Russell and Eileen's Church Missions: TWO PERSPECTIVES

Due to a miscommunication between the two of us, we both sat down on different computers and simultaneously wrote the blog for this week. After reading both accounts, I (Russell) thought it would be interesting to include both as it shows our different perspectives on the same events.

Eileen’s version.

As I have been thinking about the past week, I (Eileen) wonder if our life sounds the same from week to week. Perhaps much of it is, as we are so focused on helping the missionaries with their medical issues and trying to find suitable housing for the missionaries. We have 16 new missionaries coming into our mission in 3&1/2 weeks. Russell has put a lot of pressure on himself to find enough housing for all of them. We have specific parameters for housing, such as it has to have public transportation nearby, be secure, have relatively easy access for delivering items for the apartment, plumbing that works, enough electrical plugs to operate appliances, and we also need to have missionaries within their ward boundaries, but if they are of the opposite sex they cannot be so close that they can visit each other. It is very difficult to find apartments with these qualifications. Both Russell and I scour the internet almost daily looking for ads. The only missionary housing we have found on the internet so far, is our own personal housing. It just doesn’t seem to be the way to find apartments here. In the past week we have closed on one apartment, put money down on another apartment and will close on another one tomorrow. The first apartment we found was by cold calling a broker after seeing a for sale sign and negotiating the unit as a rental instead of as a sale. The one we looked at on Friday was found by sister missionaries going from high rise to high rise, asking if there were any rentals. They finally found an owner who said he had one unit he would rent. Another apartment we are closing on tomorrow the sisters found through members. The owner lives in China and Russell has been communicating with her through email. Needless to say, it has been a daunting task. The pressure is on to find several more. Over the weekend Russell has been talking to some Elders who have been searching for housing in their area. They have found two possibilities. One apartment only has one plug in the whole apartment and that is in the kitchen. We are trying to figure that one out. It is not like you can unplug the fridge to charge your phone or run your electric stovetop. Forget drying your hair with a blow-dryer or an electric alarm clock. The other apartment they found is located down a dirt road with nowhere to park and no way to turn around if you did actually take a vehicle on the dirt road. We will know we are really desperate if we rent that one. Our senior missionaries have all been praying that we will find housing in the next few weeks before the new missionaries come.

Normally at night I turn off my phone so that I am not awakened by the many emails or messages that come from the states during the night. This past week we were awakened as Russell’s phone rang at 2:30 a.m. It was Sister Alder saying that we had a sick missionary who couldn’t get through to me and called her. I called the missionary and determined that he was sick enough I wanted to get him to a hospital. He had been throwing up and had diarrhea for several hours and was really weak. He received a blessing and we headed out to pick him up. To say that it is dark at night in our area of the Philippines is an understatement. It is pitch black and many trikes and jeepneys drive without their lights on. It was a rather harrowing 2-hour drive on windy mountainous roads to go pick him up. We picked up this Elder and his companion and brought them back to the hospital where we have had our other missionaries admitted. I had given him some prescription drugs from my own personal stash to help him make the trip. I don’t normally do that but figured under the circumstances it was needful. The elder was kept in the ER for several hours and then discharged with several prescriptions. We were supposed to have been speaking at a zone conference that day. Russell picked us up and took me and the two elders to zone conference. Overall, he made 3 trips to this location during the day - approximately 6 hours of driving. When I spoke, I introduced the new missionary medical books that I had created. It would give tips on how to treat medical illnesses and when to call the mission nurse. I also talked with the missionaries about avoiding Dengue. I was pretty annoyed when I asked how many missionaries were using their bug lotion and only about 20% raised their hands. Each missionary is given both Off bug lotion and Permethrin to utilize. Apparently, they don’t take it very seriously. I told them if they didn’t care about their own health, think about the time and effort it takes Russell and I to evacuate them, their companion who has to stay in the hospital with them, and their poor parents who are worried about them. I wonder sometimes if missionaries think it is a sign of manhood to have a good war story about their mission.

Russell talked about the new directions regarding missionary apartments from the missionary department in SLC. All missionaries in our mission will now be using electric hotplates vs the gas hotplates they have used in the past. The gas poses too much of a risk. Every apartment is supposed to have access to hot water. We have been supplying each apartment with a hot water kettle that they can heat water and use for dishes or cleaning. Also, we have told the missionaries we will be inspecting the apartments every 2 months. Some of the apartments have been downright disgusting when we enter them. Our desire is that as they have better, cleaner living conditions that their apartments will be a place where the spirit can dwell.

Saturday, we had our first real p-day in over a month. Usually p-day is spent preparing for the upcoming week. For seniors they often like to do something that they wouldn’t be able to do during the week. We went with President and Sister Alder and Sister Gibson to Danarak and Batlag Falls in Tanay. Afterwards we visited Elder and Sister Gordon who live out that way. They are serving as an MLS couple in Sampaloc and are pretty isolated. We then went out to eat for lunch. It was a much-needed break for all of us.

Russell’s version.

This week we got the opportunity to do something new, not something I (Russell) enjoyed doing but an expansion of my resume as a driver. Sometime after 2:00 AM on Thursday morning, I heard my phone ringing only to find that Sister Alder was calling me. Actually, not me but Eileen. We had not heard Eileen’s phone ring earlier. It turned out that we had a sick elder in Malaya, who for the last few hours had been throwing up and blowing out (my term - not the correct medical term). After discussing the situation, we left to pick him up around 3:00 AM. At night here it is really dark. The street lights are dim and once you leave the major cities there are very few of them. The roads have a lot of curves and few straightaways. Oh, and many of the motorcycles, trikes and jeepnies have a habit of driving at night without their lights on. The journey actually went without any major excitement and I dropped Eileen and the two elders off at the hospital emergency room near our home around 6:00 AM.

We had been scheduled to be the first two speakers at a zone conference held in Morong (same direction as Malaya but not as far) that morning. We didn’t make our previously scheduled speaking time but I did make it there by noon to deliver new induction stove top cookers (and new pots and pans) for each of the apartments in the eastern third of the mission; we are moving away from gas cooking appliances for safety reason, something I have wanted to do since we arrived. And then driving back to Morong for a third time that day at 2:00 PM with Eileen and the two elders from the hospital (food poisoning - not dengue fever). We then gave our presentations and returned home and went to bed early.

At church today we met a new Philippine couple who had just moved back from San Diego, California so they could work in the temple here. The brother was surprised that I was driving. He said he couldn’t drive here in the congested city traffic. I guess that is what happens when you have a choice of whether to drive or not. On Wednesday we get our local drivers licenses. Between my experiences last Thursday, my close encounters with a motorcycle on Wednesday night and a parking garage post on Friday, I’m not sure if my license will be something earned through hard experience or unwarranted.

On Saturday, our preparation day (day-off), we went to a couple waterfalls about an hour east of Antipolo. We invited the other senior missionaries to go with us. President and Sister Alder, and Sister Gibson went with us. It was a much needed break.

I was surprised at how differently Eileen and I remembered the past week. After having written most of this week's blog entry, we had the sister missionaries over to our home to teach a couple a second lesson. This was the same couple that we mentioned last week. I was amazed when the couple started talking about what they had read in the Book of Mormon. It was very evident that they had made a serious effort to read and understand what they were reading. We will be meeting with them again next week and also taking them to church on Sunday. For me the experience was both humbling and a gentle reminder of what is the most important part of our work here.