Dear Family,
Thanks for your birthday phone calls
yesterday--it was so great to see so many of you. And I am loving the video Hannah and Dallin
made of the grandchildren and have watched it over and over --just finished
watching it on the mission home tv with Dad.
I was having a bad day and determined not to talk to anyone, but I
really appreciate your kind words and your expressions of love. I am so blessed.
We met with five zones this week and Dad
interviewed the missionaries. I checked
on their language study except for Wednesday when I went shopping at the Manila
bazaar with the seniors in the morning and found my plan to take a GRAB taxi to
interviews in the afternoon failed since no one wanted to drive me all the way
to Malolos. So I went to lunch with the
seniors instead, and it turned into a birthday lunch for me when Sister Cole
secretly paid the bill and ordered singers and ice cream for me!
It's fun to watch how much the missionaries
love and admire Dad. They often quote
him to me and in their district meetings and zone teaching. And they LOVE being interviewed and meeting with
him. He asked them each to come prepared
to share with him in their interview the Christlike attribute they're trying to
develop, and he said it's 80% PATIENCE!
After interviews on Friday afternoon we
braved Manila traffic to meet up with Derrick for dinner. It was great to see him and he brought me
chocolate! Then we had a birthday
breakfast before he returned to Singapore Saturday morning. Then back to the mission for Dad to interview
some prospective members for baptism. He
told about one woman he interviewed who'd experienced very difficult
circumstances in her life. She wasn't
happy and she knew she wasn't pleasing God by the way she was living. In desperation, she prayed to God to help her
and the next day the missionaries knocked on her door. She said the moment she saw them she knew
they had the answers she needed. The
missionaries taught her, the members loved her and she repented and will be
baptized next Saturday. The Lord really
is preparing people to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ!
We spent the next several hours attending
baptisms in a far part of the mission (remember where we went in Montalban Sam
and Dallin?) where we saw an 88- year-old woman baptized. The baptizer had to be very innovative and I
sweat a lot during the attempts he made, but he did it! We also saw a family in another ward baptized
with three of their many sons. All
together there were 39 baptisms in the mission yesterday! We got home and planned to watch the
MisterRogers documentary to celebrate my birthday, but only lasted through half
of it before Dad asked if we could watch the rest later because he was so
tired. My best birthday present: DAD SLEPT EIGHT HOURS STRAIGHT!! (He woke up at 2am Sat morning, so he'd had a
long day.)
Today we attended and spoke at a stake
conference at San Jose North along with the 2nd counselor in our area
presidency, Elder Wakolo, who told the whole congregation about eating Filipino
food at Abby and Mark's house in Utah. (Thanks Mark and Abby for your hard work
and hospitality!) His wife laughed with
me about Rosie and wanted to know if we would take her back when we
returned. NO!! The photo below is the missionaries lined up
to greet people as they arrived at stake conference.
Thanks for your love and support--please
keep the prayers coming. We seem to need
them more every day! We really need miracles.
Love,
Mom
Photos:
Sister Gisala's baptism - so glad she survived it!
Missionaries at SJN stake conference
Beauty on a dirty side street
Birthday lunch with seniors
Alegada Family on trike after baptism (mom out of sight in side car)
Sister Ogden made delicious cheesecake for the office meeting
Breakfast with Derrick
Pearl market with seniors
Manila Bay -- you can smell it before you see it
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