This Saturday I was on my own. I took a driver and a car from the company and did a little local touring around the city of Manila. Our first stop was the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial. This was a most impressive and inspiring visit. The cemetery is on a small hill overlooking the city and the bay. The guidebook says it is 152 acres in size and is the largest of the overseas cemeteries. Most of those buried here were killed in the battles for New Guinea, the Philippines, and other islands of the southwest Pacific area. The cemetery and memorial was started in 1948 and was completed and dedicated near the end of 1960.

There are 17,100 headstones representing 16,636 U.S. Military and 570 Philippine Nationals. It is most impressive and humbling to see thousands upon thousands of markers marching into the distance. Further, in the center is a large memorial which consists of a small devotional chapel and two massive hemicycles which surround the central Memorial Court. Engraved on 24 granite slabs in these hemicycles are the names of an additional 36,282 missing. These also gave their lives but their remains have not been identified or were lost or buried at sea. At the ends of each of the hemicycles are large map rooms with mosaic maps detailing the battles and strategies of the Pacific war.

The entire area had the sense of being hallowed ground. I couldn’t help but be somewhat overwhelmed at seeing the symbols of so many men and women who had made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. In the memorial I looked for names from Idaho. One of the names that struck me was a Captain Kyle Ballantyne from Twin Falls. I looked up his genealogy. He was born in Ogden, Utah, in 1915. His family moved to Twin Falls shortly after he was born. He had an older brother who died in 1953. There was no information available about whether or not Kyle was married. He is listed as having died in September, 1944. His remains were never recovered. He was about 29 years old when he died. Somehow I felt a small kinship on this hot, humid Saturday morning with Brother Ballantyne. He was baptized when he was eight years old. His mother’s name was Christmas (what a lovely name!) and she died a couple of years after Kyle was born. I know nothing more about him. Godspeed, Captain Ballantyne! Your name does indeed live on.

I did other sightseeing besides this cemetery. It made such an impression on me however, that I’ll devote a segment of pictures to the cemetery as well as this blog entry. I stood amongst heroes this morning.

Sunday was Labor Day in the Philippines — a fairly important holiday in many parts of the world. As a result, Monday was also a holiday (a decision made late last week by the government). Consequently everyone was off from work on Monday. I went into the office for a while, but could work just as easily from my hotel room so I went back to the hotel about lunch time. Later in the day I had a couple of phone conferences, including one at 4 p.m. Manila time. I decided to go over to the larger mall in the area and make that phone call from there and then look through the mall for something to take home as a souvenir.

I found a quiet spot outside in a kind of a courtyard at the mall. While I was on the phone, I saw a lady come by and set a bottle of water on the ground and walked away. A few minutes later, another lady put a bottle of water a few feet away from the first bottle and then left. In the next twenty minutes or so, about fifteen bottles of water, plastic sacks, or soft drink containers appeared. Sometimes a woman would come by, pick up a water bottle, and put it somewhere else and then go on her way. This behavior went on for an hour! When my phone call ended, and one of the ladies came back and moved a bottle of water, I went over and asked her what they were doing. She told me they were having a class — it sounded a bit like a “bible” class so I asked if that was what they were doing. “No,” she said, “We’re having a taibo class. Do you want to join?” I declined and she laughed when I said I would just watch. By this time the water bottles and stuff looked like the picture at the left. I still didn’t know what “taibo” (pronounced ty-boh) was, but I was willing to wait to find out. It was very curious!

A little after 5 p.m. a couple of guys came in bringing electronic equipment and soon a sound system with a couple of big speakers was set up and being tested. So much for a quiet courtyard at the mall! Shortly thereafter a whole bunch of women lined up to the command of another woman wearing a microphone, and they began a fairly strenuous jazzercise routine. Most of these people had done this before! The knew the routine and understood what the leader wanted as she called out the next maneuver to be performed. The bottles of water turned out to be place savers.

I was also glad I was only watching. Even though the sun was quite low in the sky and the entire courtyard was in the shade, I got tired just watching. The mall is a two-story building, so I went up to the upper floor to take this picture of the activity. The first set went for about eight minutes followed by a two-minute rest period. Then the next set started. It looked like heart-attack city but no one fell down or passed out.

The mall itself is quite large — larger than any of the malls in Salt Lake City. That’s still pretty amazing as there are two other malls within a five-mile radius of my hotel and each of them are very big malls. This mall was the Alabang Town Center Mall and in one area is four floors above ground and two floors below ground. But it has all the western restaurants, such as Tony Roma’s and Outback Steak House. I had fun wandering through the mall and did pick up some unique stuff to make up a couple of table settings for the table. I also found some reasonable-looking post cards in a book store. I was surprised at how few postcards are on display anywhere and, if there are some, how old and dilapidated they are. After that it was back to the hotel for another late-night phone conference. These things can wear me out! There are more of these the next two nights.

Sunday was a very pleasant day which started with attending Fast and Testimony Meeting and the rest of the church meeting block.

We attended the Makati Third Ward. The Stake President was in attendance along with the 2nd counselor in the Area Presidency, Elder E. Rex Gerratt. There were a lot of people there and for a reason — the Stake President changed the bishopric. Elder Gerratt was a mission president in Manila from 1996 to 1999. He may have come just about when my mom and dad left Manila at the end of their mission.

There was no organ in the building, only a piano. The lady playing the piano was very accomplished at the piano and her prelude and postlude music was delightful variations on hymns that she just sat and played.

The benches were all wooden. The building was older. The Chapel was air conditioned in about 1990. The rest of the building was air conditioned (class rooms only, hallways, restrooms, and other non-essential areas are not air conditioned) in 1998. The benches were quite uncomfortable.

There were about 180 people in attendance, about 70% Filipino. Most of the meeting was in English but a couple of folks bore their testimony in Tagalog. The children’s testimonies were different than in the US — they all started with “I am a child of God….”. Perhaps something they are taught in Primary?

The last person to bear her testimony was a woman who’s husband died in the near past. She talked about how the Lord has helped her through this experience, such as the first time she had to go shopping for food after his death. It sounded like he had cancer or something that caused a lingering death. She said that before he died she would work very hard at her church callings and around the house hoping to gain favor with the Lord — maybe he would see her hard work and prolong the life of her husband. She talked about how she has come to grips with the situation and finaly decided that the Lord knows best. When she was able to make that adjustment, a feeling of peace came into her life. She said that the loss of her husband is still very hard, but she will be with him again and for eternity. It was a very touching testimony (it made me cry!) and a good end to the meeting.

One other interesting thing was that there was a Single Adult Conference on Friday and Saturday. One young lady (it’s very hard to tell how old these Filipinos are!) bore her testimony and in the middle of it apologized to her Laurel Advisor for “something I did to you.” Tom chuckled and said that I would be surprised at what is said during some of the Testimony Meetings, particularly wives chastising their wayward husbands.

Sunday School started late and ended even later. An American taught the lesson — he’s the Sunday School President and said the normal teacher, along with two others, had texted him on his phone that morning that they weren’t going to be there so he was filling in. The lesson was on D&C 95 and the building of the Kirtland Temple. He did a great job for having to do this literally on the spur of the moment.

Priesthood meeting also went over by about 10 minutes. They are trying to implement priesthood committees here kind of like we did in the Colorado Springs North Stake. So today was committee meetings. Each of the committees (missionary work, temporal and family welfare, and temple and family history) were to set one goal of work to be done in the next year. Tom and I were assigned on an ad hoc basis to attend the temporal and family welfare committee. The Filipino assigned as the committee chairman was somewhat at a loss as to what to do. It was good to be there and to suggest a few things. They settled on a goal of helping each family put together a 48 hour emergency kit and the first milestone was for a couple of people to work with the Relief Society to come up with a list of what should be in such a kit.

There were about 10 BYU students in attendance for their first Sunday in Manila. They’re on an internship working with charitable organizations in Manila and particularly with the street children. Of course, they’re all idealistic and pumped up — they arrived Friday night and start working with the couple of agencies they’re assigned to on Monday.

Traffic going to church was almost non-existant. Coming back was a little more hectic, but still very light. It took us 15 minutes to get to the church building that took us almost an hour to get in the area of the building last Friday when we went to the temlple.

After the meeting I visited with a couple of people who did indeed remember mom and dad and talked about the time that they were here in Manila. That was a lot of fun as well as gratifying to know that they were still remembered. The rest of the day was spent around the hotel (as well as a couple of hours debugging an Excel spreadsheet doing time calculations for Tom). The second week here has begun.

These are some notes that I made during the day we spent at Villa Escudero:

We’ve had lunch — about 10:30 — at the waterfall. A river was dammed up and the water runs over the dam down into the river gorge. Tables have been set up in the river in the gorge. That’s where you eat, with water up to your ankles running over your feet. It did cool off the feet! Of course, I don’t have appropriate attire. So, I rolled up the pant legs and left the shoes and socks on shore and waded in for lunch.

Lunch was buffet style with chicken, pork, and fish plus several kinds of fruit. Since I had no breakfast, it tasted pretty good.

The doesn’t seem to be much more here to see after the museum. The pool complex is large with three different pools. One is for the children, the other two for adults or bigger children. It’s bright sun in the pools so only the diehards are in the pool. One of the Pocatello guys has bright, white skin. He’ll be a lobster pretty soon. There isn’t much more to do here, so I’m going to find better shade with a real chair, and get a Sprite.

It’s just 5 p.m. We’re getting on the bus to head back. The afternoon did include a cultural arts show from 2 until about 3:30. It was pretty good. I managed to find a good sitting place after the show.

The name of this place is Villa Escudero Plantation and Resort. Swimming and related volleyball or basketball is the main draw. It was mostly families or large work groups. You were generally expected to show up in the earlier morning and stay at least to mid-afternoon. It’s far enough away that coming for just a couple of hours is impractical. Those that went swimming got sunburned and will feel it tomorrow.

This was a plantation of the Escudero family. The originator came from Spain, married a Filipino woman here and never returned to Spain. He had one son who did the major development of the coconut plantation. The originator came over shortly after the Spanish were awarded the Philippines in the early 1500’s by the Pope when he divided up the new world between Spain and Portugal. Apparently it’s still a working plantation and this resort is in a small part of the estate.

I think we’re stopping for dinner somewhere….

It’s 7:30 and we’ve been in heavy traffic for the past hour. It’s solid traffic both ways moving at about 10 mph in fits and starts. We haven’t stopped for dinner yet, but that’s supposed to be Real Soon Now.

We did make a short stop about 5:45 for 10 minutes in San Pablo at a place looking out over a lake and some fish farms. The area does a lot of tourist business because of the seven lakes around the area and the tall, dormant volcanoes to be climbed. Mt. Makiling has three peaks and Mt. Banahaw is supposed to have mystical healing powers in it’s springs and streams. The town was setting up for their annual celebration which starts on Monday.

Then just as suddenly, we turned into the area where the hotel is located! It was after 8 p.m. and the decision was made to skip dinner and just go home. That was just fine with me! We were dropped off at our hotel and we had a small dinner about 9 p.m. and then off to bed. The day was good, actually. I certain that I wouldn’t have made any better use of it than going over to the plantation. I saw a lot of countryside that I would otherwise not have seen. Spending the time with the local staff was a lot of fun. And my first week in Manila has come to an end.