Dear Family,
We are enjoying a quiet Sunday here in
Fairview. This morning was stake
conference in our home stake, and I went knowing I would only have to give a
short testimony since President Bowen was presiding with an Area Seventy, Elder
Lee. When we arrived, President Bowen
greeted us warmly and said, "Since it's Mother's Day, we will only have
the women speak." I thought, "WHAT??
You have that backwards --the women should have Mother's Day OFF from
speaking!" But he assured me that I
still only needed to speak 2-3 minutes, so I made it through. Stewart, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed
the meeting and even dozed off at one point.
We enjoyed Monday with Derrick and Dallin,
who came from Singapore late Sunday night.
When we go to Manila, we eat. We had a delicious breakfast and lunch
together, eating as much food at restaurants as possible before returning to
the mission, where McDonalds is the best restaurant available. Sister Cole was pleased to see Dallin at
district meeting on Tuesday, and we celebrated with way too much pizza for one
of our zones since Sister Mapa, Sam''s friend from Panama Misison, Elder Mapa's, cousin, left the mission a week
early to meet up with her family before her brother left on his mission. It was
sad to see Dallin pack up to head to Hungary, but he met up safely with Fenton,
Matthew, Rebekah and Hannah and Sarah & Rocky's family in Budapest. We heard he got the wrong date on the lunch
he was invited to by President and Sister Szbadkai, and Matthew and Rebekah
were so kind to babysit on the spur of the moment at a park in the rain while
the rest of them ran off for lunch!
Thursday we fed 64 missionaries with
six-week training in the morning and Mission Leadership Council in the
afternoon. I'm so thankful for my helper
at the mission home -- she is getting very good at making missionary meals and
her cookies are outlawed by me and Stewart.
(We try to forget the cookies in our freezer!) Stewart had lots of extra meetings with
missionaries who are departing, and some who are texting girls, chasing their
companions with knives, etc. Just
another week in the mission . . .
On Friday I stayed home and tried lots of
new salad recipes in our attempt to eat better.
Filipino rice and sweets are fantastic, but not helping us very much;
however, the mangoes are in season and
super delicious. Our stake president
brought us a big bag of them and they're almost gone, and that's without
Dallin's help. Actually all the fresh
vegetables here are very good, and I am trying to learn how to cook some of
them, although my attempts at ampalaya (bitter gourd) have not turned out
well. There are a lot that I still don't
know what to do with, especially the greens.
Saturday morning we went to the 9am
marriage of a college professor Stewart helped teach. He and his partner have lived together over
12 years and have three children.
Stewart helped teach his "wife" of the importance of marriage,
and after attending church since December she finally agreed to marry him. The wedding started 90 minutes late, but it
was sweet, and attended by lots of non-members who stayed for their baptism and
heard talks and testimonies. Usually the
traffic prohibits us from attending more than one baptism, but since the first
one was so early, we were able to see a humble woman be baptized with two of her
children. The elders who found her joked
that the Spirit prompted them with hunger and they bought lumpia from her on
the street and talked with her about the gospel. Although less educated, she was ever bit as
confident in her testimony, born at the conclusion of her baptism, as the college
professor was in his. And we had a
Philippine Area Record: the baptism
began on time and was over within one hour!
On this Mother's Day I am more grateful
than ever for my mom and her influence and her love for me. It's more like the Savior's love than
anything else I have felt. And I'm
grateful to be a mother--it's my most favorite job ever. I've become more aware
on this mission of the mistakes I made mothering, but also of the healing power
of the Atonement, which I hope will make all things right.
Love you,
Mom
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