Monday, November 8, 2004

This morning was a very eventful morning. We left the apartment at 7:00 to go to Rizal to help Rolley Manzo and Elsie Hicap get married. We got there right at 8:00 but the lady we needed to talk to hadn’t arrived yet. We told the people that were working in the registrar’s office that we had two people coming in that were expecting to be married when they got there. They tried to tell us that they couldn’t and also gave us a lot of bureaucratic garbage. We told that that we’d talked to their boss two weeks ago about it and that the boss said it could happen. To say the least we were getting really scared. We’d told the Manzos that if they’d just come than they would be married but now it was looking like it might not happen. We waited until 9:00 and the Manzos arrived, still no boss. We were getting more and more scared because if they didn’t actually get married then the whole expensive trip of the Manzo family would be wasted and they wouldn’t be able to come again because it was too expensive. By this time, Sis. Manzo, Rolley’s mom, was rather upset with the people in the registrar’s office and we were also upset. We left her there to deal with them and went up to talk to the mayor. She told us that she’d do it if the other office would release the paperwork. When we went back to the other office the boss had finally arrived and things were looking up and we started to have hope that the marriage would go through today. They got all the papers in order finally and Rolley and Elsie finished with their coaching session. We had to sit through a long talk with the boss of the records office about how this was irregular and the only reason she was doing it was because we were two “guapo” Americans. We finally got them to release the paperwork and the Mayor married them “hangang saw akas ng buhay ninyo” (‘till death do us part.”) We were so happy that it actually went through! We’ve worked so hard to get this to happen that it was great to finally see it happen. We went back with them to the mountain and had a good celebratory meal. We really were blessed that it went through. I realize that there is no way that it would have happened if the Lord hadn’t intervened[1].

Us with the mayor in Rizal after the Manzo’s wedding

Sister Siscar and Bro. Manzoand me on the hand tractor

Elder Cox on the Hand Tractor

Rollie and Elsie Manzo after their wedding back up in the mountain

At the Manzo’s Wedding Feast

The Wedding dinner in the mountains

[1] When we got up to the mountain and saw the huge meal they had prepared to celebrate the marriage, we were even more thankful that it had gone through. They had quite literally “killed the fatted calf” (in this case a goat) and had a huge celebration set up. It would have been awful if it hadn’t gone through and they had done all that for nothing.