October 26, 2013

Stick with us here, we are trying something new.....VIDEOS!!!

We were invited to attend a Relief Society celebration where 4 Branches of the Pamplona District came together and shared the talents of the members of their Branch.  The church buildings are versatile.  This particular celebration was held in the chapel since they do not have a cultural hall.  These Sisters love to sing and dance and entertain. They are fun-loving people!

As we were travelling to Buhi, where one of our apartments for a companionship of Elders is located, we thought to take a short video of  what we saw as we traveled there.  The roads (I use the term loosely) are very narrow and made of concrete.  The Filipinos work very hard to have conveniences such as paved roads to their areas.  They mix the concrete using a small cement mixer, and then they shovel the mixture into the areas that they have prepared.  Everything in this area is done by hand, nothing like what we see in the States.

 

 

We hope you were able to view these two videos.  If we've been successful, we'll share more videos in upcoming blogs.  We have taken many, and would love to share them with you, and this is just an experiment to see how it works.

 

 

Thank you all for your encouragement and support as we continue to serve. 

 

 

Love,

 

Elder and Sister Campbell

Monday, October 21, 2013

 

 

Well, it's time to create another blog.  We love putting these blogs together.  We hope you will enjoy it. This time, we thought we'd show some pictures of some of the beautiful flowers that are in abundance.  No matter where we travel, the yards are surrounded in lots of greenery and flowers. 

 

Our granddaughter sent us a picture of a tree outside her apartment that had beautiful fall colors.  She said she thought we'd probably forgotten what the fall colors looked like.  This made us realize that we don't have any changing of the seasons, which we miss very much. 

 

This is part of a flowering tree outside our Mission Office Building.

 

These are flowers around the Mission Home

 

The blossoms on this plant are in the middle left, but look closely at the thorns on the main stem.  Don't think this would be a flower to cut to take inside for a flower arrangement

 

Potted plants lining the driveway of the Mission Home.

 

More potted plants.  The security guard at the Mission Home tells us that all you need to do is poke a stick in the ground and it'll take root and grow.  It rains often enough that these flowers don't need much special attention

 

This is a weird "flower", but quite colorful.

 

The green rice fields never change. There are three rice crops a year. As soon as they turn golden they  are harvested.

 

Another beautiful flowering tree.

 

 

This plant is as close as we get to fall colors but it is like this all of the time. 

 

As we were looking at a possible new apartment for some of our Elders, we noticed this plant that's approximately five feet tall.

 

We could count this as a Christmas tree.  Here in the Naga Mission, there are no traditional pine trees

 

 

Missionaries singing in Tagalog at a baptism.

 

It has been a wonderful blessing in our lives to have the opportunity to serve the Lord here in the Philippines. We love being of service to these wonderful missionaries.  They come here from many areas of the world, including India, Sri Lanka, Samoa, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, and oh, yes, the United States.  Of course, many of our missionaries are from different areas of the Philippines.  They are so dedicated and work so diligently to bring the gospel to these wonderful Filipinos.  They are having much success, which keeps Carol busy recording the baptisms and confirmations so that the newly baptized are officially on the roles of the Church.