Our District

We have been meeting every Tuesday with the young missionaries in our district.  Here's a picture of them from September 24th before some of the them transferred out.

We found out who was being transferred and what changes were coming to the District. More missionaries are arriving into the mission field and the District is being divided. There were 2 Districts in the Zone and now there will be 3. Another set of Sister Missionaries is being assigned to the Manila 2nd Ward where there had been just one set of Elders. Two others are being transferred along with Elder Tofi but Elder Bahan is staying. Elder Tofi is being transferred to Tondo, which is the area that we got lost in a couple of weeks ago. We joked with him about how bad the area is and told him that Senior Couples are not even supposed to go to Tondo. We also joked with Elder Bahan when he arrived saying that he may stay in this one area his whole mission and could be in the Ward longer than we will be.

 

On Saturday, October 5th, we went with the missionaries, new members, and investigators to the Manila Temple to tour the temple grounds.  We had to meet at the chapel before 6:00 AM, but ended up waiting for everyone to arrive.  We took an investigator and two sister missionaries in our car and drove to the temple.  The others rode in jeepneys.  It was a beautiful day.  Here is a picture of the temple:

 

 

 



The Temple grounds were crowded with investigators, less actives and Missionaries from the entire Mission along with the normal Saturday crowd of Church members. It was great. People everywhere feeling the Spirit and going to the Temple.

This is a picture of Jewel and Marie Estrada and their mother.

 (They are my Filipino adopted granddaughters.)

 

After we arrived at the temple, I spent some time with Sister Estrada's children entertaining them while we waited for our turn for the Temple Tour. Her youngest daughter, Marie, asked her mother if I was nice. When her mother said yes, she became my best friend. Marie doesn't speak any English, but somehow we communicate with each other. While we waited in the temple annex, I got out our tablet and let her and her siblings play the Jewel game.  They couldn't get enough of it.

When it came time to go back to Manila, Marie insisted that she wanted to ride with me in our car. I'm not sure her mother wanted to let her do that. I finally talked to her mother and asked if Marie could ride with us. She gave her okay, so Marie was very happy.



 

 

 Merry Christmas from the Philippines!

 

Christmas comes to the Philippines starting in September.  We got a "Merry Christmas" message from the Zone Leaders starting on September 1st.  The malls have started playing Christmas songs now too.  We thought Christmas came early in the U.S., but the Filipinos have us beat.

 

 

We see vendors along the streets every day selling lots of things.  One thing they sell are these carved pineapples.  They carve and sell them all day long.  We finally bought one when we were on a very narrow street and it was easy to stop and purchase it.  We didn't eat it right away because we wanted to take it home and rinse it off first.  We are always warned about not buying food from street vendors because you don't know how it has been treated.