People We Worked With In Town

The lady in the pink is Merlyn, it was her Happy Birthday so Sister Aquino and I took her a hat and a cake. Merlyn helped so much with our electric bills for the missionary apartments. At first I thought maybe she didn't like us so much because we could not understand each other over the phone and she would be impatient with me, but we turned out to be friends.

These are the guards at the bank. The man on the left saved our lives one day. We were with the new couple the Jones, helping them get their accounts set up and we left the blue binder (with all the money in it) behind. I thought we had it because we had a blue binder, but it turns out it was Sister Jones' and the money binder was left at the bank, for hours. This guard saw what had happened and when we walked up he had a big smile on his face. He had put it in his drawer for me. This is truly amazing because he is so poor and his little girl has cancer and they were just starting the treatments. So next time we went we took brownies, brownies make every thing better.

Across from the bank is the Reflexology Spa and for $8 you could sit in a recliner and get you feet soaked and worked on for 30 min. We became really good friends with these young ladies.

Doesn't Elder Kimberlin look so happy !

These are some of the bank people we got to know. Andy is the guy on the left with his hands in his pockets, he always helped us, not just with the money but with where to go eat and important info like that. We cannot say enough about how wonderful the people were to us everywhere we did our mission bussiness. We miss them.

The New Suits

Guard at the grocery store, there are guards at every entrance to every store, always with a big gun.

The Tailor and his wife, very nice people. They work in the small shop, about 14x14 feet.

Getting all the info. We picked out beautiful cashmere material, it never wrinkles, and looks beautiful.

The tailor was able to guess the waist size without measuring. Elder Kimberlin had two suits made, each one costs about $80

Winding down in November

These pictures go with the turkey at the bottom. Sorry....

Elder Ko during a break.

Treats at zone conference. Do you see the excitment on their faces ?

This picture does not show her beauty. Her face looked like a beautiful porcelin doll would look, flawless.

Elder Ko came to visit with his beautiful wife, they are Korean. They were both funny and a joy to be with. He is the one in the orange tie and she on his right. Elder Ko said we need more couples !

This is a trip to Mt. Samant. It is a big cross with an elevator to the top, it was beautiful. We all brought food and had a lunch together. Its at the location of the last great battle for Bataan in WWll.

We are so happy for Jerome Factura he finally found his true love.

She seemed to be crying a bit, she must have been so happy

We had a wedding. James Fernandez and his bride Jackie

We cook a turkey dinner at the mission home, many had not tasted turkey. They said they liked it but I don't think they liked it as much as we did !

Eight More Weeks to Go

It's hard to believe that it is almost time to leave. The closer we get to the end the more busy we become and the faster the time flies. What an experience !

This young man has saved all these rubber bands, quite impressive.

On the table you will recognize the green been cassorole , the kind with the onions on top, cream of mushroom soup, very familiar to us. Sister Kimberlin made it for this training day for the District Presidents and their wives. It got some strange looks, kind of how we feel when we look at some of their food. Most gave it a try, some did not. Some really liked it and wanted the recipe. It was just fun to watch people.

This is just one of many funny signs we see almost every day, the people say things different than we do.

This is a fruit bat, it belongs to Greg the man in the picture, he has three and he invited us to meet them. They are large, look kind of like they have little dog faces and their wings look like soft brown leather. It was a fascinating visit. Greg has a tailoring shop, where you can get a suit or pants made. Sister Kimberlin has had several blouses made in his shop.

This is a water filter we use here and we are so glad we have it ! I'm not sure what would happen if we drank brown water ?

Just so no one will wonder if we get to eat good food every now and then, on SBMA (the old military base) there are new restaurant's going in. Korea is buying the Philippines, at least in our area.

This is training at a zone conference in San Antonio. Elder Makihele is not really into the training more into his picture being taken.

These are the Jones from Idaho. They are having a new experience, getting their drivers license in the Philippines, when you are new it is classified as an "experience" They were troopers, it is very hot and takes a long time, most things look a little strange at first.

The lady in pink is Merlyn, it is her happy birthday, we took her a cake and hat. She works in Olongapo and helps Sister Kimberlin with the electric bills for some of the apartments. By helping that means she doesn't have to stand in line forever.

This is Elder Agacer, he is going home on the day this picture was taken. He is the only one that loves Eddie as much as Sister Kimberlin. He lived next door to us and when he would come up the stairs he would yell, E D D I E, any time of the night or day.

This weekend we did training in Alaminos, it is north about 31/2 hours. We feel it is the best district. They had a family history center that was unbelievable, it functioned and is busy, they do New Family Search and it was impressive, the system they have going. We did training in other areas then we, with the President and his wife and the other Senior couple, the Snow's, went to a great restaurant right by the ocean and had the biggest shrimp we have ever seen , they were very good! Wish we had taken a picture.

We had a good experience a week ago. We have some good friends, Bert and Rayola Sorensen, they served in Iba in about 1992. When we attended the District Conference in Iba, we started asking people if they remembered the Sorensen's. Everyone old enough remembered them with very kind and loving words. The three Brother's above remember them really well and the sister standing with Sister Kimberlin was the lady that help them in their home. We are standing in front of the house they lived in. The Sister said everyone cried and cried when they left. The members sometimes come to Conference in Jeepney's like the one in the picture, some have to come quite a distance.

Pictures of Interest

This is a great family history story.Sister Kimberlin has been helping the Catalogo's do their family history this year. Bro. Catalogo (white t-shirt) had lost track of his family.His father died and his mother went to another country to work, someone else raised he and his brother. Over here it is not unusual for people to lose contact, most do not travel much. So he remembered he had an aunt who lived and hour and a half away, which to him was like clear across the US. So one day Elder Kimberlin was going to go move some Elders down south and the Catalogo's went with him and they stopped where he thought his aunt lived and found his step father and 3 sisters,one of the sisters had looked for him in 2002 and couldn't find him, so she was crying and crying she was so happy. They gave him his Mother's phone number and he made contact with her again, she is still living abroad. He was so happy !! In Dec. they are going to have a family reunion and his mother is coming home, he has not seen her for 21 years. How's that for a family history story!


This is a picture of the ladies at Enrichment meeting. They are learning to bake cookies in their toaster ovens. Most families have a toaster oven but no stoves with ovens. They really want to learn to bake, there seems to be a big interest in American food. We had a good time that day, and you can make oatmeal cookies in a toaster oven. Next I think we might learn to make taffy. In the second picture the Sisters are learning to bake pies in our apartment.

New Mission President

The first of July we received a new Mission President, President Aquino. He is Filipino, has a really sweet wife and three boys. He was over the Church Education System in part of the Philippines, so he is a great teacher, very soft spoken and kind, with a great sense of humor.