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| Cebu Temple |
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| The uncropped view from Gorordo Avenue. We can usually hear traffic noises in the Celestial and sealing rooms. |
We are blessed to be serving in the Cebu City Temple Mission in the Philippines with nine other missionary couples, seven from the USA, and two from the Philippines. The Cebu Temple has been in operation since its dedication by President Monson in 2010, the second temple in the country. The temple looks much like the Calgary temple and is similar in size. It serves the southern region of the Philippines, mainly the Visayan Islands having a population similar to Canada’s. When the Manila temple was closed for four months this year, newly called missionaries from Mongolia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia and Vietnam came here to receive their own endowment.
Missionaries first served in the Philippines in 1962, and in
its first few years three elders from Raymond served here, Mark Evans, Jim
Ackroyd and if my memory is correct, Phil Helgerson. Elder William R. Walker, who grew up in
Raymond and had responsibility for temples in the church, was at the Cebu
Temple dedication in 2010. A number of
missionaries from Raymond have served in the Philippines in recent years. In 1963 when Elder Evans served here, church
membership was 80; in 1969 when I, Elder McMullin, served as a young missionary, the membership had risen to 6,000 saints. Only one chapel existed in the country in
1971 and the membership grew to 10,000. In
June of 2018, the Church reported a membership of over 765,000 in the
Philippines. The Philippines is the
fifth country in the world with 100 stakes of Zion.
One of our great thrills in our service here has been to see
people that I baptized on my mission, or their posterity. While being trained in the baptistry shortly
after our arrival, Sister McMullin was sitting in the baptistry’s chapel one
morning. She knew that some youth from
Mindanao, the big island at the south end of the Philippines, were coming to be
baptized. We had corresponded for some
48 years with two families from Mindanao.
Sister McMullin asked the sister sitting in front of her if she knew of
a family whose surname was Villejo. The
sister responded, “No.” But another
nearby sister said, “I am Villejo. I am
Mary-Rose.” She was named after
Mary-Rose so with joy Mary-Rose met her name sake for the first time. I had great joy in seeing Mary-Rose Villejo,
now Estrada, as well. Later on that day,
I was helping with some sealings, and was a proxy son at the alter. To my great joy, the young couple kneeling
there included another Villejo granddaughter.
I shed some tears that day, tears of joy. “How great shall be your joy in heaven” came
to my mind, as I experienced a bit of that great joy that day. We have also seen members of another two
families from Mindanao, the Origenes and Barrizo families. Both of these families had 10 children, and 6
members of each family served missions after their conversions. It has been a thrill to serve here and have these
heart-warming reunions.
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| Mary-Rose M. and Mary-Rose Villejo Estrada |
We have had other special experiences here. For instance, one brother brought a family name slip to do the beginning part of the endowment. Before we started, feelings welled up in me and I could hardly keep from crying. Once complete, I asked this brother who this person was, telling him of my feelings. He said, “He is my brother who died last year.” I am sure there was joy on the other side of the veil that moment.
At times, couples who come to the temple to be married for
time and all eternity arrive without any family or friends accompanying
them. Either the family cannot afford to
come, or the young people are the only members in their family. Sister McMullin has had the opportunity of
being an attendant for several brides, even helping with small receptions and
hosting a dinner or two on short notice.
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| Our first wedding couple, the Wongs, Feb. 28, 2018. |
Speaking of feeding people, we have carried on Grandma Jane’s tradition
of feeding people. We have rounded out our temple mission
with a “feed the hungry” mission. On one occasion, a group of 15 people
did not have the money to buy food when they arrived at the Patron House and so
were invited to our 450-sqare-foot living/dining room to eat supper with
us. (We are blessed to be at the end of
the hall, so we have a foyer outside our door to use for overflow!) Other people from their island in similar
circumstances were invited by our guests, and we fed what seemed like an
endless stream of people totaling 32 when all were fed. We had enough left over to feed another five
people the next day. Another time we
hosted a birthday party for our two-year-old “adopted granddaughter” and the 15
guests we expected turned out to be 51 people.
All were fed and filled, including two sets of missionaries, members of
the bishopric and their families, and many others. It is not uncommon for us to feed from 35 to
60 people throughout a month. For Canadian Thanksgiving last week, we cooked turkey, dressing and gravy and coleslaw for the 24 temple missionaries, with the cooking of rest of the meal being shared. We saved some turkey, and had another Thanksgiving dinner for 12 of us on Tuesday.
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| Here are the last of the 50 or so birthday party guests. Fun! |
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| Thanksgiving #1 |
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| Thanksgiving #2 |
As I, Mary-Rose, was reading Alma 10:7 recently, these words came from the Spirit as a message of approval of our “feeding the hungry” mission: “…and he is an hungered, and thou shalt receive him into thy house and feed him, and he shall bless thee and thy house; and the blessing of the Lord shall rest upon thee and thy house.” We have been so humbled by the faith of these people who sacrifice so much to come to the temple, and often have to scrimp to buy food here. It is a privilege to share with them and be blessed by their example and their conversion stories.
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| Picture-taking is a big thing here. We started out with a small group of leaders from the Davao group. |
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| Then more and more of the leaders and youth joined us. Lots of fun! In the Philippines, we are four things that we aren't at home: tall (at least Mary-Rose isn't tall in Canada), rich, popular, and beautiful-- people like our fair skin and straight noses! They're surprised when we tell them that in North America, we tan to make our skin browner. |
One of our great delights is being baptistry coordinators
one shift per week. We hear that Cebu
temple does more baptisms for the dead than any other temple in the
church. Youth from the various islands
take time off school or come here on holidays and do baptisms for their
ancestors after finding family names, or for family names shared by other
members of their stakes. Each group will
stay at the Patron House for two or three days, and come to do baptisms twice a
day. Their stake has a fund for the
transportation and housing, but the youth still have to pay for their own food. Last Friday’s group included 37 young women
and 18 young men, for example, and they were from the nearby island of Negros,
another island where I served on my mission.
There was no branch there in my younger years of service and now there
is a vibrant stake. The area of Bacolod
on this island where I served is sometimes referred to as “Little Utah” because
there are chapels everywhere. When I
served in Bacolod, the branch had about 50 members and we met in the basement
of a house. In a nearby community,
Victorias, where we bussed on Sunday afternoon to hold Sacrament Meeting, we
met in an outdoor kitchen. What a
change.
Workers sacrifice much to serve in the temple. Few have their own transportation because
they cannot afford it and they pay to ride a jeepney or on the back of a
motorcycle to get to the temple, both coming and going. That money could have been used to feed their
family or to buy clothes, etc. Some
couples and singles from other islands come and stay at the Patron House for a
week or two at a time and do that each month, serving each day in the temple as
workers. One such brother was very
excited when I gave him a pair of shoes that were the wrong size for me – he was
wearing slippers because he could not afford shoes. Despite their circumstances, you hear no
complaints, and day after day, month after month, these brothers and sisters
serve gladly. The Filipino people are a
people of great faith and are kind and caring.
We love serving with them.
