Success

Ralph Waldo Emerson said "To know even one life breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded ." We still continue to keep busy with the temporal welfare of the missionaries. So at times we haven't had time to write. We don't get to go with the missionaries often but we continue to help our branch members in training and lifting the down trodden and afflicted . Its been a joy for us to serve in these two branches and have grown so very close to these wonderful people here.We have been blessed so much and have received far more than what we have given. Our service to others may not be dramatic non the less its the little acts of kindness, a smile, a hug, a word of encouragement, a visit to the sick that draws us closer to the Savior. This is what he did; he showed compassion to every one! As we follow him and strive to do what he would do if he were here,we in turn are blessed ten fold. We will ever be grateful for the humble people here and what they have taught us. We acknowledge his hand in all things, its amazing we are even here. We know this is where we are suppose to be at this time. We have a strong testimony of that! Our Mission has helped us evolve into something better than we were in the beginning. We will probably be here till the end of June so we can continue to help Pres. Stucki with the split of the Mission. Every one says how beautiful Palawan is so we are excited for the change and look forward to meeting the people there.

Accidents

The other day we saw a bad accident where a tricycle hit a dump truck head on. It was bad, blood everywhere and  I'm sure no one in the tricycle survived; so sad. The traffic over here is really crazy and it is our prayer and our goal to not kill any one while we are here. Each of the senior couples has had a collision with a motorcycle except us so far. Thankfully no serious injuries but certainly scary.One pair of missionaries was on a bus the other day going down a hill when it lost it's brakes hit to cars, almost ran into a Catholic church but swerved and went through the guard rail on a bridge at the bottom of the hill and nose dived about thirty or forty feet down into a river. Missionaries are truly guarded by angels because they came out without a scratch. The two parents of a family in one of the cars were killed and there were several  others injured. The elders were able to help some of the people on the bus get out. Pretty scary!

Palawan

On April 26 we had interviews with President Stucki. It's always nice to have some time with him; he's truly an inspired man and it always gives us a boost to talk with him. In and earlier interview he had mentioned the possibility of us being transferred out to Palawan island but had not said any more about it. This time however he said that he really felt that is where we need to be but said we didn't have to go if we didn't want to and said he knew how much we loved the people in our present area. What do you say though when your  president says he feels it's what the Lord wants us to do? he asked us to pray about it and we have but we already felt that it was right and since have had that feeling confirmed so we are off  to Palawan. It's not going to happen, though, until sometime in June just before the mission split. Pres Stucki wants us to get as much done as possible before the split on the apartments because he doesn't have anyone to replace us so far. So we are going as hard as we can to refurbish existing apartments and find new ones. Busy! but it's all good!

Youth

Last evening I went over to the church to meet a family we had invited for dinner but when I got there there was a young man who was in the midst of some kind of seizure or something and some members were trying to help him but he wasn't responding. He was breathing really hard but wouldn't respond verbally and then he got so he wasn't breathing hardly at all and his pulse in his wrist was very faint and he was cold so we put him in the van and rushed him to the hospital. On the way he started getting really stiff and threw up once; we weren't sure what was going on. Anyway we got him there and they worked on him for awhile and got him stabilized and said he was overheated and was way low on potassium. After awhile he seemed to be ok and wanted to go home but they wouldn't let him go because he couldn't pay the bill. So we had to go looking for his parents but he's the only member of his family and lives with his grandmother and no one knew where she lives. We finally got ahold of the missionaries and they knew but when we got there the grandma had no money so we had to go find his parents. They sent a little boy with us to their house. Pretty messed up family; they didn't really seem to want to do anything but finally the father came with us. When we got there though he had no money either so after talking with the doctor etc. we took him to grandma and hopefully they worked something out to get him out. By now it was 9pm but the family we had invited still wanted to come for dinner so we brought them home and they ate with us and finally left around 11 pm. Another adventure. We sure take for granted all the wonderful blessings we have. A lot of the youth here are really amazing; they have really messed up families but they are very active and faithful. By the way the father of the family we had over for dinner is leaving today to go back to work on a ship. He won't be home again for 2 years. I thought I was in camp for a long time!

Brown Out

Saturday evening we had a real banger of a thunderstorm and were without power most of the night. It made for kind of a unique baptism. MaryLuna Gabuya was baptized. She is a very sweet lady who the missionaries have been teaching; actually they were teaching her son but the son has all kinds of marriage and  other problems and as yet has not gotten baptized but his mother became interested and accepted the gospel. Anyway we went ahead with the baptism in the dark with everyone using their cellphones for light. It was actually kind of neat and there was a wonderful Spirit there and she bore a very sweet testimony. The rest of the night was not very fun though because we had no aircon and no fans so it was extremely hot and muggy all night. When the power came on finally at 3am I was so drenched with sweat I had to get up and change clothes. I'ts funner in the Philippines!

Summer Heat Summer Cold

We have both been sick here for a couple of days, but on the mend . John was sicker than I was which is different because I am usually always sicker than he is. Had bad colds,sore throat,head ache just feeling really lousy . John is still a bit sick. We went to church yesterday then John went Home teaching. While he was gone 3 YSA girls came over and brought ice cream and mangoes  they stayed for three hours and just talked. They are such neat girls wish I could bring them all home with us. We had a High Council man come to the branch yesterday along with his wife. They were talking to us afterwards and asked us where we were from. We told her Canada she said "Oh my, how the Lord has blessed you that you could live in this heat. She said we can hardly bear it so you know the Lord is really blessing you so you can  tolerate this heat. Its suppose to be 98 at the end of the week. so that means it will feel like 120 with the humidity. Think that's why we got sick going back and forth from heat to air con. We are tolerating it but barely !

Another Wedding

We went to MaryGrace Bagangan's wedding today. She is MaryCris' sister who was baptized with her mother a couple of months ago. They were the first people we shared the gospel with here. We tried to share the gospel with her and her boyfriend also but so far he is not too interested but we encouraged them to get married and I guess they took our advice. It was just a simple wedding at the mayor's office but it was nice and they were excited. Hopefully in the future we can teach them also and help them become an eternal family.

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