The Beginning, Again

Laurie and I begin, again, to serve a full time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This time, it is in Manila, Philippines. For those of you who were not avid blog followers of my last blog, we served a full time mission in Montreal, Canada from late October 2018 until we were asked to leave Canada early (Covid-19 issues - not Randall-related adverse activities) in mid-March 2020.

I thought I would try my hand again at providing a monthly blog-style update to provide our family and friends the written word, with occasionally a few pictures of what is going on in our lives. To many, it is uninteresting, but to some, it can provide a little insight into the where, the what, and maybe even sometimes, the why.

April 2020 - March 2024 - Brief Life Explanation

When we got home from Montreal, Canada, the business needed some immediate "shoring up". Over the last four years, we were able to build it into a much better company, with the help of so many wonderful people. It took all we had to get there, and more. We have not officially retired, but we are again, hopeful that day will come some time in the future. That story is not for this blog and can be found in my "other plates".

Our family has been very helpful these past few years. Our son Matt, decided to come help me in the business back in September 2021 and has been instrumental in growing the business. In some overall living arrangements, Jenny and her family made it possible for us to have no long-term housing commitments. They let us stay in their Big Studio Apartment (we called it the BSA) over their outbuilding next to their home in Ridgefield, WA. Our family means so much to us. They are one of the main reasons we continue to desire to serve our Heavenly Father.  Here is a picture of all of us taken in August 2023 at our family reunion. No one looks better in shorts than me 😉.

How our decision to serve another mission, came to pass - Short Version

As we were discussing the plan for our small business in later 2022, we knew that in order for our business to grow, I would have to split myself into two people, of which neither could be me. This would help me get to a point of being able to have other people come in and grow our sales. The Lord blessed us with the growth we needed to be able to do this. Within the next year (plus) we forged ahead. Planning for another mission was a strong impetus for keeping this plan alive.

Things were lining up for us to prepare for another mission and Laurie and I were "discussing" when we should go. In the October 2023 General Conference of our Church, an Apostle of the Lord, Elder Ronald A. Rasband, spoke on the importance of Senior Couple Missionaries and how much the Lord need us now, as circumstances permitted. Well, that sped up the momentum of our decision to go out again to serve a mission.

The Call To Serve

We took care of all of our dental work (not an inexpensive venture for my mouth - Laurie's didn't need any work done except a cleaning...). We also took care of getting our physical exams, which we were both happy to see that not much new health-related information came to light, (again, except for some additional eye issues that for Bruce. Do you see a theme here?)

December 17th, we met with our Church Leader and he submitted our paperwork to the Church. There are some options for senior missionaries to suggest the type of mission they would like to serve, how long they want to serve, and where they would like to serve. Young full time teaching missionaries do not get that luxury. Also, senior missionaries can make suggestions, but the Lord ends up deciding where He wants you to serve.  We chose, like last time, that if the Lord wanted us to serve out of the US, we would go. We also chose to serve an 18 month mission.

On January 9th (22 days) we received a text and email from the Church to log into our missionary portal and that we had received our mission call. We gathered the family on Zoom that night and found that we were being assigned to serve an 18-month full time mission in the Manila Philippines Temple. We were to report directly to the Manila Temple on March 22.

The concept of a temple mission had not really been on our radar. The Philippines also had not been on our radar. We were thrilled to be called there. Our son Jason had served a mission in the farthest north part of the Philippines, in the Laoag mission for 24 months from, 2005-2007. He was also very excited for us. We knew that heat and humidity were pretty different from the good old Pacific Northwest, so there was that. We did have a good laugh that we would not be able to leverage any of the mission clothing we utilized from our mission to the "a bit colder climate" in Montreal, Canada.

The Beginning - Manila Philippines Temple

I will only briefly focus on what happened in March and keep April's experiences for the next monthly blog effort. This includes a little prep and the first week in Manila. That is quite enough....

Our Preparation - The final few months of work was like putting water through a constantly decreasing circumference pipe. The pressure just kept building the closer we got to March 22. I was continuing a little work in the airport, and once I got there, to wrap up some of the important springboard events for growth. Now, for the most part, I am quite limited in the business and I am quite happy about that so I can focus on our mission. I have a lot of faith, hope, and trust in those left there to help with our retirement.

Laurie really wanted to go to the beach at Lincoln City, OR prior to leaving. Since it was her birthday on February, 23, we took a couple of nights and did that. It was fantastic. Here are a couple of pictures that helped us prepare :).

Yachina Head Lighthouse in Newport, OR

 

Rare Clear Evening from Hotel Balcony - Lincoln City, OR

Beautiful Morning, still clear enough to see the Moon

Tillamook Cheese Factory - A Randall Staple

No decent trip to Lincoln City doesn't end up without going to one of our favorite places on the Oregon Coast, the Tillamook Cheese Factory. As you can see, Laurie is in her element: First and foremost - French Fries, second only to her diet Coke. The Tillamook Cheese toasted sandwich should be the main event, but I truly believe it comes in third behind Laurie's two favorites. The tomato soup is a bonus! And yes, we did get some Tillamook ice cream to finalize the total experience. Don't worry about me, I eat my share of food also. I just don't often take too many pictures of me doing it :). Don't worry, I have two more pictures just a little farther down the page that include more Tillamook wonders.

The Sunday before we left (March 17), we spoke in our Church services - called Sacrament meeting. As older people, with a bit of privacy still in tact, we didn't make any announcement that we would be doing so, but we had some friends of ours that asked when we would be speaking and they were kind enough to show up and listen to us speak about our love for Jesus Christ. We were so happy to see them there.

Much of our family was able to make it also. We sure appreciate and love them. After Church, we had our family meet at our daughter Jenny's house for lunch. Again, Jenny and her family have been so good to us. Four of our five children and their families were able to be there, along with some extended family. Alan Aldous, our brother-in-law took the picture.

Randall Family March 17, 2024 - Sunday prior to leaving for Manila

Laurie and I flew from the PDX - Portland, OR airport at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday night. We went from Portland to San Francisco, California. We left from there on a 15-plus hour flight directly to Manila, Philippines and arrived at 6:00 a.m. on Friday morning.

We were able to get a bite at PDX after we made it through security. Guess which restaurant Laurie wanted to eat at:

Tillamook Cheese Factory restaurant at PDX

Our First Week In Manila - March 22-March 31

There was a little mix-up with our ride to the Temple when we arrived. We waited out in the pickup waiting area for an hour before they found us. Here we are at the Manila Metro airport pick up area. We don't look too much worse for wear after our long flight.

Manila, Philippines Airport passenger arrival pickup waiting area.

We arrived at the temple and they have temple housing apartment for those serving full time missions there. The apartments also house a few others like two couples of the Temple Presidency and a few of the full time missionaries that work across the street at the Philippines MTC, or the Church's Southeast Asia Area Office.

The apartment is a "cozy" one bedroom apartment. We feel very privileged to live in such a nice place here in the Philippines. I have only taken a couple of pictures dealing with the apartment. One picture is taken from our balcony and looking at the apartment complex from the temple parking area. I could never see that apartments from google because the apartments are terraced down the hill a little from temple parking lot. Generally, the temple itself is on a hill as you will be able to see from the balcony picture. As you can see from the pictures, we live in a "tropical" setting and it is a far cry from our normal Pacific Northwest climate. (There are some banana trees out the front door of our apartment.) By the way, the average temperature this time of year is supposed to be around 90 degrees Fahrenheit but the normal temperatures have been between 6-10 degrees higher week over week, so the average temperature runs around 96-97. The average low at night is around 77 degrees. As many of you know, it is the high amount of humidity that adds "spice" to this weather. We will see what happens as time goes on. We are coming into the "hotter" season towards the end of April through June. 

A view of our temple apartments from the parking lot.

From our balcony looking East-Southeast

We feel very safe and secure here in our new apartment. The Manila Temple is located in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Manila. They also have 24 hour armed security here.

I also decided to take a picture of the temple with one of the security personnel (Ruben) there walking by while I was taking the shot. He was super excited in this picture(hmmm, maybe not), but we became friends after this shot.

Bruce and Ruben (Security) at the Manila Temple, Sunday, March 27, 2024

On Monday, March 28th, we drove up in a van with a people in from the temple to the Urdaneta temple "Open House", which is a 3 hour drive north. It just so happened that we arrived just at the right time to participate in the third temple in the Philippines getting ready to open. There are a total of 13 temples announced in the Philippines at this point. The fourth one, Alabang, is finishing up construction and should be dedicated in late 2024/early 2025.

Here are Laurie and I at the Urdaneta Temple Open House. This is now our fourth day in the Philippines. We were not very alert on the drive home....

Urdaneta Temple Open House, Bruce and Laurie 3-28-2024

Urdaneta Temple, 3-28-2024

We cannot express enough the appreciation we have for our fellow full time temple missionary couples, most especially Elder and Sister Ames, for taking us around to various locations to help us get food (mostly) and to get settled in. Invaluable help in getting settled in as fast as we could.

Here is the one picture I took while we were shopping in a "Costco-like" store called S&R. They even have some Kirkland brand items. Take a real close look in this ice cream cooler and see what totally surprised us.

Tillamook Ice Cream - Even "Mudslide" welcomed us to Manila.

Currently, we are assigned to serve in the temple from 1:00 to 9:00 Tuesday through Friday, and from 12:00 TO 7:00 on Saturday. It can make for a long day, especially the first week as you try to get over your jet lag and time zone difference. By the way, it is a 15 hour ahead difference from the Pacific Time Zone in the US.  If it is 8:00 a.m. in the morning in Ridgefield, WA, then it is 11:00 p.m. in the evening in Manila.

Here is a picture of our first day on our way to entering the temple. I stopped taking my phone to the temple after this first day....

Randall's first day serving in Manila Temple, March 29, 2024

We still didn't have our missionary badges yet...

The first week serving in the temple was just wonderful. The rest of the temple ordinance workers there are so loving and kind. The Temple Presidency and Temple Recorder's have been so great to work with. 

The first full week was very eye-opening as we learn a new culture, figure out a new lifestyle and eating habits.  Even though this temple has their ordinances performed in English, (which I didn't know that was the case until we received our mission call,) much of the rest of the conversation in the temple is done in Tagalog. "Most" of the workers and the patrons know English, to some extent, but Laurie and I have felt the need to pick up the pace in our lives and learn some Tagalog. In many ways, this mission is a lot like our Montreal, CA mission. We needed to learn some French in order to better understand the people there, and the same is coming true for this mission in the Manila Philippines Temple.

We are in the right place at the right time. Laurie and I both feel strongly of the covenants we have made with God, so many years ago, and being here on this mission now is part of keeping our eternal covenants.

I will leave you with a quote from our current President/Prophet of the Church, Russell M. Nelson that he shared in the Church's April 2019 General Conference talk that seems applicable to this first entry for our Manila Philippines Temple mission.

"Salvation is an individual matter, but exaltation is a family matter." 

He goes on to say 

"So, what is required for a family to be exalted forever? We qualify for that privilege by making covenants with God, keeping those covenants, and receiving essential ordinances."

Laurie and I are so happy to be directly involved in helping both living and ancestorial families be together forever here in the Manila Philippines Temple. We believer our service here will bless our own family by being together forever through this service to God. It is worth any sacrifice we are making.

Love to you all,

Bruce

P.S. My plan is to post monthly around the first of each month like our last mission. Also, Google is planning on moving this blog at some point. Hopefully it won't cause too much disruption.