Subic Bay

Fishing boat in Subic Bay. Notice the 2 men in the water.

Subic Bay

Subic Bay

Fishing boat in Subic Bay. Notice the 2 men in the water.

Subic Bay

Rice

The Filipinos spread out their rice on the side of the road to dry. This rice is still in the husk. I think it's called palay. They do this 2 times before it's ready to be milled. Some times the rice goes into the driving lane half way. The Filipinos are OK with cars running over it.

Of course, orchids. These orchids are just at the bottom of our stairs on the mission home complex.

Weed Wacker

 The grounds keeper mowing the lawn with a weed wacker. Many people wear a shirt over there head and face to help cut out the pollution.

Housesin the Philippines

These are pictures of Filipino houses. Houses on the River or on the side of the street are prized property.

Santa Rita Apartment

This is the stairs that goes to one of the apartments. Elder Gorringe carried 2 suitcases up these stairs in a torrential rainstorm on transfer day in June. He was soaked, his tie and even his money. We are hoping the Elders find a new apartment soon. the roof leaks in this apartment.

Missionary Work

This is why we're here, to help the missionaries so they can do missionary work. This is a special baptism because a family was baptized.

Super Storm

Can you see the two monkeys? We saw these monkeys on a road on the way to Mabayo.

The same 2 monkeys. Don't touch them. Their mean.

 Bats close by the airport on the Base (the US Navy was on the Base until the 1990s.

More bats

We went by these trees yesterday. No bats.

Can you see the Hobbits in the jungle? How about Tarzan?

A couple of weeks ago on Monday, September 23rd the Philippines had a super storm. Our area didn't have the typhoon but we had the super storm. Subic where we live, Castillejos the town just to the north of us, and Olongapo, the town just to the south of us, had the most damage. Eighteen to 30 people were killed from land slides. Many houses had 2-8 inches of mud inside. On two days the missionaries put on their helping hands tops and help dig mud put of peoples homes. One group of missionaries cleaned the mud out of a museum. Where we went to  a baptism, in the Olongap 1st Branch, there was evidence of mud and water 6 inches deep. Even though the the mud and water had been cleaned out, the doors were left warped and unable to shut. They had to burn many of the Hymn Books.
Ten families lived in the church house on the mission compound for a week to 1 1/2 weeks. About 5 days after the storm, we saw the Red Cross and military helping. A bridge near the center of Subic got washed out on both sides. A TV news truck was there capturing the story while hundreds of people watched.
About the only way it affected us was the power was out from before we woke up until about 9:00 at night. Because there was no power, there was no water. The water was pumped by electricity. The cities turned the power off to protect the people. We had mud up the mission complex driveway.
The main thing, we missed was Skyping with our family. They were having a big family party at Alicia and Mike's house and we going to Skype.
What an adventure.