Welcome to Cebu!

We made it to Cebu! It's been a busy ten days since we arrived, but I'll try to recap what's happened.

First of all, we were picked up at the airport by the Eppersons, the senior couple in our mission who coordinate housing. They arranged a temporary apartment in the Prestigio, a lovely three-floor hotel/apartment that is home to five or six senior missionary couples. We're on the same floor as most of them, so it's a little "missionary zone" in the middle of the big city. I say temporary because we won't be staying in Cebu long, but more on that later.

The Prestigio is a couple of blocks from the Cebu LDS Temple complex, which includes the temple, two chapels for Sunday worship services, a distribution center for temple clothing and supplies, patron housing for members coming to the Cebu temple from far away islands, the temple president's home, our mission president's home, and our mission office. See additional pictures at the bottom of this post.

We met our mission leaders, President and Sister Fernandez, and a few of the missionaries in the area. The day after we arrived, we attended a missionary zone conference for two of the zones within Cebu City, where we met dozens of junior missionaries, both young men (elders) and young women (sisters). They range in age from 18 to 26. The zone conference included a vaccination clinic, so after lunch Sister Cutler and I helped the mission doctor and his wife, Elder and Sister Heath, organize and run the clinic. Elder Heath isn't allowed to practice as a doctor in the Philippines, so a local nurse performed the vaccinations, but the Heaths manage all the records, provide all the supplies, and do everything necessary to make the clinic happen. Sister Cutler helped the nurse by prepping supplies and supporting the missionaries, some of whom were a little afraid of getting a shot, while I helped the missionaries record their vaccinations in the missionary portal. I also kept track of the completed paperwork. We vaccinated almost fifty missionaries, most receiving two shots, as all of them need to stay current on their Influenza, Hepatitis, Tetanus, and Typhoid vaccinations.

Saturday is our day off, or preparation day as it's called in the mission, and we went to the Ayala Center, one of the big malls in Cebu (malls are doing very well here, unlike in the United States) and bought a few things we needed. The mall was larger than anything I've ever seen, and it isn't even the largest in Cebu, as there are two others that are even bigger. There were dozens and dozens of restaurants, electronics stores, home furniture and appliance stores, department stores, toy stores, hardware stores, and so forth. I think you can buy anything in Cebu that you want or need, with most international companies well represented.

On Sunday we went with the other office missionaries to Argao ("our gow"), a small town about two hours south of Cebu, to attend a district conference, during which the existing Talisay Stake ("ta lee sigh") was divided to create the new Argao District. The division was necessary because the Talisay Stake  had grown too large, so a small district was split off and will report directly to the mission until such time that it grows large enough to become an independent stake of the church. After the conference, we again helped the Heaths with a small vaccination clinic for the missionaries from the Argao area.

Sunday afternoon we traveled with the Eppersons to the southern tip of Cebu Island and caught a ferry to Dumaguete ("duma getty" or "doomageddon" as our Kelly grandchildren called it, making a playful twist on Armageddon), a beautiful city on the southern tip of Negros Island ("nay gross"). The purpose of our visit was to sign a rental contract on our apartment in Dumaguete. Why Dumaguete? Because the mission, just like the Talisay Stake, is growing and needs to be divided. In fact, church missions all over the world are growing, and thirty-six new missions are being created on July 1. One of those new missions is the Philippines Dumaguete Mission, where we've been reassigned.

Our apartment in Dumaguete is lovely and it's only 80 yards from the mission office. The mission office itself is brand new (actually, not quite completed) and is adjacent to the Dumaguete Stake Center. Our new mission will comprise the eastern half of Negros Island, so the area is quite large and spread out. We'll eventually have around 175 missionaries but will start smaller than that on July 1. Our mission leaders are President and Sister Reyes from Manila, who will arrive on June 29. We can't wait to meet them!

We returned from Dumaguete on Monday evening and joined the Heaths for a trip to San Carlos on Tuesday afternoon. San Carlos is also on Negros Island, only it's in the northern part, so we took a ferry from Toledo (on Cebu Island) to San Carlos. That ferry ride is longer than the one to Dumaguete, so the ferry has beds for every passenger. Economy class has no air conditioning, while first class does. San Carlos is a smaller town and we enjoyed meeting the missionaries during the zone conference and vaccination clinic, with about twenty missionaries being vaccinated. We stayed overnight in San Carlos and returned to Cebu on Thursday. Because we left San Carlos on Thursday morning, we had time to take a different route from Toledo to Cebu, over the mountains to a resort called Lakeview Le Jardin, which is like a smaller Butchart Gardens. It was lovely but the gardens had suffered quite a bit from the recent drought and high heat affecting the Philippines (and much of southeast Asia).

Today (Sunday) we attended church in one of the chapels at the temple complex (people call it the templex) and we ran into Vickie's grand-nephew, Owen Miller! He and fifteen other high school students are here for several weeks building a nutrition center funded by Humanitarian Experience (HXP), an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The students pay their own way and work hard to make a difference in underprivileged areas. Owen's group will be laying brick walls since the building's foundation is already in place.

Tonight, we had a group dinner with the other senior missionaries in honor of Father’s Day. We enjoyed baked potatoes, chili, salad, root beer floats, and ice cream sundaes. We said goodbye to the Taylors, who are completing their temple mission this week and returning home. This is their second senior mission, having served their first in Cambodia. Like me, Elder Taylor served in the Philippines as a young missionary and was here around the same time, but he served up north in the Manila area, so we didn't cross paths.

That's a lot to catch up on and I didn't say anything about how happy we are to be here. We love the Lord and are so blessed to be able to serve the wonderful people of the Philippines. Everyone has been so nice and kind and open and welcoming. The gospel of Jesus Christ provides answers to all of life's questions. God is truly a god of miracles. Thank you all for your support and may the Lord's blessings be with each of you.

Extra pictures:

Two chapels at templex

Patron housing and mission office

Temple president and mission president housing