Do-Overs

Well, we had a new transfer last week, and now we are back at checking apartments again. We hand out supplies, and then get a slurry of new texts asking for supplies. We are learning that this job is not one that is ever going to be "done"! It gives us new chances to visit with the missionaries, though, so we love it.  We are about to get elders that have been looking for months into a new apartment, and were feeling very relieved, then got a text from other elders whose landlord is being uncooperative and pretty much unfriendly, and since they live in arguably the worst apartment in the mission, they are looking hard. Then we got a text from the president tonight telling us two elders that we had been helping to look for some weeks have just been emergency moved out tonight because their apartment was unsafe. We don't know what that means, but think it must be because of people, not critters.  They have had rats come up their toilet in the past, and President didn't move them out, so I think something else must have happened.  So now we must help them find another apartment much sooner than we thought.

One elder was moved last week because of death threats. A lot of things that I never associated with missions before! I also never realized how very hard missions are. Hats off, again, to our sons, son-in-law and daughter-in-law who have served missions.  It's probably a good thing we did not know, or we might not have been able to send them off!  On the other hand, we were discussing the other day the things 18-year-olds find hilarious, like being bitten on the eye by a cockroach while sleeping, that older folks would find just flat-out horrifying! I keep wondering how I would have reacted to the living conditions here when I was twenty-one.  Hopefully, better than I would now. (Young) missionaries cannot have air conditioning because they can't afford to pay the electric bills. They get support that is way above the norm here, but still does not include enough for that luxury, so their apartments have been easily in the high 90's during this unusually hot summer here. (They do get one fan per missionary, so, generally, four per apartment.) We buy familiar food, which makes our life much easier, but that is harder if not impossible for the young missionaries. We bought delicious Blue Bell ice cream this week, but figured out we paid $10 for the half-gallon size! That is about 430 pesos, and they get Php 4000/month, so would be hard-pressed to pay for American ice cream. WE don't do it often.

Which reminds me, we made "Frito Pie" tonight, with regular Hormel chili bought at the Sam's Club lookalike, but although they import all kinds of Lay's products, Fritos is not one of them.  So we made our "Frito" pie with Tostitos. It was, actually, quite yummy!

They are generally working very hard, though, and the conversion rate is very high here. We are having lots of baptisms, made easier because the people are already Christian, so don't have that hurdle to jump. Families are very important here, another plus.  I love being out driving and seeing not only mothers and grandmothers with babies, but fathers, brothers, and grandfathers, too. And they are such a friendly, helpful people. Manila is a city of over 11 million, but everyone smiles when you look at them, and generally speak.

This is, definitely, an experience.