He Lives!

Two of our remarkably talented sister missionaries made this drawing! And there's an interesting backstory for this magnificent picture ... about three months ago, we created three local Facebook pages for the Philippines Olongapo Mission. The Facebook pages are designed to help our missionaries find those who live within our mission boundaries and who are interested in hearing the gospel message. Our missionaries are responsible for posting the content on each Facebook page, including an original video post once a week and picture posts 2-3 times a day. Two of our missionaries did a fabulous time lapse video of the two of them making this drawing and then posted the video to our Facebook pages. A few weeks later they surprised us with the drawing as a gift. Needless to say, this is a unique treasure and we were deeply touched. 

Other missionaries have also posted their artwork on our Facebook pages, including these two paintings which one of our elders painted before his mission. We adore these young missionaries and we stand in awe of their talents which they dedicate so generously to sharing the gospel message.

We recently hosted an Easter devotional and much like our Christmas devotional, we were amazed at how many people tuned in for this. Our audience is our missionaries and those they are teaching, as well as members of our faith who live in our mission. This time we offered the devotional on both Zoom and Facebook Live and we had at least 340 devices on the call. We move forward with these devotionals because it's the message, not the messengers, that are important. We love the message and count our blessings that we get to share the message of Jesus Christ and His gospel every day. We count it a unique blessing that we could joyously share the message of His resurrection on Easter. 

Despite the challenges and obstacles of Covid, missionary work continues to excel here in our mission. We welcomed four new missionaries last month. They arrived here having completed two weeks of online missionary training. After a couple hours of training at our mission home, we had dinner with them and then we sent them to their missionary areas. A week later we followed up with more training. In addition, each new missionary is paired with a trainer, an experienced missionary who works closely with a new elder or sister for twelve weeks, helping them learn all the ways of missionary work. 

We also said goodbye to five wonderful missionaries. We honor goodbyes with a dinner and a special evening when missionaries have a chance to share their experiences and their testimonies. Our office sisters and our assistants join us for the farewells. Goodbyes just get harder as time goes by.

Because of Covid we still don't allow our missionaries to ride public jeepneys or buses. To help offset the impact of this, we've purchased 73 new bikes over the past few months, replacing all of our old bikes and distributing new bikes to almost every area in our mission. We also purchased bike accessories (helmets, locks, pumps, tire repair kits and lights), which we've given to each missionary. Our bike fleet is like a US mission car fleet and they require constant upkeep and maintenance. On our recent mission tour, President Colton installed mudguards to keep our missionaries from getting that line of dirt on their backside when they bike in the rain. In addition, our missionaries have put together some helpful and endearing videos teaching basic bike maintenance and cleaning. 

 

We continue to conduct most of our training by Zoom, including zone conferences, area mission tours, and leadership training. There are advantages of online training in that it's less expensive and it takes less travel time but we do look forward to the camaraderie of in-person get togethers. The message is the same either way and training uplifts and inspires and motivates, regardless of the medium.

As we continue to travel our mission each month, we've figured out why googlemaps doesn't give accurate times ... 😉😀💖

And one more reason googlemaps can be unpredictable ... rice on the roads. Most of the time rice is dried on the shoulders of the roads but every now and again, it's dried right in the middle of the road and there's no choice but to drive right over it. 

The rice fields here are beautiful and plentiful ...

And the process of drying and then gathering the rice on the side of the road still fascinates us ...

We are in the heart of mango season right now and Zambales is known for world-class mangoes. We pass stands selling mangoes whenever we head north and we eat mangoes just about every day. I highly recommend Cheerios with a freshly cut-up mango for breakfast. 

The vistas and views and sunsets in the Philippines continue to enchant us ...

... including this view outside our front door ... 

... and this view at a hotel we frequent in the north.

I continue to enjoy outings with our office sisters to Olongapo, where we go to take care of mission business, including purchasing bedding for our incoming missionaries ... 

... and stops at the mall for phone repairs (because smartphones have become essential for doing missionary work in a Covid world), and stops for, well, of course, hand-squeezed lemonade. 

We continue to discover new foods, including ube, most easily described as a purple yam. We haven't actually eaten ube but we love ube ice cream.

I really really tried with balut because I wanted bragging rights with my kids and grandkids but I failed at the final step. Balut is a fertilized developing duck embryo that is boiled and eaten from the shell. Two of our office sisters love balut and they walked me through the steps of how to eat it. Steve has talked about it since his early mission years and I was determined to succeed. I was able to peel it and drink the juice and eat the equivalent of the egg yolk but that duck embryo ... no way. Maybe if my sisters-in-law Melanie and Carolyn and Julie eat it when they visit next year ...

I'll conclude with beautiful pictures so you're not left with the haunting pictures of balut. We continue to be amazed at God's creations and we love the flora we find everywhere we go ...

We love being missionaries and mission leaders and we love the gospel of Jesus Christ.