River scene from Candoni--baby carabao on left follows his mother into the river

The best thing that happened this week was the birth of our fifth grandchild; Alexander George Mower on February 6^th.  We received a call at 1:01 am February 7^th from our son Spencer sharing that little Alex had been born about an hour earlier.  If you can imagine, George slept through the entire call!  Then I had to wait for the pictures to arrive a little while later.  He will join his two older brothers Nathen (7) and Tyler (5) and sister, Kaylee (almost 3).  Stephanie the best daughter-in-law I could ever hope for said, when Kaylee was asked about her brother arriving, she said “he will never come”.   

Little Alex fresh from Heaven

We took our new mission President and Sister Ferrin to a baptism out in the bukid.  They are so excited to meet the missionaries and the fine people living on Negros.  Little did they realize this was an all day adventure as we traveled south and into the mountains to Candoni.  Elder DeVera went home a few months ago and his last area was Candoni.  Now his first cousin is serving in the same area.  The new Elder DeVera was on his third day in the mission when he had the opportunity to baptize three candidates in the beautiful slow moving river.

Little girls washing their clothes in the river

River baptism at Candoni with President & Sister Ferrin

Today we traveled south to Pulupandan and attended two sacrament meetings.  The members were so happy to have visitors.  It was kind of nice to sit back a bit and have President and Sister Ferrin in the limelight.  I did get to be the pianist at one meeting and we were able to share our testimonies at the second sacrament meeting. 

Friendly members welcoming to Pulupandan Ward with Sister Ferrin

We were so close to the ocean, we decided to get a closer look.  Unfortunately the truck became stuck in the deep dry sand (I think we lost our job of driving President and Sister Ferrin around).  No worries, the barangay men came and with dried palms, a heavy boat rope and a jeepney we were pulled out.  Sister Ferrin and I were walking and a man asked what was going on, we said the truck was stuck.  He questioned, why would anybody drive in the deep sand?  Hmmmm, I wonder!

Rescued with a little help from our friends