December 8th - December 15th

Check out this water color!

Twice a year we get to be inspired at a Mission Leaders Seminar. We are in Manila for the week.

Dinner with some new friends!

And dessert!

Had a wonderful afternoon with these amazing women at the pearl market. Sister Scholls & I had such an adventure parking & driving from the hotel in downtown Manila.

We loved our session at the Manila Temple this morning. We ran into two of our returned missionaries. Sister Loralee Fuentes and Brother Chino Guerrero.

A Thanksgiving Message!

This is from Elder Cook - as he recently dedicated the Casper Wyoming temple - “I believe that the youth of the Church will have greater protection from the adversary if they immerse themselves in searching for their ancestors, preparing their names for the sacred vicarious ordinances available in the temple and then go to the temple to stand as proxy for them to receive the ordinances of baptism and gift of the Holy Ghost, or act as a witness,” said the Apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It brings me great peace as I look at the world we live in & the commotion that has been prophesied by living prophets. Thank you for going to the temple with this rising generation. I am feeling so grateful on our beautiful fast Sunday. We love you all.

We had a great Pday bike ride today. 20 miles of up and down hills.

4 Wonderful Days of Zone Conference! I love it that we were able to interact with every single missionary in our mission over those days. We love them!

Yay for gifts for the missionaries. The pillowcases were so darling and so loved by the missionaries. We have received many thanks for the beautiful gift. I love the thought of our missionaries sleeping on a Christmas pillowcase and dreaming of what they can do and give for Christmas.

Sister Riviera - One of our faithful Sister Service Missionaries.

Here is a picture from the Mission Leadership Seminar. Our batch! Oh how we love these, our dear friends.

Thanksgiving with our Senior Missionaries. We had cranberries! It was a little heavy on desserts, but who can complain about that?

We received these 2 photos last week. The first one is of one of our returned missionaries - Patrick Cabrera & his family. That photo says it all - JOY

The second photo is of Rose Ann Dela Cruz, another of our returned missionaries who was sealed with her family. Those messages are so sweet for us to receive. The temples are blessing the Philippines in so many ways. We are grateful to be a small part of this great work.

The baptism of Kiesha was a tender experience for all in attendance.

Welcome Elder Ueno from Guam. His entire family was baptized in 2020 and was sealed in the Guam temple one year later.

Welcome Elder Kassah from Ghana. He has spend the past 5 years living in Utah attending High School and the UVU.

Welcome Sister Hoeft form Tonga. She is the youngest of 4 sisters and one older brother. All of her sisters have served missions. What a blessing they have been to the missionary program of the church. She tenderly shared with us the heartbreaking challenge of loosing her dad in 2020.

Elder Ueno gave Michael a beautiful necklace form the Marshall Islands. As you can see in the photo. He told President Bingham that it is a sign of respect from his family that lived in the Marshall Islands.