The Lost Plates of Jack and Leiana

 My first trip to a public hospital. The elder seated was bitten by a dog and needed to get started on rabies vaccine. We went to the closest hospital. They only give rabies shots on Mondays and Thursdays. It is Wednesday. They said to check him in and then he could just come and get the shot in the morning. We went to check him in and they were done checking people in for the day. He will get to go in at 6:30 am the next morning. I am not sure if I understood all that correctly. Thankfully I had two elders who could speak the language where I cannot. And yes, this check-in spot is outside. It lets the air pass through and makes it a little cooler.

  This is George. He hides in our kitchen and runs across the walls when I'm not looking. I will catch glimpses of him from the corner of my eye. He may have a friend as I saw one that looked much larger than George. Either that or he is growing big on all the bugs he gets to eat.  For those worried about the cockroach, I found a dead carcass of one on the living room floor.  I really must have scared him to death (hopefully) as we didn't kill him. I also get to wear the lovely perfume of Deet. My first day I got a bunch of nasty bites on my leg and arm, just the right side. At least I know that the insects here choose the right! Update: There is a George and a Georgette. We saw them chasing each other behind the fridge while I was preparing dinner. Glad to have that settled. Further update: it was not the same cockroach. Jack had to spray him with bug spray to kill him. Later, we had two more cock roaches who had come in from under the front door. I sprayed both of them,...

The money here is pretty cool. It feels sort of plasticy and often has clear windows that you can see through. Those come out black in the pictures. The exchange rate is 58 pesos to one dollar. I will double the amount then divide by 100 to get an estimate of cost. Things are pretty cheap here. I love how colorful the money is. We didn't have a 20 peso bill but it is an orange color. The 1000 peso has a bird on it. How cool is that?!! The coins are like 25 pesos, 10 pesos, 5 pesos, 1 peso. The coins aren't worth much. We can buy 3 prepared pineaples for 100 pesos. 

 We have been eating lots of fruits since we got here. The bananas are smaller but much more flavorful. We had lychee and honey mangos, watermelon and papaya. Something new I had never tried was Jackfruit. It is a large, prickly shelled fruit. Inside are lots of seeds and stringy fibers. It is tedious work to get to the slivers of fruit from inside it and is hard on the hands. The fruit has a very mild taste, sort of like juicy fruit gum. I took a picture of a local fruit stand that has the Jackfruit in the middle on the ground. Straight above it is a slice of the inside. We didn't buy that as we would have to do all the work. Instead we got the pineapple sitting next to it. They had taken off the husk and carved it into a spiral shape. 

 We are in a gated community in a two story row house. There is a gym across the driveway from us that we can do yoga or lift weights in the morning. As you walk in the door, there is a couch, then the table and chairs and the kitchen. We have a full bathroom both upstairs and down. If you go us the very steep steps to the second floor (the steps are as tall as they are deep), you find three rooms. The first is our bedroom that has a bed, side tables, a vanity desk and most importantly, an air conditioning unit. The next room is our storage room that hold supplies and clothes. The last room is the study room. We have two desks and a fan. Downstairs next to the kitchen is our enclosed porch. It has the washing machine and a sink area. The wall goes up to the second floor and there is bars on top of that. No one is coming in that way. The study room looks over an abandoned, overgrown lot. Lots of greenery. The floors are tile which makes them easier to keep clean. We have a bunch of ...

 We left the missionary training center about 1 pm on Sunday, right after our last supper of ham and cheesy potatoes. The guy who drove us to the airport had served in the Philippines and had all kinds of stories for us. Because we had tons of time, we got through security super quickly and found the other single, sister missionary heading to Manila. We had a short flight to San Francisco where we then got to wait 7 hours for our next flight. It was just after midnight when we boarded the plane with several thousand of our nearest and dearest friends, or at least so it seemed. They had changed our seats since we had printed our boarding pass so we were surprised to find our seats occupied. Luckily Jack checked the online boarding pass before we contacted the stewardess and we found our seats several rows forward. I originally sat between Jack and a former marine. Both had large shoulders that extended beyond their narrow seat. I felt very pinned down. The airlines fed us a meal and...

 It has been a wonderful opportunity to be at the Provo Missionary Training Center. We are learning new things. It was almost funny the lesson we had on social media and using the gospel library app. Some of the senior missionaries in our group never had been on Facebook. We were all challenged to have an account and post on it. I learned so much about using the gospel library app to mark scriptures, to link and tag them as well as making notes. It lets me record inspiration next to the scripture without having to scribble in a small margin. I can add so much to it. In addition to learning about these tools, we are being bolstered spiritually. We had a devotional learning about the Character of Christ. Christ was always concerned about others. Even when he was in agony or being hurt, he was thinking about and serving others. On the other hand, most of us are pretty inwardly focused- what do I want? what do I need? That hurt my feelings? Pity me? Pay attention to me? They called tha...

The day after the lawyer spoke, discouraging all of us, they had doctors come speak with us on various specialties. The doctors told us how to assess, treat, etc. Basically, everything that the Lawyers told us not to do.  The last day the guy in charge of Missionary Medical came in to talk. When asked about that, he told us "don't do anything stupid" and "don't tell the lawyers." Officially, we are just supposed to be consulting and advising. But it sounds like they are expecting us to make the best use of the skills that we bring with us. It still leaves us wondering what we really will be doing.  It looks like we will primarily be helping keep the missionaries in country healthy. Prior to the advent of the Missionary Medical program, on any given day, they found that 38% of the missionaries were in their apartments sick. These young people (and even older missionaries) just don't have the life experiences to know how to stay healthy in third world nati...

Jack and I started our training in Salt Lake. We are at the Marriott Residence Inn where my training is in a meeting room and Jack is doing it online in the hotel room via Zoom [He feels right at home!]. I had a fast introduction to lots of people and lots of policies. My least favorite was legal counsel. They basically said that we can't evaluate or treat, we are only there to advise. Our licenses are not necessarily recognized in foreign countries and we don't know the local laws. While I understand that, it still makes me very sad.  I get the worst parts, paperwork, and the only fun part is talking with the people and developing relationships. They said that there are about 548 claims worldwide every day and over 200,000 per year. That is for people who have to have additional help instead of just advise on how to manage at home. After sitting in class all day, Jack and I decided to take a walk down to temple square. Most of the area is under construction as they put a new f...