Caraboa carrying a harvest of rice (we think)

Some of our favorite things on our mission: the privilege of coming to the Philippines, the beautiful flora; everybody has a green thumb here!  Of course, we love the missionaries and President and Sister Ferrin, but we love weekends.   Weekends because we are out of the mission office and we get to go to baptisms and visit wards and branches all over the place.

Members tidying up outside before meeting

We just returned from Lopez Jaena one of the few Churches we have not attended traveling North.  We left early with the plan to head South once again; we looked at each other and said “Nah”.  We have visited over 60 different sacrament meetings in the Mission during the past fifteen months!  And most places we go, we are a curiosity!  Today was no exception; we arrived for the 9:00 meeting at 8:30 am and the gate was locked.  The Bishop and his daughter “Twinkle” drove up on their motor scooter about 15 minutes later.  We helped put up all the plastic chairs for the classes.  Right before Sacrament Meeting the Bishop came up to George and me and said, “You will be our speakers today.”

Sister Elizabeth before baptism with the missionaries

During the week one of the Sister Missionary companionship's told us about a wonderful 79-year old sister who was going to be baptized.  She was a lawyer, school principal, and former Baptist Minister.  We just had to attend with a background like that.  She didn’t disappoint us—she was a wonderful woman; Sister Elizabeth.  She had the light of Christ already in her countenance.  She shared a sweet, tearful testimony about how blessed she was after all these years to find the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.  She said the Lord had prepared her to receive the Gospel over her life.  She had heard of the Mormon Church before, but everything she heard was untrue and kept her from investigating further.  At first, she didn’t understand why she needed to be baptized, because she had already accepted the Lord Jesus Christ and had been baptized.  But she then learned that she needed to be baptized by someone holding the authority and she became convinced this was the case.

Tall grass being cut by our house by a 'ninja' worker

A couple of observations from this week: The rain has brought beautiful long green grass.  I watched a ninja dressed man cut the grass across the street with a “weed wacker”; helps keep the snakes at bay.  When he took a rest, he just squatted down on his haunches for awhile.  This is a most uncomfortable looking position, but common here.  I also noticed our neighbor’s cats love this place.  They leisurely lay on the roof on the front benches or just across the warm cement of the cottage.  Just don’t try to touch them!

Cat lazily lounging on the roof outside

Man enjoying the scenic position on the bus--and notice the pig in the trike in opposite lane