Happy Birthday Simon!!

Dear Simon,

Happy Birthday!  

Wanna hear some stuff about this place we are living in?

This guy lives permanently outside our kitchen window.  We see him every day

Most of the houses that people live in here in the Philippines are very small.  Since it never gets cold here people don't have to worry about heaters to keep the house warm.  Actually, many people build their houses to let as much air in as possible to make it cool.  Although, there is more than air that gets into their houses. 

Many homes have BIG house spiders and also lizards.  They don't mind these critters in their house because they eat flys, mosquitos, ants, and anything else that is little and moves. I am glad we are big or we might get eaten. The house spiders here are really big but they don't bite people.  Sometimes we will see little kids carrying big spiders on a pencil--we have seen that many times.  And we have heard that when their friend has a spider on a pencil, they will put the pencils together and let the spiders fight each other. 

When we go visit a certain family, this guy is always there eating bugs on their wall. They call this big kind tohkoh

and this one live in our house,  They call this smaller kind teekee.

It’s pretty cool I bet. 

Heavenly Father has created such a magnificent world for us to live on.  Here in the Philippines, I am always amazed at how much food there is.  Mango trees, papaya trees, jack fruit trees, banana trees (by the kagillions), coconut trees (bazillions), and many more varieties. It is like the Garden of Eden.  Then there are all the vegetables. 

one of those ant highways

Then there are the ants!  Anything that is living or was living, if it stays still or is dead, the ants come.  Thousands of them.  Highways of them.  They find everything that can be eaten.  Sometimes we find ants eating something and we see the ant highway connecting what they are eating to their nest.  It is so amazing that the ants have lookout ants so far away from their nests that are looking for food.  It is also amazing how fast they can send the signal back to the nest that there is FOOD or danger.  I think they have little radios connected to their antenaes that they can transmit signals back to base and the rest come running or dash for cover. 

Let me tell you a story about that. We had the missionaries over to our house for pancakes one morning.  Scratch pancakes with oatmeal--some of Grandpas finest.  Well we ate all but one of the pancakes.  That one pancake I left on the counter in the kitchen.  It was in there for about one hour.  I went into the kitchen about an hour later to eat that last remaining pancake and there were about 1000 tiny ants munching down that pancake. 

the coolest bug we've seen--he was on our screen door

I wondered where they came from because we never usually see ants on that counter. How did they all of a sudden know?

I think Heavenly Father made ants to be the clean-up critters that eat whatever is left over and what ever dies.  Almost every time I kill an ant (or about a 1000 of them), I think that these little critters are so small and complicated that even the smartest human

up close

couldn’t make even one ant but it is easy to kill a thousand of them.  The handiwork of God is so magnificent!  People think they are so smart, but we can’t even begin to understand something that is so easy and small like an ant. 

 When you look at God’s creations, think of Him and that this world was created for our good because we are children of our Heavenly Father and he made this world because he loves us and wants us to experience joy and the excitement of learning and never being able to learn all about everything that is around us.  He wants us to learn about flowers and bugs, trees and mountains, rivers and fish.  But most of all He wants us to learn about the most important thing we can learn, about Jesus Christ (Jesu Kristo) and our Father in Heaven(Amahan sa Langit).

there are SOOO many fat frogs in our yard and everywhere, especially at night

Learning is fun because we are learning about what Heavenly Father has given us. 

We have always loved how you love to try new things and explore God's creations.  YOU are one of God's special creations, and we are SOOOO glad we get to see and know the miracle that is you. 

Each coconuts weighs about 8-10 pounds!! Quite a load

The only 2-headed coconut tree we've seen--way cool!

The captain and his first mate haul us to shore

a lot of guys fish by walking around pushing boats that carry nets

a lovely chapel near the area where the cool waterfall your dad saw is

This little guy wishes you happy birthday

Happy Birthday Simon.