MORE FUN IN THE PHILIPPINES!

Learning to Contact using Inspired Questions

Guardians of the Zone Conference!

This has been a wonderful week.  Zone Conferences are always special because we get to see every Missionary in the mission and feel their spirit and find out how they are doing.  

Almost, without exception, we found them in good spirits and working hard in their teaching areas.  

Unfortunately, there seemed to be a lot of Missionaries who had lost their cell phones or they were no longer working.  It was excellent timing for the Mission President to announce that they may be getting ‘Smart’ phones before the end of the year.  

You could tell there was a ‘buzz’ of excitement.  I successfully killed the buzz by telling some of them that ‘now we can tell when you’re hanging around your apartment too long’.  I don’t know if it’s true or not; I just never miss an opportunity to kill someone else’s excitement.

JUST KIDDING!

On Wednesday we attended a young woman’s 18^th birthday celebration.  It’s a pretty big deal here when a girl “transitions from a girl to a woman”.  It was held at a Barangay Community Center and the weather was steamy hot.  The family hired a decorator, a caterer and a DJ who played the music so loud it made your teeth rattle.  The young woman was presented in a beautiful gown and escorted down a red carpet run to her seat on the stage.  There were lots of entertainment and well wishes, but the highlight, for me, was a waltz that she performed with 6-8 other young couples.  I never thought of the hymn “If you could Hie to Kolob” as a waltz tune before, but they pulled it off beautifully.

 



 On Saturday we went to teach a family with the Sister Missionaries in our branch. While we sat under shade, in front of their home, the Sisters taught the family about Repentance. At the same time and a naked 4-5-year-old boy filled a small bucket with water and gave himself a refreshing bath.  I thought the Sisters missed a real opportunity to use him as an example of how Repentance ‘washes’ us clean.

Four Baptisms.

We started our Fast early on Saturday because we were invited to go with the Elders to visit a family, they were teaching, for Lunch Sunday afternoon.  After church, we discovered that we had two invitations for lunch.  Not wanting to offend anyone, we agreed to come to both.  

The food was good, but the second appointment included a violin recital from their 10-year-old daughter that was absolutely inspiring.  I wanted to jump out of my seat and give her a great big hug!  But that’s not allowed, so I settled for cheers and “BRAVO!”.  After the entertainment, the father asked me if I would ‘bless’ his new well.  During a prior visit, we had watched them working on it, and today he finished connecting the pipe and started the electric pump.  I must confess, I got a little choked up to think that he wanted me to do that.  I thought about what an important thing it is to have a reliable source of water, and how much we take that for granted in the US.  I offered a short prayer of thanks. -ElderRoberts