Friday - In Baguio

Wednesday night we slept at the Holiday Inn in Manila and last night we slept at the mission home in Baguio, and got some good rest, but our bodies are still trying to get up on Utah time. We're getting a little more sleep each night, but it takes a while to adjust to the new time zone 14 time zones away from home.  We got up and started the day with scripture study and a shower, then off to see the mission. We went down the mountain from Baguio to the lowlands to a youth conference and then on to see many chapels in various towns as well as a quick tour of the future mission home in Urdaneta.

Youth Conference - 

NEW MISSION HOME IN URDANETA

President and Sister Jensen reviewed the plans and made final finishing choices for the new construction.

OUR NEW HOME IN THE PHILIPPINES

The white house in front is our landlord's home and we live in the pink house behind his home.

Sister Jensen and Sister Lindsay work on new curtains for all the windows. President Jensen and Pablo (landlord) are pulling out the new air conditioner that will go in the bedroom. We'll get another air conditioning unit for our office and lots of fans for the rest of the house.

This is a look at the kitchen from the stairs. We have lots of pots and pans, dishes, stove, refrigerator and other furnishings from previous senior couples... a special thank you to those couples for sharing their household goods with us.

Pablo, our landlord with Sister and Elder Lindsay in front of our new home in the town of Manaoag, in the  Mapandan district. There is a very famous Catholic church in town that is a destination site for many visitors.

DINNER WITH THE JENSEN'S AND PERKINS

Dinner at a beautiful hotel in Baguio with President and Sister Jensen and President and Sister Perkins (the office couple, and he serves as councilor to the mission president).

Strawberry meringue and a banana split finish off our first full day in Baguio... a very busy day, but a great day!

Thursday - Travel to Our Mission Field

Monday, we were packed by noon and dressed by 1:00 PM. By 3:00 PM our son Steve, loaded our bags into his car and we were on our way to the airport. It seemed normal to drive away, but then I remembered that we wouldn't be coming back for eighteen months. It's nice to have Marlene's brother living in our home while we are away and have first-hand reports on how things are there at home.

We arrived at the airport and unloaded our bags. Wow! we were packed like we were moving...
 

4 big bags to check in, 2 carry on bags and a computer. We packed about everything we were told to bring, we are fully inoculated and we have a few extra testimonies in case we lose one along the way.

We were at the airport 3 hours early and avoided any rush. We were the only people at the check in desk and had no pressure dragging the bags around or going through security. The bags were checked all the way through to Manila... we just hoped that they would show up at the same time we did.

We had a long travel ahead, but we were ready and anxious to get to our mission field. We left SLC by 6:00, arrived LA at 8:00. Left LA at 1:30 AM and traveled about 15 hours to Hong Kong, China. Marlene celebrated her birthday somewhere over the Pacific Ocean and lost 14 hours of her birthday, so her aging has been suspended. We had a pleasant flight and met several people that we really enjoyed. One young man was returned missionary from China. He was a fun conversationalist and very engaging. Wednesday morning we saw the sun rise and looked out the window to see the shoreline of China.
 

This is what we saw of Hong Kong as we were approaching the airport for landing.

Touchdown! Here we are in China!

A look at our home for the last 15 hours.

Marlene is faithful in keeping her journal and took time in the airport to do a little updating.

Free Internet services to communicate with family and friends at home. We landed at 7:30 AM and didn't leave for Manila until 1:30 PM so we had time to relax and take in the sights from the airport.

Our view of Manila as we were approaching the airport.

We're in the Philippines! We passed immigrations, found our luggage, and went through customs to meet Clem, our driver that took us to the Holiday Inn, downtown Manila. It was a 20 km drive through evening traffic, so an hour and a helf later we arrived at the hotel. We were tired from the journy and ready for a good night's sleep.

No comment.

View from our room the next morning

On our way by 8:00 to get our Philippines drivers license.

Waiting at the LTO Land Transportation Office for the hard copy of our license.

Our drives Joey, ?, and license facilitator, Lawrence.

One of four temple sites in Urdaneta.

The new Mission Home and office in Urdaneta.

MTC - Day Five, Final Day

It's hard to believe we are trained and ready to go out into the far corners of the world and teach the gospel, but we have completed all the training we're going to get. I got an email from President Jensen last night and he said the red carpet is cleaned and waiting for us to arrive. He also mentioned that the town we will live in was 99 degrees and the humidity was the same. Oh boy!

We picked up our mail and found that our travel plans had been changed. Our first travel leg is to LA at 8:30 PM instead of through San Francisco leaving at 6:45 PM. Glad we checked our MTC mailbox.

No, we're not going to Disney World, but we are going all around the world.

Our MTC District; Lindsay, Ross, Merrill and Jorgensen.

 Elder and Sister Lindsay, serving in the Baguio, Philippines.

 Sister and Elder Ross going to Sapporo, Japan to serve. They both served in Japan on their first mission in their youth.

Sister and elder Jorgensen, going to Nairobi, Kenya to serve.

 Elder and Sister Merrill, going to Ukrane to serve. Elder Merrill's work took him to the Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine a few years ago and he attended the same branch they will live in as a senior missionary couple.

 Our MTC morning trainers, brothers Silitoe and Harmer

MTC Day Four

We had a great presentation on the book of Mormon this morning by Val Judd, who was our branch president in Rochester '74-'75. We saw his office yesterday and had a little reunion catchup time. He shared quotes from the Prophet Joseph Smith, Heber C Kimball and others that shed light on the fact that ZJoseph saw many angles that taught him and showed him all about the Nephite nation. He also shared the quote about the room in the Hill Cumorah with several wagon-loads of plates. He quoted Elder Holland saying the Book of Mormon is a revelation about revelation and the most basic missionary tract of this dispensation. Mnay other interesting points were made about the Book of Mormon that you don't usually think about.

We prepared and taught the second lesson today. Well I should say we taught our second lesson. Our investigator was quite strong willed and wouldn't respond to our questions, but only asked questions. We had to get very bold and direct and she responded somewhat after that, but we still didn't get to the Plan of Salvation the way we prepared. It was a good experience and we learned from it. Reactivation work is on the docket for tomorrow. We got an email from our mission president last night, and among other things he again indicated we would be doing member work, presenting Family Home Evening training with members, active and less active.

 Our afternoon trainers; brother ??? and brother Johnson

A beautiful view!

Timp has more snow on it at this time in the season than ever before. Today there were 80 degree temps and the same is forecast for the next two days. We may begin to see some flooding. Hopefully it will cool down and we will avoid the super heavy runoff and associated flooding.

MTC - Day Three

Today was the BIG day... we taught our first lesson on the Restoration to an investigator and got our Typhiod booster shot. We were in the second group to teach so we had about half-an-hour to prepare our thoughts. We didn't use any of our preparation work in the discussion, but just responded to the investigator's responses to our questions. We were able to teach our investigator to pray and we knelt together and she gave a very moving humble prayer. Our investigator was played by a member of the Church, but she still had tears at the end of our lesson and told us she really had not expected to get emotional, but she was touched by the Spirit.

When we returned to class we talked about what we learned from our teaching experience and started to plan for our next lesson tomorrow. The lesson tomorrow will be focused on the Plan of Salvation... depending on our investigator's responses to our preliminary questions.

 We have four couples in our district. This is a look at our classroom. The couples are going to Kenya, Ukraine, Japan and us to the Philippines.

 A sunny day at the MTC. Today was Ice Cream day at the MTC. You can kind of tell from our smiles.

We finished the day with a little boost... a Typhoid booster shot. We learned that they only last two years and we had our last one three years ago. We're protected now.

The MTC Experience Begins

We entered the MTC today, Monday, May 2, 2011. It was a day of check-in, discussion and lots of breaks. I don't mind the breaks.  Our Typhoid shots expired, so we will get a booster shot on Wednesday. I think we're inoculated against most everything now and we are taking a few extra testimonies in case we lose one or two along the way.

I'm waiting for the Philippines training... sitting in a steam room while teaching the gospel. Maybe they are saving that until tomorrow.

Just in case you missed it... we're going here! Baguio, Philippines.

Flowerbeds in the front of the MTC.

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 Unusual flowering trees are in bloom this week, despite the cold and snow.

 Beautiful flowers and benches inside the MTC.

 There are four and a half boards like this with pictures of all the mission presidents in the world.

 Our mission president, Thomas H. Jensen, second row down, second photo from the right.

 This is the building we have our training classes in each day. It's the same building we have devotional on Tuesday. We also go to the bookstore, cafeteria, and TRC-Training Resource Center. We will have our first teaching experience with a live investigator on Wednesday. Pray for us... no pray for the investigator!

SET APART

Today is the official start of our missionary service. We were set apart by President Ryan Richards and we are now officially Elder and Sister Lindsay again. We each received a beautiful blessing and will work to receive those blessings while serving the people of the Philippines.

We're now prepared to report to the MTC tomorrow and start the training process anew. It's hard to believe how quickly the last few weeks have flown by. We've visited each of our children, brothers and sisters and Mom, and had some special memories together that will last 18 months until we return to be with them once again.

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday is always special, but today was a uniquely special day. We were honored to be asked to give our farewell remarks on Easter Sunday. We felt a personal responsibility to make Easter worship for our ward family a special experience and prayed for help in preparation of our remarks. 

Family came from all around to support us and say farewell for a little while. We delivered our talks today and felt a special outpouring of the Spirit. Marlene spoke on the Atonement and developed a theme of witness from the scriptures on the prints in His hands and feet. I spoke on the Resurrection and shared testimonies of the prophets from scripture and latter-day statements. I also shared my personal testimony of the reality of the resurrection for all mankind. After reading, praying and preparing our Easter Sunday messages for weeks, our hearts were especially tender, so when the choir sang, "He Is Risen", that flooded my heart with emotion right before I was to speak. It all worked out. I was unprepared, but very grateful for that experience and spiritual witness of the Atonement and Resurrection anew.

Just part of the family that I was able to gather for a picture that came to support us today.