used to clean up your yard or whatever.

These are pictures taken at the Bataan Death March Memorial Monument.  The pictures of us in front of the box car is what they  used to transport some of the prisoners. It was extremely hot on the day we visited the site and I cannot imagine what it must have been like for these men who were packed tightly into the box car without any air or water.  No wonder so many died.

Last week we started our housing checks for the four zones we are responsible for.  We went to the Paniqui Zone.  We found several problems in the Elder's and Sister's living quarters which Elder Weber tried to fix.  One was that the handle on the kitchen faucet was broken off and had been for a long time.  It was quite a project to fix it.  Took quite awhile with Elder Weber crawling underneath a sink working in extremely hot, humid conditions.  The young elders and sisters to do not have any air conditioning, only fans.  He was really tired and worn out when we arrived back at our house and ready for the air conditioned bedroom.  We are really fortunate that we have at least one room that is air conditioned.

It is such a pleasure to work with these young missionaries.  They are so kind and pleasant to us.  We are love them!!  They seem to appreciate all we do for them.

Yesterday we had a zone fast for the investigators that are being taught and that the missionaries are hoping will set baptism dates for this month.  Our Mission President is being released this month and we will be getting a new one, President Clark.  The missionaries want to make this a really big month of baptisms to close President Martino's mission.  They started the fast on Saturday about 1:30 pm with a conference call to all the missionaries in the zone and everyone knelt where they were and the zone leader offered the prayer and named each investigator that we were fasting for by name.  A conference call was used rather than getting them all together because of the distance between them and the cost of transportation to all be together in one place.  It was quite a spiritual experience.  So happy we are here to be a part of this work that is going forth in this part of our Heavenly Father's vineyard.

We are also working on a couple of projects with LDS Charities.  There is a young brother in one of the branches who was an armored car driver.  The vehicle he was driving malfunctioned some way and it rolled over.  He lost both his legs just below the knee.  We are trying to arrange a wheelchair for him through the LDS Charities.  He has quite a large hospital bill to pay.  He was released by his doctors to go home on May 21, but they won't let him out until his bill is paid and they keep charging him everyday he is there.  Seems kind of crazy that he can't pay his bill but they keep adding charges, sounds like a debtors prison to me.  Anyway we are working on helping him get out of the hospital.

The other project we are working on with the Charities is an irrigation project.  The church members here who farm grow rice about six months out of the year during the rainy season, but the rest of the time the ground sits unused because there is not enough rain to grow a crop.  If wells could be dug and an irrigation system set up then they could use the land all year long.  It would greatly  improve their financial situation and give them a way to support their family better.  Many of the men leave the country to work because they cannot earn enough to live on.  They send money home to their families.  This separates families and presents a hugh problem for the Church because there are no Priesthood holders.

We are having District Conference this month and we have been asked to speak in the Saturday night session in the East District.  Our topic is families.  The Sunday morning session will be a Satellite broadcast.

We are beginning to get busy and finding our way around.  Driving here is crazy.  I am hoping to get some pictures of the Jeepnees and the trikes.  The trikes are motorcycles with a sidecar (hence three wheels).  You would be amazed what these people can pile on that sidecar.
Signing off for now.  Sister Weber

Shortly after we arrived, we went to the baptism of the Sister.  Her son baptized her, he is in the picture also.  It was a very happy day for them.

These are pictures we took out in the country on the way to hook up the water filter for some Elders who were moving into a new house.  The tree I think is called a Coral Tree.  It has beautiful orange flowers on it,

There are some really nice looking homes here, but most people live in conditions that we would think are unacceptable.