Dining in a Michelin (Not Starred) Restaurant

The House of Lechon in Cebu City is not a "starred" Michelin restaurant but is a "Michelin Selected Restaurant," meaning that Michelin designates it as a "high quality" restaurant.  

For a last hurrah for the Stirlands, we went to the well-known and very popular House of Lechon for our weekly Saturday evening outing.  Fun and good food.

I at first thought that the Michelin sign was a joke, which is why I took this picture of the pig head with "Michelin 2026."  But google says that for sure it is a Michelin Selected Restaurant.

Lechon is a popular Filipino dish consisting of a whole roasted pig seasoned with herbs and spices and spit-roasted over charcoal until the skin is crispy and the meat is tender and juicy.

House of Lechon is huge, with many kitchens.  Fresh air blows through the kitchens and the dining areas.

Our plates are banana leaves over wooden dish.  Fun!  Just throw away the banana leaves when you're done.

Joe is helping LeRon figure out what to order.  We decided to order family style so we could enjoy all the dishes.

Not sure we want to try Lechon Batchoy with its "pork innards," (click to enlarge so you can read the ingredients) although we have eaten interesting innards in Israel with our friend Yael.

Here's our lechon.  And it was very tender and tasty.  Filipinos love the skin, but I tried it and my teeth couldn't even tear it.  Maybe my teeth are too old for that kind of thing.

Another yummy dish.  Can't remember what it was, but it was tasty.  Notice that they only give you a fork and a large spoon.  That's the way it is in most restaurants here.  If you need to cut, you cut with your spoon.

In the House of Lechon, this woman entertains customers while they're waiting for a table.  She makes pouches from coconut tree leaves.  She weaves the pouches so fast! See video below.  Pouches are filled with raw rice and then boiled in water.  These cooked rice pouches are often served with lechon.

Farewell to Wendy Stirland, who left the Philippines two days after this photo was taken.  She has happy memories of her year and a half in Philippines.

Filipinos Love to Party

Filipinos love to party . . . and what better opportunity than to host a farewell party for the two American couples who have finished their temple missions.  The 10 temple shift coordinators, along with the temple matron and her assistants, planned the party with lots of music, dancing, games, and food.  It was actually very fun even if the games lasted over an hour.

Click on the photos to enlarge and be sure to watch the short videos.  And don't miss the charcoal portraits of LeRon and me near the end.  Can't believe we really look that old already.

The Stirlands and the Andreasens have served for 18 months in the temple here in the Philippines Cebu Mission.  Elder Krey and Sister Wendy Stirland left for home on June 1st and Elder Joe and Sister Beth Andreasen will leave on July 1st.  "Well done, thou good and faithful servants!"

Filipinos like to do "walky" pictures.  It took me a long time to figure out what that meant.  "Wacky" is what they mean, but they say it "walky" and it means that you need to do something silly, or "wacky."  So here are the Stirlands and the Andreasens, with the temple presidency, doing a "walky" photo.  L-R front: President & Sister Preciosa (pronounced pree-show'-sa), 2nd counselor; Elder & Sister Stirland; Sister & Elder Andreasen; Sister & President Gison (pronounced hees-on'), 1st counselor.  In back: Sister & President Ong, temple president and matron.

Ready to start the games.  A volunteer or two from each shift.  LeRon is in the far back of the group on the left.  He's much better at games than I am.

Hit the colors or grab the egg as Sister Navarre (on left) calls out.  Elder Torrie did not grab the egg in time and our team did not win.  Lots of games that day.

Lots of music too.  Seems that almost every Filipino can sing and dance and speak.  Give them a microphone and it's their happy place.  Here's Brother Nunez.  A few seconds of his singing is below.

Brother Redulla (pronounced ri-dool'-ya) and his daughter are next up.

Elder Stirland and Elder Andreasen swore they would not be conned into dancing.  But here is the proof.  And see the short, fun video below.

Here's Sister Almagro serenading the couples.  Seems like every Filipino has musical talent.

More dancing.  LeRon and I weren't sure what they were doing so we did our own thing.  We haven't danced since LeRon had his hip replacement in 2018.  See video below (or not).

Dancing and enjoying the dancing and the music.

Next came the speeches.  Each of the presidency and their wives gave tributes to the Stirlands and the Andreasens.

LeRon gave a tribute also and then accompanied the singing of several hymns, including "God Be with You Till We Meet Again."

Ruby led the singing.  We love Ruby.  She's a classy dresser and a fun girl.  She lived in the US for several years and is now back in Philippines.  She tells me, with a laugh, how the bottom floor of her home always gets flooded when there's a typhoon.  It's life here in the Philippines.

Now speeches from the couples.  Here's Wendy Stirland.  The flood lights are now in a pink mode so everything looks purplish/pink.

Elder Krey Stirland bidding the temple workers goodbye.  Elder Stirland was a missionary in the Philippines in his youth.  On this mission, he has met with several people that he taught and baptized.

Sister Beth Andreasen expressing her love for the temple and for the temple workers.

Brother Joe Andreasen always gives lovely, heart-felt speeches.  You can tell he was once a school teacher and a school administrator.

Here's the three "foreign couple missionaries."  I think we should have dressed up a bit.  It was advertised as a "summer party."  But I noticed that even the temple presidency didn't dress up, so I guess we were okay.  The party wasn't for us anyway.

After the speeches, the karaoke was turned on.  And very loud too.  We thought we were at a high school dance at W.R. Myers High School in Taber in the 1960's!  Every home seems to have a karaoke machine and each person has a cell phone.  Two essential things! 

Here's one of our shift coordinators, Sister Montemayor, singing to a cover of Canadian Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds."  We joined her for a while but whoever was singing the cover was taking too many liberties with the song for us.

Here's my sweet Amor (meaning love in Spanish) with her American boyfriend on the cell phone. I'm just checking him out to make sure he's not a 75-yr old white guy!

And here I am with Sister Cutie #1.  That's what I always call her.  She says that I am Sister Cutie #2.  We have fun together.

Here's Brother Ballon (pronounced bal-yown') who works in the temple office.  I call him Brother Balloon to help me remember his name.

I trained Sister Heartly to be a temple worker.  I get very close to these sisters.  Heartly is actually her first name.  She was born in February, as were her siblings, who are named Love, Valentina, and Valentino.  Very creative!

We love these temple workers.

Doesn't Ruby look cool in those glasses?  She's all ready for a summer party.

And here's my Filipino daughter, Sister Gilamon.  She's the same age as my oldest so she always calls me Mom and I call her my Filipino Daughter.

Brother & Sister Sabala.  He is an amazing artist.  He took a picture of us at this celebration and in just a couple of hours, he had sketched charcoal sketches of us.  See picture below.  He's also going to paint a color picture of scenes in the Philippines for us.  Can't wait to see it.

LeRon & I were shocked to see all those wrinkles!  When we look in the mirror, we just see ourselves as 65-year olds, not 73 and 74-year olds.  Shocking.  And by the way, several people have told LeRon he looks like President Nelson (our church president who passed away last year).  He's also been told he looks like President Hinckley (another former president).  It must be the wrinkles, the jowls, and the lack of hair!!!

Can't leave out Sister Chicago.  I work regularly with her in the temple.  She served her mission in Chicago and so we have a connection: our daughter, Heather, lives in Chicago.  Sister Almira (her actual name) never served in Woodridge, where Heather lives, but she knows the area.  She likes it when I call her Sister Chicago.  I have nicknames for so many people.

Earthquake . . . and a Short Geography Lesson

A 7.8 earthquake hit the southern island of the Philippines on Monday, June 8, the first day of school after the summer holidays. So hard to hear that people died and schools and homes were destroyed. Sadly, earthquakes, tsumanis, and typhoons are just a part of life in the Philippines. No earthquake for us here in Cebu City, which is many miles north of the affected area.

Now for the geography lesson.  I have always loved maps.  As young girls, my sisters, Arlene and Myrna, and I often studied the big world globe or looked at maps and dreamed of the many places in the world we thought we would never see, not knowing that our dreams would one day come true.

The Philippines was never on my radar, but here we are in this beautiful country with kind, faithful people.  Philippines has about 7600 islands, give or take, with about 2000 of them being inhabited.  The Philippines is divided geographically into three areas: Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.  See below for those areas.

The northern region is Luzon, with Manila as the main city.  We visited the Manila area when the temple was closed in February and I reported on that visit in previous posts. 

The Visayas is the central area (but minus that big island of Palawan on the left, which is technically in the northern region).  Cebu City is the main city (although google maps puts Bacolod in larger print than Cebu).

The southern region is Mindanao, which is where the 7.8 earthquake struck and caused so much damage.  This region is more prone to earthquakes, but less prone to typhoons.  A young woman I met at the temple is engaged to a man from Mindanao, and they are trying to decide whether to live where it's cheaper and risk earthquakes, or to live in Cebu, which is more expensive but prone to typhoons.  Hard decision.

Couldn't resist adding another map.  This map shows the Cebu City Temple District as of April 2026.  The Cebu Temple at that time served members in the Visayas and Mindanao areas. You can see why so many people travel so far.  They travel by ferry, overnight boat, bus, jeepny, or plane.  Yet they still come faithfully to the temple as often as they can, and often at great expense.

By the end of May, two more temples were dedicated -- in Bacolod and Davao -- so the Cebu City Temple district has shrunk majorly.  (No map for that yet). 
There are now 6 operating temples in Philippines, with 8 more announced or under construction.  And we have been told that more will be coming. What a blessing for these faithful people.

Many Words, a Joke, and a Basement Medical Center

This week, we experienced our first big rain storm of the rainy season.  So far, it's been very dry here, with little rain since a few light showers in January.  In the late afternoon, with "feels like" temperature of 41 C (107 F), the dark storm clouds built up in the west, the lightning flashed, and the heavens dumped for almost 1 1/2 hours.  As we watched the rain pouring down, we wondered how people who live in little tin shacks are doing.  We are so grateful for where we live in a nice air conditioned apartment on the third floor.

The temple and our apartment building are on high ground that slopes down to the basketball courts.  After the storm, we went for a walk in the compound (and actually found it refreshing and almost cool -- we must be getting acclimatized!)  A 12-year old boy (granted, he was a small 12-yr old) was splashing around in the basketball court in water almost up to his knees.  They say that little kids can swim there after a rain like this.  So . . . the rainy season has begun.  

Although school has started in some places, youth groups are still coming to the temple to perform baptisms for their deceased ancestors.  Recently, a group of youth and adults traveled to the temple for 19 hours by bus.  A very tiny girl, who looked to be about 8, came also, which was surprising, as youth need to be 11 turning 12 to come to the temple.  We found out she was 14!  The water in the baptistry came up to her neck and she was definitely easy to totally immerse!  Yes, Filipinos are shorter on average but they come in all shapes and sizes and degrees of beauty.  Some are darling cute and some are normal, just like anywhere else.

A man who came with the youth gave us some very delicious mangoes.  He said that the most delicious mangoes in the Philippines grow on his island near Iloilo (pronounced ee-low ee-low).  And I believe he's right.  So delicious.  And he also gave us a joke.  

"What fruit did Adam and Eve eat in the Garden of Eden?" he asked.  I said that the Bible just says fruit, not any particular kind.  Then he reminded me that God commanded Adam and Eve to leave the Garden of Eden after they had eaten the forbidden fruit.  God said, "Man: Go!"  Ha ha!  Obviously the fruit was a mango.

A man came yesterday from a far-away island and spent the entire day doing temple work for his deceased ancestors.  He attended all six of the day's scheduled endowment sessions.  With each session being about 1 1/4 hours long, that's 7 1/2 hours of listening and concentrating and learning.  What endurance and what faith!

And talking of faith, a 40-yr-old mother comes happily and frequently to the temple even though she is blind.  She contracted measles as a young adult and it caused her to go blind.  She knows of several women who are now blind as a result of measles.  I'm so thankful for modern vaccines, which, sadly, she had not received.

Now for a few pictures:

LeRon relaxing on the grass, in the heat, texting for a guard to open the church door so that we can teach piano lessons.  (We have Filipino sim cards in our Canadian phones.  Just FYI: we don't use our Canadian sim cards so you can't text us). 

Notice the very dry grass.  But soon there will be that dump of rain that I described above.  Hopefully the grass will look better then.  The gardeners cut the grass with an electric weed whipper.  Can't imagine cutting all the grass without a lawn mower.  And in the heat.  Plus, it's hard to get it even, as you can see by the very short, scorched grass, scorched by drought as well as by the weed whipper.

LeRon teaches two lovely ladies.  This young woman, Sister Llesol, will soon be serving her mission somewhere in the Philippines.  I go along to chaperone and get a bit of reading done while I listen with one ear as she learns to play hymns.  She will be a great missionary.  She's been a great temple worker too; I was privileged to be her trainer.  I've become very close to the sisters I train in the temple.

So many motorcycles here.  We're stopped at a red light and motorcycles zoom around all the cars to get to the front of the line.  We're on our way home from a missionary conference with Elder Soares, one of our Twelve Apostles.  Elder Soares (pronounced so-are'-es) is from Argentina and is the first apostle from South America. 

We are part of the the Philippines Cebu Mission.  You will not be able to see us in this tiny picture, unless maybe you click to enlarge, but it's a memory for us anyway.  We got to shake hands with General Authorities, Elder Ulisses Soares (an Apostle) and Elder Marcus B. Nash (of the Seventy) and Elder Wong (counselor in the Philippines Area presidency). 

We had only 10 minutes between picture taking and the conference for the entire group to shake their hands, so I quickly said "Hello Elder Soares" and tried to move on.  He stopped me, asking where I was from and when I said Alberta Canada, he said that he has a granddaughter in the Canada Calgary Mission.  Small world.  It was a great experience to shake the hand of an Apostle of the Lord.

For your information (actually for my information), Elder Soares is in the very centre on the first row of seats with a light blue tie.  His wife is to his right in a dark dress.  Elder Nash and wife are to Elder Soares' left.  A Filipino Area Authority Seventy is next to the Nash's.  Our mission president and wife (President & Sister Clarke) are  next to the Seventy.  LeRon's head is just behind blond Sister Clarke and I am next to LeRon in a dark dress.  I had a good peek-hole.

We're driving home from the mission conference across the water that separates islands.  So many islands.  So much water.  Many years ago, when Brother Daclan (who will soon be moving into our apartment building) was young, his family joined the church.  Their only transportation was one bicycle. Every Sunday, all six of them rode (somehow) that one bicycle all the way across this body of water to the church.  It was a long way and took a long time, but they faithfully went every week.  

Brother Daclan also tells of the time that his father wanted to go to the temple, but wasn't able to get a temple recommend because he was not paying tithing.  (The payment of an honest tithe, which is 1/10 of income, is one of the requirements for a temple recommend.)  So his father sold their carabao, paid his tithing and received the blessings of the temple.  Talk about faith!  The carabao was their only work animal that pulled a plough to work the land.  Not sure how the work got done after the carabao was sold.  I'm sure we'll hear more stories after he moves into our building.

Gorgeous flowering tree on the temple grounds.  Google says this a Banaba tree (not banana), also known as Queen's crepe-myrtle or Pride of India.  Some say that parts of this tree can treat diabetes.  Hmn . . . maybe I should check it out.

Look at the size of those leaves!

Beautiful against that blue sky.  Not all Banaba trees have such vivid colors.  I've seen others that were quite pale in comparison.

I've been seeing so many gorgeous orange flowering trees but it's hard to get a picture from the taxi window as we zoom by.  Google says this is a "Fire tree" or a "Narra" tree, which is the national tree of the Philippines. 

We saw a lot of beautiful flowering trees in Nairobi in Kenya, and now we are seeing beautiful ones in Cebu, which, by the way, is pronounced "see-boo'" with the accent on the last syllable.  I heard a missionary say "si-boo" and the children made fun of him.  It's a definite "see."  Some American missionaries say "say'-boo" but that also is incorrect.

A street vendor is selling buko, (fresh green coconuts).  Filipinos love it for its refreshing sweet coconut water.

Blurry photo taken out of a taxi window.  We pass this fruit stand regularly.  This woman sells day and night.

Another blurry picture.  I have been wanting to show you the way many people live here, even in the city.  Sheets of tin protect them as much as they can from the elements.  We wonder how they survived the recent downpour.  Two ladies that I know said that often, when it rains like that, their homes are completely covered with water.  They laughed while telling me.  It's just life for them.

We regularly pass this pedestrian overpass on Gorordo Avenue, which is the street that our temple compound is on.  Gorordo Avenue is the main drag here.

Love those overhead electrical wires.  We've learned that when there's an electrical problem, they just cut the wires and add new ones, leaving the old ones rolled up.  That's easier to do than trying to trace each individual wire.  We've seen even crazier electrical wires in Hanoi, Vietnam.  And by the way, our niece's daughter has been called on her mission to Hanoi.  That will be an experience!

Macapuno is "a rare, naturally occurring, mutant variety of the standard coconut."  Macapuno has no liquid inside as does a regular coconut.  The inner cavity is filled with a thick, soft, jelly-like flesh.  It's used to make these delicious macapuno tarts.  These tarts are a delicacy found in the Bacolod area of the Philippines.

The "Care and Cure Hub" is a walk-in medical clinic in the basement of the Ayala Mall that I have been going to more regularly than I would like.  The chairs are usually full of people waiting to see one of the doctors.  It doesn't look like much but is actually quite amazing.  In the back are many, many rooms with a lab, x-ray machines and other things.  I had my blood work done here and received the results within an hour.  Click on the next picture to see what all happens here in this clinic.

Who would guess from the tiny waiting area that so many things could be taken care of here in this small medical clinic.  There are even some specialists attached to the clinic.  I have been totally impressed with the calibre of my doctor, Dr. Benedict Go, who is my oldest son, Michael's, age and has been a doctor for 25 years.  He asks the same questions that my doctor back in Alberta would ask and has done the same kind of testing.  Who knew that I would receive good medical care in the developing country of the Philippines.  But I'm so grateful.