We decided to open a blog to everyone so we can let you know what we are doing over here in the Philippines . We are coming to the end of a long stretch of being very busy in the Temple . The schools are just starting up again and so people are going back to the provinces. Woops, I spoke to soon , the Philippines had a holiday on friday {Independance Day} and people flooded the temple . We did over 630 endownments believe me that is keeping us very busy non stop and our feet let us know it. Saturday was busy but not like friday. We have 2 more new couple missionaries coming tomorrow one is from Canada and the other is from Arizona. We get another couple in July and I think they are from Springfield , Utah.
The picture above is the Buendia chapel, the first chapel built in the Philippines. It also serves as the Makati stake house. When this chapel was built it was in the wide open spaces , now as you can see it is surrounded by very tall buildings which we have many of around here that is why we can have 20 million people live in just a small place, some buildings have as much as 60 floors.
Today we attended Stake Conference and the Mission President that has just been assigned here is Pres. Howard. He told us he was in the first missionary group assigned to the Makati stake area. He told the people a dream has come true from back in 1965 when they were told that this area would have strong men come into the gospel and move the church along in the future and now the church is growing leaps and bounds in the Philippines and look at all the people coming into the church . This building has been full twice this day and in 6 months it will probably be full 3 times. Every week the church we have been assigned to has 2 or 3 baptisms. It is really neat to see this work moving along here.
Where we are working in the temple we are able to meet many of the missionaries, I guess we pretty well meet many people from all the different wards that come to the temple along with many that visit from all over the world. Thursday we will have another batch of missionaries from the M.T.C. about 69 coming from all over Asia , some of them bring their enterpreters . We have some from Malaysa and some from China which is out of our area this time. These missionaries usually can't afford to go to the temple to receive there endownments so they receive them here when they come to the mission home and they receive their endownments here in the Manila Temple. We act like parents to them and comfort them as much as possible. We really do LOVE this work and it is so special to see these people so happy when they leave the temple. We are grateful to be here and learn many new things. It makes you appreciate what you have been blessed with in this life. I am especially grateful for a body that has carried me so many miles and still works good. I know it is a special gift from my Father in Heaven and I appreciate the gift.
Last monday we visited the oldest hotel in the Manila where McCarther lived in the top floor for 20 years. It is a very fancy hotel with beautiful wood work. Many celebrities visit this Hotel from the United States. We also visited the mansion of Fernande Marcous when he was President here. He built this mansion for the Pope to stay in, but the Pope felt that it was to extavigant so Marcus spent the money of the people for nothing so Marcous family used it , one of many of is mansions. It is built like the coconut like a octagon everything is shaped like a octagon. The house is built 70% of the wood from coconut trees, bark, and coconuts decorations that is why it is called the Coconut House. It is located by the ocean and very beautiful landscaping, swimming pool, and large octagon chapel. The government owns it and has been using it as a tourist attraction but it is now going to cloose it. is closing it. It will probably be sold . If you have a few million running around you might be able to buy it., It does need repair and fixed up. One interesting thing was the chips of coconut in the tables ,they said little children 5 to 7 yrs old set them . It sure looked like professional work to me, they were very pretty designs {flower designs].
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