Exhausted in August

 Well, I have to say that we went from one end of the spectrum in our temple service to the other in August.  For the first part of the month of August, the temple was still closed so we spent some time on exploring, (Bruce working), cleaning, etc. That actually took a lot of time and effort.

The second half of August, we worked our fanny's off serving in the temple. The Temple Presidency asked us to help out a bit more with some changes being made so instead of our normal 35 hours or so, we upped it to 50-60 hours the last two weeks. We got home last night (August 31) and went to bed early. I felt like I was back in Japan when I was serving as a young man in the Fukuoka Mission, going all day and then into the evening.

Enough whining, let me share with you some of the highlights of this wonderfully exhausting month.  I hope I can convey the love we have felt, and the love we do feel being on our mission. We just love being here in Manila and have felt it a blessing in our lives.

Manila American Cemetery

We visited the Manila American Cemetery one morning with Elder and Sister Olpin. We wanted to take a guided tour and get the most out of the visit. We only live about 30 minutes from it (on a good day of travel) and we just had not made it there yet.

It is an amazing place. I am going to put in a link here just in case you want to study it out a little more. https://www.abmc.gov/Manila (you may have to copy and paste this link. I will find out once I publish it )

Our tour guide, LJ, was a sharp young man who was quite dedicated to his job. The Manila American Cemetery is the largest burial ground of US soldiers outside of the US. Yes, that may be hard for many of you to believe. Here is a quote from the website "It contains the largest number of graves of our military dead of World War II, a total of 16,859, most of whom lost their lives in operations in New Guinea and the Philippines." One more quote: "On rectangular Trani limestone piers within the hemicycles, are inscribed the Tablets of the Missing containing 36,286 names." This includes many names who were lost at sea. It was really an incredible visit.

Elder and Sister Lloyd and Chazel Olpin, along with Laurie and I

Cemetery Section

I asked Laurie to take the following picture with me in front of one of the many mosaics made representing the major battles of the Pacific. This represented the Okinawa Battle. For those of you who don't know me, I spent 7 months of my mission serving on the island of Okinawa back in 1978. I remember walking the dirt roads in the backwoods of Okinawa and thinking about the war and how terrible it must have been on either side. The landscape was very beautiful, but as dense as can be. Okinawa played an important pivotal change in my life and I just wanted to acknowledge it.

Corregidor

In keeping the World War II historical visits all together, we visited Corregidor with Elder and Sister Robert and Jeanice Ames, and with the visiting Ken and Jody Ames couple. Prior to Covid, there was a ferry that went from Manila over to Corregidor island. Covid ended up closing the touring company down, which closed down the ferry and the on-island hotel, so I am guessing that for a couple of years there were no authorized tour groups going to the island.

Recently a new, very small, tour outfit out of Mariveles, Philippines is authorized to have tours on the island. It is a much different situation than before. You have to drive to Mariveles to meet up with the tour company. Our van left our parking lot at 4:00 a.m. and we drove 3 (plus) hours to a "very small" dock next to Mariveles. You get on a small outrigger boat and take a 20-30 minute ride over to the island. You get on a very old open-style bus and take a guided tour around the island. The guide was the same guide Elder and Sister Ames used last year when it opened back up. They really liked him and asked for him again. We liked him also.

Corregidor was the US' last stand for the Americans and the Philippines before the US and Philippine troops surrendered. It was from the city of Mariveles that the Bataan Death March started. There is a lot of history on Corregidor. We thoroughly enjoyed learning so much about people who gave so much and felt honored to be able to get a better education about this part of our US history and how it relates to the Filipinos and their country.

Here are a few pictures of that trip also.

Randall's, Missionary Ames, Visiting Ames - on small outrigger boat

Sister Randall deciding if she is getting on the old tour bus or not.

Statute of an American and Philippine wounded soldier helping each other.

Realistically, not a lot of recent budget allocation has gone into Corregidor. Laurie and I bought a t-shirt in the gift shop because it looked like they were struggling. The 6 of us were the only ones touring Corregidor that day.

On the way back home, we drove the road of the Bataan Death March. There were two routes from Mariveles to where the Japanese loaded 10's of thousands of US and Philippine soldiers into box cars. Every kilometer they have a marker to commemorate those who died on the march. There were thousands who died on this march. Here is a picture of one of the markers we saw by the side of the road.

We also drove up to Mt. Samat National Shrine. It commemorates the major surrender of US and Philippine forces. Mt. Samat was the last major line of defense. The surrender of US troops here is the largest number of US troops to surrender in America's history.

That is a 312 foot cross behind Laurie and I on Mount Samat.

Entrepreneur

I have to show you how resourceful these entrepreneurs are. I took this picture of one entrepreneur who has a rather large number of products for sale that he drives around on his motorcycle. Take a good look at how he uses up so much space! Amazing! I am pretty sure there are two clothes racks on the front of that contraption. 

Amazing Entrepreneur on motorcycle

Ministering and the Temple

We had a wonderful time being taken around by the Kapitolyo Ward members to help  invite people to come to Church a couple of weeks ago. The picture below shows Danrie Miranda (green t-shirt) who is 13( or maybe 15?). He is the only member of the Church in his family and he seems to be such a nice young man. We have been keeping touch with him since we met. We saw Danrie at Church the following Sunday and shared our contact information with each other.

LtoR: Bruce, Laurie, John Gonzalez, Lordon Dagami, Danrie Miranda, Ivan Panganiban

I have not said much about the temple because just over half the month it was closed. As previously stated, the last two weeks of the month was super-busy. August was a busy learning month. My brain is so full of new information I had not considered or understood before. I appreciate that we can still learn so much, even at this age :).

I will leave you with one scripture I have been contemplating how and when to answer myself. It comes from Jesus Christ's visit to the America's. Here is the question he asks his disciples. (Hopefully, we are all his disciples.)

"What will ye that I shall give unto you? 3 Nephi 27:2  

Don't answer this too fast. I would recommend you stop and "Think Celestial".  You might try answering it one time, and then see if you can improve on your answer. Remember, the Savior is asking you this directly, just you. You might just surprise yourself with your answer. By the way, the Savior doesn't just ask us this one time. He asks this question continually. It is our current standing with Him that guides us to our best answer to the oft-asked question.