June 3, 2010
Dear Family,
Membership in the Church makes the world grow smaller every day. In our first group to tour the temple this morning, we had Filipino sisters from Salt Lake City, Arizona and California who have come back to their homeland for the temple dedication. We later met the sister from Salt Lake and found she has a sister in Natalie’s ward in Stillwater, Oklahoma! The children in that first group this morning were so sweet and impressed Larry so much that he asked if he could take their picture; they were nieces and nephews of the American Sisters.
Having the electricity go off about 10 to 10:30 every morning is an every day occurrence. BEcause the temple block has back-up generators, a few of the lights and the DVD players go back on in just a few minutes so we can continue the video presentations without too much interruption, but it is amazing how quickly the rooms become hot and humid without the air conditioner on. The air conditioners require a great amount of electricity. One of the tour guides told us that the “brown outs” are the city’s way of conserving electricity. Cebu is in the middle of a drought and hasn’t a lot of water to create the needed electricity so different areas have their electricity turned off at different time during the day! The people here seem to take it in stride; the Americans are the only ones who complain and suffer. The power is off for about 2 hours and then comes back on. Luckily, the temple generators keep the whole temple cool all the time.
Today President Mortimer asked us to come to the temple to visit with him right after the power went off, so we stayed cool in the comfort of the temple. He called us to be over the baptistry from about 2pm to closing every day. I’m sure our experience in the Provo Temple will be a real asset in helping us get things going effectively. Elder and Sister Cummings are over the morning shift and have asked us help them get started too. We will likely have the busier time. When we do not have people in the baptistry we will need to help upstairs all we can. We figure that the first few weeks, we’ll have twelve hour shifts as we train Filipino ordinance workers. WE will have a group of 30 young people here to do baptisms on the Wednesday following the dedication, and a group of 50 who will be here Thursday, Friday and Saturday to do baptisms. Both groups are from far away areas so we need to let them do baptisms several times. The baptistry is a beautiful area and we will love it .
After our temple tour shift this afternoon, the temple missionary couples decided to visit the lunch buffet at one of the very lovely hotels here, the Marco Polo. We didn’t realize that the buffet closed at 2:30 and we didn’t arrive until 2:45, but the staff very graciously opened the buffet back up for us. It was an amazing buffet with all kinds of delicacies—sushi to fancy decadent chocolate desserts to sweet and sour chicken to a salad bar with several kinds of lettuce to use for a base (that was Larry’s favorite thing since lettuce is hard to come by here). Everything was served so beautifully. After you had filled your plate, young men took the plate to your table. They were at our elbows to fill every desire; it was hardly the type of buffet we were used to. The hotel has an exterior glassed in elevator that goes to up the side of the hotel rooms to the 23rdfloor where they have a penthouse, a small, fancy restaurant and an observation deck. I felt a little queasy going up and couldn’t look down at the sights but it was worth the ride when we got to the top. What a view of the city and the surrounding mountains! The food was not cheap but the experience was a great one. It cost us about $38 for the luncheon. (WE are finding that we are spending a lot more on food here than we would at home, but a good part of the reason is that we don’t have a freezer of home grown food to select from here. WE hope all of you are enjoying that good food there.)
When we got back to our apartment, it was time to freshen up and catch another taxi to an art show that President Mortimer had suggested we all attend. One of the artists whose painting is hanging in the temple was having a show with another noted Filipino artist. Somehow I was expecting the show to be in a gallery, but we got to the place and it was in an open air area outside of a fast food place and a business and on walls of buildings! Of course, it was not air conditioned. They had a ribbon cutting ceremony with speeches and then introduced the two artists. After the formalities, a light buffet was served. (WE were all too full to eat anything more than a token taste.) Interestingly, we Americans made up the majority of the audience; perhaps they invited us thinking we would all buy their paintings. It was another unique, cultural experience. We love you! Mom and Dd, Grandma and Grandpa, Mary and Larry
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