Philippine houses

 A house just for our Grandson Ian whose favorite color is orange.  Either the houses are painted white or bright colors or they are cement gray.  They like green, blue, salmon, and yellow.  Notice the rebar sticking out of the corner braces.  Many buildings have this rebar just sticking up out of the structure.  Makes a place really beautiful, don't you think?

Elder Shorter requested that I include these pictures.  These is a frontal shot of the mission home.  He particularly likes the palm trees and the beautiful wooden door.  

Floats from the Harvest festival

 The Philippines is divided into large Provinces--similar to our states.  Most of our mission is in the Isabella Province.  The capital of Isabella is Ilagan.  Ilagan is just about 45 minutes from Cauayan City.  This past weekend there was a Harvest Festival for the whole province held in Ilagan.  We just happened to travel there when they had these floats on display.  Many of the larger cities contributed a float.  The floats are made from corn, rice and seeds that are harvested in each area.  The caribou are not made from natural items, but they represent the province well.

These are a few of our favorites.  These people are very creative with making do with what they have.  I am often in awe of their ingenuity and creativity.

On the road

 This is a picture taken through our windshield (sorry for the reflection) of traffic in down town Santiago.  It gets a little tight and crazy!

These electrical wires hang over the road that the mission home is on.  We pass under this dangling mess most every day.  The wires almost touch the top of our car.