The Philippines (Part Two)

 The next morning we headed out to go zip lining. I have no idea why, but I hadn't even thought to be nervous until we got there. That was a good thing, because I may have backed out if I had had more time to think about it, and I'm glad I didn't. I loved it! Drew and I got to go side by side on the way over which I was really happy about. We were so high up there!

 Neil

 Drew

 Lindsey

 This was at the viewing area where we went to buy our pictures.

 I saw my first carabao as we left the zip lining place. We have these as decorations in our house, so I was excited to get to see the real thing.

 Then we went to check out the tarsier monkies. They are such tiny little things. That little guy was about the size of a baseball tucked in there under a branch. It was hard to even spot them.

 Next we went to the chocolate hills. There are a couple thousand of these limestone hills on Bohol. During the dry season they turn brown which is why they are called the chocolate hills.

 After the chocolate hills we went on a little drive around the island to Valencia, which was Drew's second area. He and his companion had lived right next to a woman in the ward there who fed them almost every day. Her name was Paz. He thought about stopping to see her, but was pretty sure she wouldn't remember him after all these years. We told him he should just see, and she definitely remembered him! Her mom was outside when we stopped there. Drew said something to her and she said, "Elder Christensen?!" Drew was pretty amazed that she knew who he was because he hadn't even been as close to her. Paz definitely remembered him. She invited us into her home and insisted we have some drinks and snacks and reminisced with Drew about the time he had been there and they discussed what had happened since. 

 

 At one point she went into the other room and came back with this journal that she had had the missionaries write in. Pretty awesome!

 The area had changed quite a bit, so Drew was a bit lost. Paz jumped in the car with us and showed us around. This was the building they went to church in, which was just a family home now. The man who lived there let us go in and look around.

 For a short time when Drew first got to that area they went to church in this building which was right on the ocean. When it was stormy the water would come inside, sometimes up past their knees. Paz joked that the kids went swimming for fun during primary.

 

This was Drew's first house in Valencia. Pretty fancy.

His second house was a little nicer.

 

Since Drew was there, the district had become a stake and the branch had become a ward. They got this beautiful new church building to meet in.

 

From what I saw and heard, I'm pretty sure this amazing woman is carrying the church in that area. It was so great to meet her.

 On our way home we stopped at some random house on a little pier to get some information about boats for the next day. The view was beautiful there.

 The man Drew was talking to had this adorable this girl that was happy to pose for me.

 The next morning we were supposed to cross back over to Cebu on a little boat to go swim with whale sharks. I'm pretty sure this was the thing Drew was looking forward to the most on our trip. Unfortunately there was a typhoon going on in the Northern part of the Philippines that was making the water pretty choppy. No boats were crossing and we didn't get to go on that adventure. Drew was pretty bummed. We went swimming and had a day relaxing at the resort instead.

 

 Because of the typhoon, the boat we were going to take back to Cebu from Bohol wasn't running the day we were supposed to leave. We searched for some options with no luck at first, but eventually we ended up catching a ride on a cargo ship. The trip over had been two hours, but the trip back was five hours. Luckily we had beds and I had a good book to read. I felt like we were on the Amazing Race trying to find the fastest way across. This was our view out the window when we got on the ship. We had walked through this busy pier, where workers were loading ships, with our suitcases in tow trying to figure out where we were going. A pretty exciting and funny adventure!

 Our beds

 We got another rental car when we got to Cebu and I had to take a picture of the lack of a heater.

 We got into Cebu later than we had originally planned, and then we drove for around three hours through narrow crowded streets in the dark (It gets dark at six P.M. every night year round.). It felt like a long day of traveling when we got to Medellin at ten o'clock that night. We got to our new resort which looked a lot nicer online :). The next morning we went to church at the branch Drew had served in. Again he was sure no one would know who he was, but so many people recognized him, and they even had him bare his testimony at the end of sacrament meeting. The people were so excited to have us there, and they were so friendly and sweet to us.

 The woman right in front of Neil is Gina, and she is another one of those amazing women carrying the church along in that area. She taught both the Sunday school and Relief Society lessons and did a fantastic job.

 
 This was the baptismal font back behind the church.

 
The lady between Becky and Drew was so happy to see us and so friendly. She was another amazing example of faithful service. The missionary beside me was just one of six missionaries serving in that branch. The church is growing in the Philippines!


I chatted with these ladies during Relief Societies. The lady beside me in blue was Aimee (pronounced I-Me) and she asked me tons of questions about America and my family (admittedly we weren't paying attention to the lesson very well). She spoke English really well, so it was fun for me to get to ask her lots of questions too.

 The person Drew and his companion had worked the closest with in Medellin was this woman named Flor. I heard her name a lot in his letters and I was excited to meet her. She hadn't been at church and we did some work to figure out how to find her. We found out she and her husband (she hadn't been married when Drew was there before) had stake callings and were speaking in another ward. We were going to find her when that ward was ending, but we were a little early so we stopped at Jollibee for lunch. As we were sitting there I saw this couple walking past us and I noticed what they were wearing and I said, "They're mormons" and smiled at them. They got just past us when she stopped and backed up and said, "Elder Christensen!!" Drew was so shocked, and we all were completely amazed at our chance meeting. I for one, don't really believe it was by chance. I'm pretty sure that was just a sweet tender mercy. We ate and chatted with them for a while and then said our goodbyes. Again, another really amazing woman.

 As we were driving around later we started noticing a bunch of little pickups with dirt bikes in the back. Drew hadn't seen dirt bikes when he was there before and we started paying attention to where they were coming from. We eventually saw a sign for this motocross track and had to go check it out.

 Cock fighting is huge in the Philippines. We saw roosters tied up like this everywhere we went. They build huge arenas there for cock fighting like we do for basketball.

 Then we drove to see the ocean.