September 9th- 15th

September 15, 2024

September 9th- 15th

Today we had the most interesting thing happening as I was riding my bike. All of the sudden after riding about 10 miles I felt something on my leg - outside of my calf - it looked like a twig on my leg. I brushed it off - it was pretty sticky - but I did get it off my leg & then had to wipe my hand. I didn't think much of it because it was a wet morning and there was a lot of leaves and debris on the trail. About 30 minutes more of riding and I wanted to adjust my bike seat. I looked down and saw what looked like twigs or dried grass wrapped around my crank - near my front gears. When I tried to remove it, it started moving!! So I called Micheal and he got a twig and removed 5-9 skinny worms from my bike!! YUCK.

Goodbye to Elder Borg & Elder Bennett! We will see you in Idaho!

Welcome Elder Aniban! We are happy to have you serve in our mission! Elder Aniban is a reassigned missionary.

What a great trisome of sister missionaries! Sister Adadottor, Sister Jones, and Sister Mamon!

Sister Orchard, Sister Ray, Sister Adjadottor, Sister Jones, Sister Mamon, Sister Van Tassell, and me.

Welcome Sister Asuncion! Sister Asuncion arrived in our mission from the Manilla MTC She has been assigned to our mission while she waits for her visa to come so that she can serve at her original call to Chili.

Welcome Elder Buenaventura! We are so happy to have you serving in our mission while you wait for your Visa to serve in the country of Brasil.

Here goes round two of our fabulous visit from Brooklyn and John to our mission! We LOVED having them here so much.

We loved our visit to the US World War II Cemetery - located in Manilla. IT is the largest US War Cemetery located outside the of the US. It is a beautiful place and made us all so grateful for those who made the greatest sacrifice for us to have the freedom we enjoy and take advantage of. We all had a little refresher on WWII and actually learned a lot more about how the war devastated the Philippines. We now better understand the love that the Filipinos have for Americans. We also understand why the long highway from Manila to the ocean on Northern Luzon is named MacArthur Highway.

We took a little "google map short-cut" through an unbelievable road. Driving in the Philippine jungle with B&J is awesome - we drove so many kilometers with them giving them the tour of our mission from top to bottom and in between as well!

Montasario de Tarlac.

Lunch at Mudita's. Oven baked pizza in the middle of a rice field.

Brooklyn and John enjoyed some basketball, rock paper scissors and down by the banks of the hanky panky with the kids outside of the church.

Baptism in Paniqui of a young sister! Thanks for the selfie Elder Lorejo & Elder Nichols ( Elder Nichols's mother and I are 2nd cousins)

Planting rice is such a laborious job - all done by hand. It really in unbelievable the work that rice takes.

Sunday- Church in Victoria! Elder Locsin Elder Gabrido, Sister Castro, and Sister Umacob - the 4 of us. Look at all of the rising generation. They are the life-blood of the church. It's amazing to see the lord's work of gathering Israel happening here. We are happy that B&J got to see it too. Even though there was no AirCon for sacrament meeting, and the sacrament prayers were in Tagalog. What a grand adventure.

We had a wonderful visit with the Sisters and Elders serving in Conception. We love to hear the background and the stories of our missionaries, and it was awesome that B&J got a little insight into a few missionaries and their lives.

A beautiful drive to Canding Fallls.

Michael jumped on the back of this motorcycle to rent us the "seat belts" that we needed to cross this river. I was happy when he returned - it was a little sketchy - 2 on that little bike!

Missionary Visits on a Monday night!

Oh my heart! It was sad to say goodbye! We LOVED having B&J here. They are so special & the time we got to spend with them will be a forever memory for me. It was a long flight both ways and our time together flew by so fast. But - we loved every minute of their visit.