Happy Birthday, President Colton!

I don't think there could be a better place for Steve to be on his 60th birthday than here in the Philippines. He woke up to happy birthday calls from our kids and grandkids and then throughout the day he was showered with love from our missionaries, including a remarkable birthday video, a chocolate cake hand delivered to our front door by our office sisters and assistants, Pancit (a noodle dish) & Chicken Tinola (a soup) cooked by our amazing office secretary Sister Redondo, and then the day wrapped up with a birthday video from our family (our extended family and Steve's Zerorez family). Happy 60th birthday, President Colton! Glad you were born!

We're halfway through our 14 day quarantine and we've certainly appreciated being quarantined in our lovely mission home with the lovely views from our kitchen and family room windows.

We've spent the week in Zoom calls with our missionaries, connecting by Zoom with our young sister missionaries who run the mission office, and connecting by Zoom with a call to each of our missionary companionships to help us start to get to know each missionary. We stand in awe at the depth, strength, dedication and enthusiasm of each missionary. We have much to learn from them! 

We've said goodbye to our first departing missionaries, Sister Digdig and Sister Pagaspas. 

We've been blessed by another fruit delivery by Bro Wright, this time with dragon fruit. It comes in red, white, pink and yellow and this dragon fruit was red, apparently the sweetest. It's as delicious as it is exotic.

We've already learned to appreciate our wonderful househelp, Mercy, who does everything, including cleaning, washing, ironing and cooking. I'll say it again ... God knew my heart when he called us to this mission. I'm grateful to be able to spend my time focused on our missionaries.  

We've mastered the generator switch, learning Nor means normal and Gen means Generator. We are grateful for the generator that keeps our power running in power outages, which have happened just about every day so far.

And lastly, I am feeling especially grateful today for the examples of my mother-in-law Ellie Colton and father-in-law Sterling Colton, who served as mission leaders in the Canada Vancouver Mission from 1995-1998. My sister-in-law Carolyn shared a picture of their mission plaque this week and I'm feeling blessed to have had their example and love in my life and I am deeply grateful to be following in their footsteps. My father-in-law, a serious early riser, would be proud of my jet-lag induced 3:45am wake ups.