Epistle #17 of 20

Hello dear friends and wonderful family members,

 As Carolyn and I near the end of our mission, I feel compelled to share with you some insights into the amazing companion I have – not only here in the Philippines, but for all eternity.  You have not had the privilege to see her in action here, and she won’t tell you these things herself, so, I will do so.  I hope this gives you some new perspective on your friend, mother, sister, daughter, or grandmother. 

Oh that every missionary were so fortunate as to have a companion like

CAROLYN CREEK HOWELL

TOP 10 REASONS SISTER CAROLYN HOWELL IS SUCH A POWERFUL MISSIONARY:

10.  She works TIRELESSLY.  Day after day.  Night after night.  When she has a project to do, the clock stops.  I often open soggy eyes to see her still working until 1, 2 or 3am!

 9.  We travel a lot on Sundays.  To minimize the times we have to stop and purchase a meal on the sabbath, she will pack peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, fruit and a treat to help us survive until we get back home. 

 

8.  Her prayers are thoughtful, heartfelt and extend outward to so many.  One night, after a very long prayer, I had to remind her that she forgot to bless the lost 10 tribes that they will return safely!

 

7.  Within a day or two of arriving in our new home in San Pablo, while we were still patching, painting and repairing, Carolyn prepared a homemade treat to take to our new neighbors.  She told them unabashedly that we wanted to become the best neighbors they had ever had.  Ever since, Carolyn’s caring, sharing, and constant kindnesses have continued unabated.  Our dear Filipino friends are already tearing and fearing for the day of our departure. 

6.  With the help of the Spirit, Carolyn perceives what needs to be done and who needs to be helped to effectively carry out our work.  She knows every Stake and District President (42 units), every Specialist, every Stake Missionary and the majority of over 500 participants in our 4 Missions.  She has a large number of their pictures in her phone, and can remember a surprising number of them by name. 

5.  In between work hours, she delights in cooking for us.  It is uncanny how she can prepare culinary treasures from the odds and ends in our cupboards and fridge.  At least weekly she comes up with a never-before-tried recipe.  Most could compete with the finest dishes in New York City!

4.  She is an electronic NERD.  With little outside help she has learned and even mastered parts of Word, Excel, Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Facebook, Texting, Emailing, The World-Wide-Web, I-Photo, I-Tunes, Sony Projection, PowerPoint and MORE!  Somehow, she always finds a way to incorporate her expanding talents into her missionary work. For example, she has faithfully put out the country-wide Philippines Newsletter with such creativity and panache that SLC HQ shared what she has done with their offices world-wide.  And when we have a presentation to 14 or as many as 400 youth or priesthood leaders, she is feverishly modifying our PowerPoint slideshow with pictures, graphs, quotations, and cartoons to exactly fit the occasion, even well past the opening prayer!  And she pulls it off, time after time!

3.  As most of you already know, Carolyn never forgets to send every family member a special birthday greeting – from home or abroad.  Distance doesn’t stop her.  But truthfully, she has come to appreciate that when the day is over in the Philippines and she has been too busy to send birthday wishes, SHE STILL HAS 14-16 HOURS UNTIL THE DATE HAS EXPIRED IN THE USA!!  I’ve never seen anything like it!

2.  Carolyn strengthens me.  She is fun-spirited and willing to take on most any challenge.  Whether we have difficult news from home, or “mountains to climb” here in the Philippines, there is nearly always a cheerful smile, a laugh, or a gritty determination to keep going.   We could not keep going without her faith, hope and especially her charity.  If she were a Catholic I would nominate her for sainthood.

1.  Carolyn loves her Father in Heaven, His Church and the Philippine people.  When we first arrived, she would panic at the prospect of presentations to priesthood leaders or youth conferences.  Now she responds, often without prior notice, bearing a fervent testimony and talking for 5 minutes or an hour, without batting an eye.  She speaks a bit of Tagalog (enough to endear her to her audience), tells fun and interesting stories and quotes from the scriptures and GC talks.  The people here, young and old, love her, as do I.

Dad, Lane, Elder Howell

Epistle #16 of 20

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

Epistle #15 of 20

Dear Family and Friends,

We celebrate Christ's birth with all of you...and with all of our friends here in the Philippines.  This is a Christian nation.  They unabashedly trumpet their christianity.  Beginning in September (they say, "we celebrate Christmas in all the ..ber.. months"), the stores are decorated and broadcast Christmas songs, lights go up on houses, and town halls  (banks, gas stations, etc) have manger scenes--big, BIG ones, and NO ONE even whispers that there should be a separation of church and state.  Although there are many muslims, especially in the southern provinces, EVERYONE sings the familiar carols and frequently texts "Advance Merry Christmas".  

So, in this letter to you all, we share what we have joyously experienced twice, now...the beauty of Christmas with palm trees, warm rains, and happy people.

Here comes a barrage of photos, as proof...

Our Mission Team at the Manila Temple.  Flanked by Franco, our director, and Jib, service center supervisor, are the 4 senior couples serving in the Philippine Area.

This is a GAS STATION's diorama.  When you are Filipino you become incredibly creative.

Set against a backdrop of the Mayon volcano -  

The 3 wise men wear hats made of fans and blue bodies are 50-gallon oil drums.

The heads are sticks, woven to any shape desired.

The robes are really woven mats you might find in any humble home.

More creativity.  Oil cans and coconut half-shells.  They love to make Christmas trees. And they are all so beautiful.

Wire balls, strung with lights.

Artistic....

Simple, effective, beautiful.

Another 'tree' popped up at a road block on the national hwy.

 A neighborhood (Baranguay) displays their own entry display of angels and the Christ-child.

Another neighborhood display.  Look closely.  The paper between the flowers and greenery is newsprint, varnished for protection from the weather.

Frayed coke cans form an amazing star and tassles!

It wouldn't feel like CHRISTmas without a zone conference or two.

Christmas zone meetings with our young Elders and Sisters are always memorable.  Training, a Filipino feast, talent show and testimonies.

Beautiful decorations at one of our hotel stays.

Yes, these are palm trees, surrounding this massive community manger display in Tobaco District.  I have no idea how this name got approved for an LDS unit.  It just seems to be contrary to the 89th Section.

Every year, for 18 years, Beautiful, Sweet Carolyn wishes me a "Marry Christmas" with a poinsettia plant.  This is in solemn mockery of our first Christmas when I told her I was engaged to someone else.  So, she cheerfully, ironically, brought a congratulatory gift of a tiny poinsettia plant to me at Word Perfect in Orem, where I was working.  Thank you, Carolyn.  You are an incomparable jewel.  

So, last year Carolyn actually PLANTED a poinsettia in our garden. A bit spindly.  But it brought a smile to my face, as it always does.

Now, do things GROW in the Philippines?  Is Carolyn too serious!?

This year, there was no need to buy a new poinsettia plant.  This one is the crowning glory of her teasing.

 

What is Christmas, without Carolyn's famous tradition of a Shepherd's Dinner?  This year I came as a....shepherd, king, or whatever!  (Egyptian mummy?  Goofball?)

Sunday night we invited our beloved friend, President B, and his family for a private Shepherd's Dinner at our home.  Three of the family of six sang us a Christmas song they had prepared.  It was an unrecognizable, painful rendition, but they gave it their best, without embarrassment.

Note the cottonball sheep on the "hillside".

Elder Howell's contribution this year was "Lamb-kabobs".  After all, what are little sheep for?

Monday night, Christmas Eve, was a spiritual, warm and friendly gathering of senior couples working in the San Pablo Mission.  Too old to sit on the floor, we sat at tables and commemorated the Shepherds again.  President P (nearest to the camera) gave a moving testimony of the special nature of the shepherds who were visited the night of Christ's birth.  Not everyone dressed for the occasion, but we managed to have 6 shepherds, 5 angels, and one Sister as a starry night.  Excellent!  Creative!

So, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

With much love,

Mom & Dad

G'ma Carolyn & G'pa Lane

Elder and Sister Howell