Facts of the Philippines and the Church in the Philippines

Slow Down--Don't you know its Blaine's Birthday!

Dear Blaine, Happy birthday. 

I know you really like facts so let me give you a few.  Let me share with you some interesting facts about the Philippines and then about the church in the Philippines. 

Grampy Singing "Happy Birthday" with Grammy

There are over 7,000 islands in the Philippines and there are over 120 different languages spoken.  Tagalog or Filipino and English are both considered national languages.  The language that Grammy and Grampy are learning is Visayan and has the most native speakers and people like to speak it more than Tagalog. 

The total area, or square miles of the Philippines make it about the same size as Oregon where you live.  Oregon has 97,073 square miles and the Philippines has 115,830 square miles.  Well actually you would need to put Oregon and Vermont together to have the same size as the Philippines.

O want to sing Happy Birthday to you four times.

The Philippines has 90,000,000 people and the combined population of Oregon and Vermont is only  4,400,000.  That gives the Philippines 20 times more people here than where you live.  There are people everywhere here.  No matter where you go here there are lots of people living.  In the mountains, along the beaches or in the forest, people everywhere.

Now some facts about the church here.  The church started missionary work here in 1962.  The church just celebrated 50 years in the Philippines.  When Grampy was here in 1971, there was only one mission with about 200 missionaries and now there are 14 missions with about 150 missionaries each.  That makes about 2100 missionaries or about 10 times more than when Grampy was here serving his mission.  More than half of all the missionaries here come from the Philippines.  Although, we have three sister missionaries that come from interesting places, two from India and one from Pakistan.  Also, when Grampy was here there were about 8,000 members. Now there are over 645,000 members. That’s makes it so the church has grown 80 times since Grampy was here on his mission when he was young.  If the entire world had the same number of members per capita as does the Philippines, the total church membership would be 485,000,000 members. That would make the church 35 times bigger than it is.  Wow!  That is big.  In the past 50 years the Philippines has grown faster than any other country.

In the ocean just east of the Philippines, the Philippine Trench is the 3^rd deepest spot on earth.  It is over 34,600 feet deep.  How deep is that?  When you look up in the sky and see jets flying by and leaving the white contrails, they are about 35,000 feet high.  So that is how deep the ocean is here.

So Blaine, it's your birthday.  Hmmmmm.

There have been about 75,000 baptisms in the last 5 years in the Philippines and there are about 114,000 men who hold the Melchizedek Priesthood like you dad.

There are two temples here, one in Manila the capital and one in Cebu close to where we are.

Today in the history was an important day.  It was on this day that in 1896 that Andres Bonifacio y de Castro and others leaders of the underground society met together to overthrough Spanish rule in the Philippines that had been going on for 300 years.  The Philippines was actually liberated from the Spanish two years later in the Spanish American War in 1898. (Wow, that is just how long a mission is!) Your dad can tell you all about the war.  

One reason teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ has been so successful here in the Philippines is  that the people are so humble and have faith in Jesus Christ.  They also pray a lot. Even though most people who are not members pray with memorized prayers, they believe in prayer.  They believe that it is important in their daily life.  When they pass by a church in a bus they say a little prayer.  There is a man who is a Catholic priest that Grammy and Grampy know, he approached the Cebu temple president in a store and asked if he could be taught the gospel.  We will tell you more about this man and his conversion story to the gospel of Jesus Christ later.  But, there are many miracles in his story.  I have met him three times and have heard his conversion story.  On one of the times he was taught one of the lessons, Grammy and Grampy were there.  He was asked to pray and the close of the lesson.  He said an amazingly humble from the heart prayer.  When he finished he apologized for how slow and rough his prayer was and he said that that prayer was the first time in his life he has ever prayed from the heart saying the words he wanted to say.  All of his prayers in his life were memorized.  He is getting baptized this Friday.  We will tell you his full story later.  It is really an amazing story how this man's life was prepared to hear the gospel and how he was kidnapped and put in a prison and he literally had a prison door open the allow his escape.  

Blaine, say your prayers and look for miracles in your life.  There are miracles every day.  Most are small and some are medium and others are big.  Look for them and you will see them.  God loves you.