Sunday, September 23

This what we see when we step out our front door. Our apartment is on the side of the hill on which the temple is built. We climb up some stairs to reach the temple grounds.
There are four or five sets of steps, each with six or seven steps. This shows the white corridor we walk in when we leave our apartment. The fence is at the edge of the temple grounds. The corridor splits into two sections, one going right and one going left (as you descend). It depends on which building you're going to. We can take either one because we are in the middle building.

This picture shows the terraced hillside between our apartment and the temple grounds. The whole yard is full of this sort of greenery -- palm trees, flowering trees, bushes, flowers. There is a trickling water fall with a fish pond at the bottom. In it are several big goldfish. (I tried to get a picture of that, but you can't see what it really looks like. Besides, it started to rain.)

At one end of the front entrance, we can see some of the buildings in down-town Manila. Manila is just one part of the scene. We live in Quezon (KAY-zone) City. Then there is Merekita, Pasig, San Juan, and a bunch more. All this is just referred to as "Metro-Manila."




The Fullers came to dinner on Sunday. They are the missionary couple who returned the furniture. Elder and Sister Fuller are sophisticated couple, but they decided to dramatize this shot. See the soft leather sofa. They just had to sit on it one more time.

This is Gail's nursery class. Our camera batteries went dead when we got this shot, so we didn't get to do any others.

New Furniture

We got new furniture for our apartment living room. Well, actually it wasn't new-new. It was what the Berrys (whom we replaced) bought. When they went home early, a couple of months before we got here, the neighbor senior couple decided to use the furniture rather than just have it gathering dust in our apartment. When we arrived, the Fullers told us they would give the stuff back when they were released.

We'll, they're leaving on 1 October, but yesterday (Friday, September 21) was the only day we had time to move it. So we did. The Fullers will have to suffer on that old wicker furniture they had before they "stole" ours. But just for 10 days or so.

We now have a leather, yes, real leather, black, double-seat recliner. It fits just right for watching TV. We got the DVD player back and a nice rectangular table. (We had a VHS that didn't work and a round table with eight legs so you couldn't pull your chair under it.)

The Fullers also gave us a color printer and a bunch of paper, etc. So now we're almost as happy as a little lamb with two mothers. They have given us lots of odds and ends. The last day they're here, they said they would set up a free for the taking grocery store. I think we'll see what we want to get. Gail's hoping they will want to "sell" their waffle iron.

Living high . . .

Ancient History

We've sent a few emails and pictures before we discovered how to make a blog. So we don't think we'll try to start over with our history. Perhaps as time goes by we'll post here some of the things we've said before, but for now we'll start from where we are . . . Sunday, September 16th . . .

On Sunday (September 16) we drove out to the Tanay Branch. We are not actually assigned to do missionary work. Our job is almost entirely office work. But on Sundays we are assigned to attend a branch in the Quezon City Mission (in which mission we live). The idea is to give encouragement, suggestions, insights, etc. to the leaders there. We've been going to Tanay for nearly two months now, but today was the first day we brought along our camera. Here are a few of the things we saw.

Much of the landscape is green a cultivated. But in the towns the houses are right on the road. Children playing on the shoulders of the roads. Many houses are just shacks. Not all, but a lot of them












Gail took these pictures from the car as we were "speeding" along. Next week we'll take our camera again and get some more shots of Philippines the Beautiful.

We left the MTC on July 20, 2007

This is our last day at the MTC. We flew out on Friday evening and arrived in Manila on Sunday mid-day. Saturday was lost at the International Date Line. We think someday we'll get it back . . . probably in a couple of years. We went by way of Los Angeles to Taipei, Taiwan. That's a lot of ocean between what's above Elder Roundy's head and what to the left of and above Sister Roundy's head.

This is a first . . .

We've never blogged before, so this is our initial effort. So if things look screwy, just attribute it to the foibles that are so prevalent in almost everyone. We'll keep trying . . .