August 6, 2023

6-Aug-23

I have been “assigned” to make the blog entry this week. Nina has not felt very good for the last 24 hours, so I had to do the dishes as well. I am beginning to think that she is taking advantage of the situation.

This past week has been very educational since we are still getting our heads around just how big this housing coordinator assignment is. There are 59 young missionary apartments around the mission scattered over several islands with 2-hour ferry rides and 7 hour driving times on top of that. The most remote place is Siquijor. An island that requires two ferry rides. I understand that it is a highly desired tourist location. We will try to get there in a few weeks. I am not sure if Nina has mentioned previously that American drivers' licenses are only valid up to 90 days after entering the country. Then we need our Visas in order to get a Filipino driving license. Our Visas will not be completed for 5-6 months. This means that our driving privileges will end on about 12-Oct and who knows when our Visas will be completed.

Speaking of driving…this week we were headed for Carcar, about 3 hours south of Cebu. I was sitting in traffic in the left lane and did not realize it was left turn only until I saw the tiny sign indicating across the intersection and could not be seen until you were nearly in the intersection. I decided to just go straight across the intersection (since that is what I did on the previous two intersection that were identical to this one). I made the mistake of discussing it with my companion. The decision was made, after the traffic had cleared to change to the center lane. As we crossed the intersection a foot cop from the sidewalk was waving at us in the Filipino hand signal that looked like continue. I proceeded as if nothing was wrong. A random scooter pulled in front of us and braked hard so that I nearly ran over him. He forced us to the curb and then was yelling at us in Cebuano clearly enough that I mad out that the cop wanted us to stop. I looked in the rear-view mirror and sure enough the cop was coming toward us. I backed up, he asked for my license and then proceeded to write a ticket. He said the correct course of action was to proceed straight forward even though the signage indicated left only. He said what I did in changing lanes was illegal. After some arguing and I thought he was going to ask for money, he gave up and gave me a verbal warning. He asked how long I had been driving. I wanted to say probably 50 years longer that he had, if he even had a driving license. Many people here never get driving licenses. I wonder why there is so much crazy traffic.

Every morning around 6:00 A we walk the quarter mile to the temple complex where walk for 2-3 miles. People from all over the country, many spending many hours to get here, are taking pictures. We always ask if they want us to take the photo so that their whole family be included. After we take the photo, they always want to take one with us in the picture. Imagine being in shorts and tee-shirt all sweaty and still being treated like a celebrity. It is almost embarrassing. They really love the senior missionaries here. The stories they tell us are amazing and heartwarming.

I have included a few photos and a video if it loads. Hope all is well. Love to all.

Elder Epperson

A not-so-little friend we saw on our walk this week. Harmless but really cool! And he/she ran around JUST like a mechanical spider. If we hadn't seen it in person, we might have thought it was fake!

VERY blurry picture because we were driving back from apartment checks and only had a second or two to get the shot of the moon coming up over the water! It was crazy beautiful, and I wish the picture had done it justice!

A picture of the sunset on our walk tonight