"Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ ..."

    Our mission has recently embraced Facebook as a missionary tool and in doing so, we needed to update our personal Facebook profiles to be in alignment with missionary guidelines ... hence my new profile picture wearing my missionary tag. I love that I "had" to do this. What a privilege it is for me to declare to my universe of family and friends: "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life." (3 Nephi 5:13)

    We are deeply engaged in missionary work and we love what we do. We had the opportunity last week to welcome four new missionaries to the Philippines Olongapo Mission. These are the first missionaries from outside the boundaries of our mission to arrive in almost a year. They arrived in two groups and on their first day in the mission field, we welcomed them with a dinner and brief training and then transferred them to be with their new companions in their respective areas. A few days later we followed up on Zoom with more in-depth orientation and training. They are remarkable young people, ready and eager to serve with their whole hearts as missionaries. (Our two assistants are great sign holders!) 

    In the same week, we said goodbye to five of our beloved missionaries, one sister and four elders. Our office sisters and our assistants joined us in the farewell events. It's never easy to say goodbye to missionaries we know and love. 

    One of the unusual situations that many missions around the world have found themselves in is having empty missionary apartments. When all foreign missionaries returned to their home countries due to Covid's appearance a year ago, many missionary apartments were left vacant. A year ago our mission had about 175 missionaries and we currently have 65 missionaries. Over the past few months, we had our Facilities Maintenance group empty out most of these vacant apartments and consolidate the furnishings to a few storage apartments. This left us with the big task of cleaning out and organizing the storage apartments. With the help of our hard-working missionaries, we've finished one apartment, with three more to go. Our goal is to finish this month.

    Our first Christmas in the mission field was a bit unusual and a bit of a blur for me because I was deep in the clutches of Covid. Thankfully Steve escaped it, or if he did have it, it was a very mild case with minor symptoms. I struggled for about three weeks, rallied for a few days, and then was back down again for about a week. The good news for me is that I was able to quarantine at home and not in a public quarantine facility, which is unusual here in the Philippines. One of our missionaries was not so lucky and he quarantined for three weeks in a public facility. Thankfully I had a wonderful personal caregiver and it's all now just a story to tell. 

    My sister-in-law Melanie did send me this amazingly perfect picture, with the caption "#caughtthemall." 

    I was able to rally on Christmas day and participate in our mission Christmas devotional, which included delightful Christmas video presentations put together by each of our three zones, as well as talks by me and Steve. Our devotional was a rare appearance out of pajamas for me during those few weeks. The videos that our zones had put together were inspirational, humorous, and showcased their creative talents. One zone put together a video presentation acting out the entire Christmas story, and the missionaries all live in different cities. Their creativity and video editing abilities on their smartphones are astounding. 

    When our assistant and I were both back to normal, we celebrated by taking our office sisters and our assistants to a good Mexican restaurant we had discovered, with a lovely view of Subic Bay.

    Our children had shipped Christmas presents to us in November and they arrived in January. What a delightful treat to open stocking gifts from our children. When you haven't eaten in weeks and your children know you well enough to send Sweet Baby Ray's, there's just no other option than to eat it by the spoonful. 

    We still enjoy magnificent sunsets up and down the west coast of this beautiful island we live on.

    And we are so much grateful to have discovered a lovely resort in the town of Bagac, located in the Bataan peninsula, which is the southern half of our mission. This will become our home away from mission home each time we visit our missionaries in our southern zone. Once again, God knew which mission was perfect for us.