House Building

This is Jerome from Tagbilaran who is in charge of the housing project.  We were pleased to see a home with a roof on.  The project is taking a lot longer than we were told it would take.  It takes us an hour to drive to Tagbilaran and then another hour to drive to the Mandacita - with the return trip it is over 4 hours on the road.  When we get to the site we just sit in the car and wait for him at least 2-3 hours.  Makes for a lot of sitting.  Too hot to get out!  Part of the road is so bumpy you just rock from side to side.  Sometimes I think my body will be bruised.

We were parked in front of this lady's home and she invited us in.  Then she insisted on treating us.  We are very reluctant to do that but you can see the rolls and pop.  She has never married and is over 72 years old.  Her niece is standing by Norm.  The nicest people.

I asked if I could use her CR having no clue what I was asking.  She opened a door and there it was.  No seat, no paper, no walls on the one side and something else hanging on the other side.  I felt a bit uncomfortable about the whole thing but it was necessary.  No choice - better than bushes.

This is a picture of the CR from the outside. The cement did go up part way.

We were driving the truck down this narrow road and met up with a slight problem.  No one in this truck - not enough room to go by and there was at least a 6 in. drop off and it just went straight down.  We just had to wait until a man came by and moved it.

We are meeting with Elder Perez of the Seventy.  He is just newly called and lives in Cebu.  He is the one in charge of this whole building project - LDS Charities - there have been many problems over this project and he has come to try and explain what is going on.  He and Jerome just do not see eye to eye and it has really been a hard situation.

None of the people receiving the homes are LDS.  They are all very nice people.  There are 27 homes being built.

We really enjoyed being with Elder Perez.

This is a zone training meeting.  I wore that blouse purposely I want you to know :).  The sister sitting by me is Sister Fiti and she went home today.  She has the most beautiful singing voice.  These are great missionaries.  We had a wonderful meeting.

We were home teaching a brother and passed this house.  Not everyone has a calf tied inside their front yard with the wash.

This a rice machine. The rice and the hulls are being sorted out.  Didn't look too great to me.

They pour the rice in this hole and somehow it carries it up and out.

This is in our front yard.  I watched this man cut a log in two pieces.  That is what is on the bottom.  When we came home he was putting cement I think it is all over it.  Somehow he made the back and put it together.

The log in front is something like what he started with for the seat.

Norm's assignment was to organize an Aaronic Priesthood Commemoration activity for the district.  We organized a few games.  Here the boys are standing on a blanket and they are suppose to turn it over without stepping on the tile.  It was pretty fun to watch. The Elder in the middle was really good to help us. The other Elder is on the left.  We really appreciated them.

We had two groups.  They told us to plan on 40 boys and we had 10.  I think the ones that came had fun.

These were the winners.  The boy in the red shirt is one I teach piano and he is amazing.  He just graduated and will be moving to Cebu.  I will miss him  He has a lot of talent.

This was a relay game with  a book on top, coin in the eye and ball between legs following a rope.  I crocheted the rope - best we could come up with.

Hope your week was as good as ours!!  Love you all so much!!!!

Josh and Jenny

The long awaited arrival of Josh and Jenny at the airport in Cebu.  How happy we were to see them after waiting for 4 1/2 hours.

Waiting at the pier for the ferry.

Good time to rest on the ferry.  They were exhausted. They had a  long day of making flights.

Inside the ferry.  They have a couple levels - it holds a lot of people.

At the Loomweavers.  Fun place - they make beautiful placemats, purses, backpacks and will custom make about anything you want - covers for Preach My Gospel etc.
Sagbayan peak - chocolate hills country.

Tarsier - cute little fellows!

 We arrived in Loboc and checked out the river cruise only to find out there were masses of people - we could only make a reservation for the next day, Sunday.  We started walking off and the lady said, wait.  How many are in your group?  We told her 4.  She left out the door and when she came back she said we can take you right now.  We paid her the money and walked through the masses of people and right on to the boat.  I will never figure that one out except we were extremely blessed and we had a wonderful time.


All you can eat buffet on the boat.  Good food!

They have wonderful music going all the time - a man playing a guitar and singing.  The people in the blue shirts on the right joined right in and were hitting the table for drums and singing right along.  It was a fun group.

We really had a good time.

So loved having them in our home - eating, playing games and loving every minute.

Norm pictures

We were teaching in this "home" and I thought I could hear a pig.  Sure enough, it was under the house with piglets.

Same pig - different view.

Front of the house - I am always amazed that they plant flowers.  The man is sitting on the porch and there were 6 of us on that porch and it was very warm.

It is the season for "flame" trees.  They are gorgeous.

The rest are random pictures from Norm's ipad.  Notice the man climbing the tree.

And you surely don't want to miss out on this.  Hope you take in the pink cupboards and the cooking supplies.  That is as good as it gets here.

A house that is being built by the LDS Charities.  These are not members but a community the church is helping.  

Waiting for Elder and Sister Uzelac to get off the ferry.  They ride the yellow starcraft.  The big white one is a craft that carries trucks and cars etc.

Brother and Sister Uzelac from Salt Lake.  This is their 4th mission.  They lived in Missouri and their first two missions were there working in the mission presidency and also doing an inner city mission.  Then they went to Africa and worked in the temple and now they are doing self reliance in Cebu.  They are very successful people.  They work out of Cebu but we hope to see them a lot in Bohol. They are planning a 5th mission to go to Africa and work in the temple when it opens.

Norm was so impressed with how they cut wood.  They just eyeball it and it is STRAIGHT.  They cut their own wood for the houses they are building.

These are some chocolate hills.  Really a pretty view.

Jerome Cacho - he lives in Tagbilaran and he is in charge of the 27 houses that are being built by LDS Charities.  We transport him around a lot  A very wonderful man!  He is a great missionary and so wants the church to be recognized in these building projects.  He is not being paid for this work.

Mahogany wood.  Norm was so impressed with how beautiful the wood is.  It was a huge tree and they eyeball cutting it and it is perfectly straight.  This tree is 27 years old.

Norm really isn't helping with the building as we had hoped but we are the wheels for Jerome.

This is a tree house a less active brother lives in.  He actually sleeps at the top.  Elder Schnoor is in the corner. He is from Canada.

The mission home.  We have had the privilege of staying here many times.  President and Sister Tanner are so gracious.  It is a little hard to return to our apartment.

A map of our mission.  The green is Cebu East Mission.  The skinny island on the left is Cebu - you can see Lapu-Lapu on the bottom of it and that is where Jake is.  The mission office is in Liloan.  Then you catch a ferry and cross the water for about an hour and arrive at Tubigon.   This whole island is Bohol.  We live in Calape.  We spend a lot of time in Loon with the sisters and if you travel on you come to Tagbilaran and that is where we do our shopping.  So it is about an hour drive from Calape to Tagbilaran.  

There is a McDonalds in Tubigon where the ferry comes.  Going on that direction is Inabanga where Jake served the first 5 months of his mission.  You can see Carmen in the middle of the island and that is where Jake opened an area about the time we got here.  We travel up to Talibon and Ubay - they are all part of our zone.  The other half of the island is another zone and the senior missionaries have now left there so we are basically the only senior couple on this whole island.  We put a lot of miles on the truck.  That is ok because the truck is air conditioned and it is HOT!!!