Hello dear family and friends,
As most of you are gracefully suffering through a long, cold winter, we continue to operate the air conditioner, keep the windows open, and wake up to pleasant tropical sights, including banana trees, coconut palm fronds, and a plethora of flowers in our garden. Enough of teasing...
Our mission activities are shifting...less focus on contacting individual participants who are struggling, and more on training specialists or local service missionaries who will carry on in our absence. So, here is the pictorial:
Below: The San Pablo M specialist training, attended by our director, Franco, his assistant manager, Jib, and the new loan processing couple, Elder and Sister T. (Note the beautiful chair and table set-up, provided by our lunch caterer. All for about $4 per person, or 175 pesos.)
Post-seminar dessert at our home. We ate Carolyn's now-famous Creamy Cherry and Blueberry Cheese-cake. Delishhhhhh!
The same seminar, held in Naga M, Legazpi City. This is one of the new missions just announced. Legaspi M will be a split-off of Naga M.
Here we go again. Same seminar, held in Angeles M. But this is in the city of Tarlac, new headquarters city for the mission.
And finally, a smaller group in the Olongapo M. Olongapo City, adjacent to the former US Subic Naval Base.
Yes, we travel a lot, and periodically run into an entrepreneur with his entire store in portable mode. This is akin to an Internet shopping experience. You can find it anywhere!!
However, there is strong competition plying the highways and byways of the Philippines. What is one difference between these 'peddlers'? This one is powered by a peda-cycle. Somewhat like a slow Internet connection. You can get there. It just takes a long time. 
More competition, and a broader product line... <:- br="">
Or, you can have a more compact line of goods, with an assistant manager to run the store!
For a really low-budget operation, try this approach. No vehicle required. You just stand on the expressway, where traffic always backs up, and let the shoppers come to you!
Each vendor has his own specialized product line, or color variations. Note the marketing gimmick--a funny face with blow-out party whistlers. Or whiskers? Some of the things you can buy include umbrellas, fishing poles, dusters, cleaning rags, bicycle tubes, toys and more toys, musical instruments, roasted peanuts, pork-belly crisps, bottled water, or a variety of soda. No need to pull off the express-way to shop!!
On a p-day in Angeles Mission, we joined with the Mission office couple, Elder & Sister T, for a trek up Mount Pinatubo (site of a previously pictured, world-class 1991 volcanic eruption.) The journey begins with a rocking jeep ride up the river valley. The hills you see are all volcanic ash from the one eruption.
The T's had visitors - their daughter's family from Provo. The two young girls were energetic, gazelle-like hikers that covered twice the distance of the rest of the group as they bounded back and forth across the trail to explore every side crevasse.
More erosion of volcanic dust.
Other-worldly. The material is mostly hardened, and fairly easy to walk on. But occasionally the material is just soft, sandy grit.
Higher up the mountain the hills are covered with the tropical growth.
After the jeep ride, it was a 4 1/2 mile hike to the summit and "Crater Lake". Not a really strenuous hike, but we were huffing and puffing.
The reward -- spectacular beauty. Look across the lake and you see evidence of continuing sloughing of the side-walls into the lake. This volcano is so young, geologically, that it changes rapidly, even week to week.
So, there you have it. More life and times of senior couple missionaries. There is a lot of work to do, but interspersed is the occasional laugh, novelty, tears, and wonderment of a different part of the world. As much as we look forward to coming home, we will be sad to leave these beautiful, gentle people, and their tropical paradise.
We are thankful for this experience. It is rare. We know that. Our Book of Mormon reading reminds us of the incredible parental advice given by Alma. We 'liken it' unto our kids…
"Give ear to our words…inasmuch as ye shall keep the commandments ye shall prosper in the land; and inasmuch as ye will not keep the commandments of God ye shall be cut off from his presence…And now our sons and daughters, we trust that we shall have great joy in you, because of your steadiness and your faithfulness unto God..; for blessed is he that endureth to the end…ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day."
Who doesn't love being delivered out of trouble and affliction? God is mindful of us. We are happiest in his service.
Love,
Elder and Sister Howell
Momma Carolyn and Dad Lane
G'ma and G'pa
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