Friday, February 5- Saturday, February 13

Friday-- to finish last week:  we gassed up for our road trip and purchased water and made a sack lunch for our trip.
Saturday no time for routine-- sit-ups only.  Picked up Boiser at 7:20 (roadblocks around town) probably a race of some kind, often happens on Saturdays.  10:00 we arrived in Antique and had a meeting there, mostly in their dialect so ...it was about organic farming.  It was our last meeting with them before we go home so they asked us to speak at the end.  We do love these people.  Grace Villavert came to see us.  We talked about her boyfriends and marriage etc.  After the meeting, I requested that we go see Sister Villavert, the district president's wife.  She is still not well.  I gave her a foot and head and shoulder massage.  It felt good she said and then we went on our way to Kalibo, where we will stay the night.  The road was beautiful but windy and mostly coastline.  3 1/2 hours and unfortunately, we had our first casualty--we hit a dog hard and ran over it with front and back tires.  We couldn't swerve.  There were people on both sides and we couldn't brake because we had someone behind us.  I'm sure the dog died soon.  It was sad but we just had to keep moving with traffic.  We arrived at the Marzon Hotel, rested a bit then went to get something to eat.  I had a salad and Ray had fish and chips.  His was okay. We shared both.  It always tastes good to get a real salad.  Not much here.  They don't eat rabbit food (lettuce).
Sunday we started our fast at night so we didn't have breakfast at the hotel.  We are fasting and praying as a family that the Lord will provide a buyer for Allred's house in Hailey, Idaho. It is quite a financial burden as they have taken a cut in pay to move to Preston.  8:00 Boiser checked us out of the hotel where we saw President Aquino.  We visited for a bit and then we went to the stake center as they are having stake conference then we decided to hurry onto Roxas and catch church there.  Roxas leaders contacted Boiser about 9:00 and wondered where we were.  They were waiting for us.  Somehow he had not taken care of the details.  And Saturday night Boiser's wife called him with a fever and she is expecting a baby and is in the early stages so he was worried and anxious to get home.  We arrived in Roxas about 10:50 and sacrament meeting was over and the stake president, President Olivera and Nestor, the stake specialist and Ward and branch specialists and facilitators were waiting for us.  Boiser went over the reporting process on the iPads with the overhead projector so we hope everyone figured it out.  How to register and how to report. They asked us to speak also so we did and some of them were wiping tears.  We will probably never see these people again.  I love these people.  It felt good to be with them.They all have amazing stories. 1:00 headed home.  There was another church at 1:30 but Boiser was anxious to get on the boat so.....we missed church all together.  It was soooooo....disappointing.  3:30 we left Boiser at the wharf to head home, no churches here at that time so we went home and listened to the last Conference, Saturday morning session.  At least we were blessed to fast.  Conference was wonderful again.  It struck me at the first and again as we re-listen how well the talks fit together.  One talk about the potters clay and how it must be perfectly centered on the wheel as our lives must be perfectly centered on Jesus Christ and then the next talk was a poem about the Lord being the potter and me being the clay.  And in our scripture reading, we are reading about how we must love only God, keep his commandments and statutes and serve Him and He will bless us, multiply us.  I just want to be fit for entrance into His kingdom, surrounded by all my family and in laws families.  I have been so blessed by the hand of the Lord--"As I gather my children around me, each one I fondly embrace.  Each a gift from my Maker--God has such wonderful taste."  Each has married companions that we love and their families have become our best friends.  And now the Lord has blessed them with increase.  When I read on fb(Facebook) Aunt Ranae and Rachael were counting how many in our family and they came up with 49.  I thought it was wrong but I used a calculator and came up with 49.  How we have prospered in the land.  I'm so thankful for the abundance in my life and the many tender mercies of our Heavenly Father on a daily basis.  The details...how grateful I am for the blessing to serve a mission in the Philippines.  It couldn't have been any better.  Just what, when, where, and who....a perfect fit for us.  I want to go and do whatever He wants for eternity.  He always blesses me and knows what I need.
Monday routine.  Wash machine doesn't work so...  We picked up Sister Crisanto and took her to Arevalo at 8:30.  She goes home along with eight others, only four will be coming in.  We worked a while in Arevalo and then went to Atrium and picked up Cushings to just hang out for the day.  We ate at the MOOON and looked at the Chinese New Year stuff and visited and visited.  We also had churros and chocolate--no comparison to Spain but they were satisfying.  We visited at our apartment and then took them to the wharf around 3:30.   We stopped at Jalandoni to give some things to President Insigne for the departing missionaries from our stake who needed some things and also to prepare some things for the career workshop tomorrow.  We are dragging a little after our road trip on the weekend.
Tuesday 7:30 after routine, we headed to Jalandoni for career workshop with 9 outgoing missionaries--all were zone leaders and all we knew well.  I'm a little down about it.  I feel sad to see them all gone from us:  Elder Fongavai (American Samoa),  Elder Kei (New Zealand/Tongan), Elder Stewart(Canadian), Elder Watkins(silver lining- he is from Malad😃), Elder LaFaele(New Zealand), Elder Swan (N SLC), Sister Crisanto from our Mandurio District, Elder Latchumanan from Malaysia.  These were all outstanding missionaries.  Nice that some are close to home and some are promising to get on BYU teams and will keep in touch.  So...this is our last workshop with going home missionaries.  It went well and we hope they are better prepared to job interview and to continue in the mission pattern:  daily scriptures and prayers and service and study.  The pattern for success.  Car wash and lunch.  Did some wash.  Ray is hand pouring the water in because when the water gets low in the tank, black stuff plugs up the machine.  He cleaned it out yesterday but it is plugged again.  The sensor on the water is not working and it is difficult and dangerous to climb on the roof, especially in the dark.  When the sensor doesn't work, the water tank doesn't fill until it is out of water.  Then the black stuff comes along with sediment.  Back to Jalandoni, visited with Kyle Sorilla there and Ivan Lim.  Then at 5:30 we took a walk on the beautiful Esplanade--it was very romantic in the evening with the lights on and the breeze blowing.  Oh, last night it was 73 degrees.  Ray was cool and turned off the fan.  Today at lunch there was a brownout.  I don't know how long it lasted because we went to the Center but it was on when we came home.
Wednesday no time for routine 7:00 bad traffic; took an hour  to get Boiser from the wharf 8:15 ate breakfast with Boiser at McDonald's on our way to Diversion 21 where we picked up Butch and Ether and Mike soon-to-be Callado.  They will marry in Cebu Temple March 2.  The couple are the filming crew.  We went to Tiolas to film President Sedano's piggery.  Before SGMB class, he had two sows and a boar.  Now he has seven sows and a boar.  He continues to grow his business and learn things on the way.  When we returned back to Iloilo around 2:00 we went to eat at Tatoys:  fish and halo halo mmmmm... At 5:00 we walked the Esplanade.
Thursday routine.  Fast.  We had to be at Jalandoni to open the Center for a Job Fair in our office 8-4.  Paul Agua, a member is the guy running the job fair for RC. cola who is starting up a new plant here in Iloilo.   We are sitting on the couches in the Institute part of the building.  This is a holiday in Iloilo so no classes today or anything.  But people keep coming in to hang out.  We visited with Pomello from Antique who came for the job fair and Roland from Mandurriao and Jason from Mandurriao who was here to be set apart before he went to the airport for his mission.  We went to his Called to Serve last week.  We went home for lunch so we could be back at 2:00 when Butch needed to leave.  We purchased water on our way back to the Center.  Home by 4:00 after we gave Roland and Alfie a ride.  They live by us.  We watched Meet The Mormons and ate apple crisp, in a manner of speaking.
Friday routine.  Fixed wash machine again.  Then we went and had the passenger back tire vulcanized again.  10:00 we went to the Center.  Cushings came and we visited and went to SM, Irish Potatoes for lunch and churros and chocolate for dessert.  Great day.  Then we went to the Atrium and parked, walked three long blocks and sat on the curb to watch the Chinese Monkey New Year parade.  We were glad we went because we saw Brakie, our inactive convert in the parade.  We also saw a sister from Dumangas who was so happy to see us.  She is a young widow of just one year.  Also an American Texan was happy to see us and another member of the Church, Americano living in China and just visiting here for three weeks met us again.  After the parade 5:00 we walked back to the Atrium and shopped.  We are not buying much these days as our time is short--3 weeks from Saturday we will go to Manila. 5:50 arrived at the apartment.