Goofing off taking pictures of ourselves. Our faces are distorted I promise.

Pretty flower by the Japanese Shrine

Japanese shrine at one of the bloodiest battles in World War II

Napoleon The Peddler

Napoleon peddeling his wares.

Thanks to Ralph and Kathrine Staheli we are now the proud owners of a 1000 lb diesel powered hand tractor.

Elder Shelley Driving our new Tractor

New Househelp

CJ has been helping us since we moved to Barugo by washing our van and carrying water up our stairs. He came to us about a week ago and said his wife was going to move back to Samar, where some of her family lives, and would be leaving their four month old baby here with him to tend. We talked to him to see what could be done to keep her from leaving. We have hired her to be my househelp now so hopefully he will get something put together by the time we have to leave the Philippines. They are a cute couple and really seem to love each other. They understand English but don't speak really well, but we are able to communicate pretty well. They are not members of our church so she can't wash our garments but she is able to do everything else.

Jason "CJ" and Concepcion our new house help.

Egg plants

We see egg on many plants here so I wanted to keep a picture of one of the best. I guess she wanted to soften the sharp ends of this plant so she covered the points with egg shells.

A new kind of egg plant

New Keyboard Instructor Sister Eden

Everything got a face life - even the birdcage and the rocks that lined the walkways.

Pres. Cinco and Master Teacher. She said, "I want to come to your church just to say thank you."

New paint - Happy Workers

Old fence - picture makes it look better than it was.

Super Service Project - Painting at the school

President Cinco and Elder Dalley decided to have our Super Service Project at the barongay at the farm site. All of the Branches combined their resources and bought paint for their school. The barongay Captain and the Master teacher were excited about our proposal. The young people showed up in great numbers and went to work. Even though there wasn't a paint brush for everyone they all found something to do. Some scraped off old paint and mold from the fence, foundation, planter boxes and playground equipment. Others trimmed around shrubs and weeded flower beds. Some painted and some held umbrellas to shade those painting. Everyone worked hard and never complained. I was amazed at what they accomplished. No one had to tell them what to do, they just saw a need and went and did it.
The words on the fence were painted with sticks because we didn't have a small brush to paint them with.

Scraping off the old paint and mold getting ready to paint.

Nipa now has a fence and an extension

Feed the Indians

Much has happened at the farm. Shortly after our farm couple moved into their nipa they began to sell rice to their neighbors from their home. They went home to visit their family on the weekend and while they were away someone cut a hole in the back with their sundang and stole their rice. They fixed the hole when they returned then that night someone tried again to break into their home. They texted for help and the multicab came, bringing the police with them. The person ran away but our couple were sure they knew who the robber was.
It turned out to be a neighbor that was very hungry.
Elder Dalley tossed and turned that night trying to decide what to do to keep the neighbors from stealing from the couple. When he woke up he was muttering, "feed the Indians". During the night he had remembered what Brigham Young had counceled one of his ancestors during pioneer times when they had so much trouble with the Indians stealing from them. He told them it was cheaper to feed the Indians than to fight them.
So Elder Dalley and Pres. Cinco decided they had better feed the Indians so to speak. They talked to the Barongay Captain and let him know the couple would give one guntang of rice to those who were really destitute if they would work four hours on the farm.
So far to date they have fed 15 Indians but have had no more break ins.