Cute little boy on the side of the road with his mom. She collects money from drivers as they saftley navigate the hairpin turns.

A nice view as we were coming down the mountain. This is Tayabas Bay, south eastern tip of Luzon.

Another vine view easier to see.

Look how big the vines are hanging from the trees. Tarzan could do some serious traveling with these vines.

He likes it!

We saw a whole family of wild monkeys in the trees. They ran fast when they saw us. This monkey is not so wild.

We topped to take some pictures and saw this monkey in the tree. We gave him a cracker. That is what he is looking at.

We saw lots of broken trees and branches.

The coconut trees did well in the storm. It was other trees and many banana trees that did not do so well. Of course we saw downed banana trees EVERYWHERE we went. Sorry this picture is a little hard to see.

We drove through a rain forest national park today.

It was about 10 days after the typhoon.

I thought I blogged this, but I can't find it, so here it is.

Another pretty day, and a very pretty place.

This is our mga kaibigan (friends)

Fred and Lyn Lyn and their family live close to our neighborhood. They have been listening to the missionary lessons for a couple of months now. They always have lots of good questions. They come to our house for Family Home Evening on Monday nights. Their children's names are: (oldest to youngest) Grace, Gilbert, Hannah, Joshua, and Hannah Lyn. Every time we singing primary songs, Hannah
Lyn just can not stop smiling. They are very polite and cute children. We pray everyday that they will find the faith they need to change their lives for the better. We have a language barrier, but we have fun communicating. With Fred's little knowledge of English and our little knowledge of Tagalog, we manage.

In just two days this orchid in front of our house went from two to four blooms.

Another overload too show!

The poor carabao is trying to see from under the heavy load of bamboo. We saw this on the way to church this morning.

A pretty orchid growing in front of our house.

Another surprise in the morning!

When we woke up the other morning, we found this growing out of our outlet. This is where I plug in my hair dryer everyday. It was not there when we went to bed. It was about five inches long and very strange. It looked like a million eggs of something? It was very dry and it crumbled when Elder Ganir removed it. He then told me that he found a 15 inch one in his closet. He didn't fess up to that find until I found this one. He removed the closet one and thru it away without telling me. There is still a residue mark of where it was. We have know idea what it is, but, we are on the lookout now. When we came home from Manila, yesterday, we found some more starting to grow on the very rough concrete edge in our bathroom door entrance. When I say rough, I mean an edge that has all the rocks and crumbled concrete exposed. No finishing at all. Everyday is still full of surprises. It keeps us hopping and on our toes. We are very thankful for the home we live in.

Everyone loves having their picture taken.

Overload in Manila traffic. One big bump and someone will go flying.

Boy Scouts on the march! SAVE OUR COCONUT TREES!

Someone cared about how the pigs felt. They created shade with palm leaves.

No sunburn for these piggies

I just had to post this picture.

The bank hours, good for the employee, no so good for the customers. (9 to 3). The blue sign under the 'closed ' sign reads: Please deposit your firearm. I noticed that someone entering the bank must give the security guard at the door outside, her cell phone. So no cell phones (which I think is a good idea) or guns in the bank (also another good idea).

Very labor intensive.

These flags are from a beer company. They are attached to a wire and then strung across between electrical lines. Someone probably got paid 200 pesos which is about $4.50, to do this, if they were lucky.

Theses flags are generated by a spice, flavoring product

City decor for fiestas! Coke flags.

Typhoon Frank

You are all probably wondering if we were affected by the typhoon. The answer is YES we were. No, we were not in the boat that capsized. It left Manila on Friday to travel south to Cebu. We never leave on a ferry from Manila and we never go to Cebu. It was a very tragic event. We know first hand how "not so safe " these ferries are. When we leave on a ferry, we get on at the Batangas pier, which is the southern most tip of the island of Luzon. We travel most of the time to Oriental Mindoro. (look at a map) It takes us an hour and twenty minutes by the fast boat or three hours by the slow boat. We usually go by the fast boat. The storm hit Mindoro pretty hard. The mission AP's had just taken a group of missionaries to Mindoro on Thursday, late afternoon. It was transfer day and there were several transfers to Mindoro. They drove the van onto the slow ferry. They were stuck on Mindoro because of the typhoon. They were finally able to come back on late Monday. All missionaries in our mission are fine. The two other couple's apartments flooded and they spent a few days cleaning up. We were lucky that we had no damage to our house this time. This was the seventh typhoon of the season, that has just begun. It will go on until December. Not all typhoons come to our area. People are killed because, sadly, they live in make shift shanties. Some live too close to the beach. I guess that is one reason why they build onto each other, with no spaces between houses. There is safety in numbers or clusters? A lot of people got wet, and there was no electricity or water for a day or so. Most churches had no meetings. We feel really blessed to be safe. It was pretty nasty weather when we were coming home late, Saturday afternoon. We decided to just stay home and weather the storm. I used ear plugs that night and it was still loud enough to wake me up. Wilson said it sounded like a freight train to him. Heavenly Father again, has answered our prayers. We love you all and we love hearing from you. Love Elder and Sister Ganir

A look inside...

The whole family lives and works on this traveling sales carriage.

An innovative house!

I don't know how the horse can see? Notice the poop catcher! Baskets and brooms for sale, anyone! Personal items stored underneath the carriage.