A Great Week Forty-Six

Welcome to our great week in the Philippines.  We started off by taking a load of refrigerators for the apartments in Baguio.

This is one of the new apartments we're getting.  The landlord agreed to paint it and fix it up.  It will be great!

The outside of that apartment.

Scene outside from the new apartment.

School children across the street.

One of the highlights of the week was when Elder Larry EchoHawk and his wife came to tour our mission.  Half our mission  met with them on Wednesday, and this is the lunch they had for us.  The other half met with them on Thursday in Baguio.

                                              You can see our mission president President Balledos on the right.

This is us with our good friends Elder and Sister Fullmer who are the Office Couple.  We two are the only senior missionaries in our mission.  We sure enjoy working with them, and they do a great job in the office.

Later that evening, we met at a lovely hotel for dinner with Elder and Sister EchoHawk, the Fullmers,  and President and Sister Balledos and their children.

                                                     A storm was brewing as the sun was setting.

This was just as the sun was going down.

                                                          It was a lovely but stormy night.

Elder and Sister Larry Echohawk and the Dinkels.

 We had the Assistants to the President to our house for dinner on Friday.  Elder Matthews is going home to Cebu this week.  We will miss him.  He's done a great job as AP.

Saturday we traveled to Tubao to the woodcarver's branch where I taught the sisters how to make scones, tortillas, and no-bake cookies.  We had a great time!

 The sister on the left with the baby is the woodcarver's wife.  His mother is the RS President at the far end of the table, and his sister-in-law is the pregnant lady on the right.  This whole family was brought into the church when the mother converted years ago.

 Frying scones.  They put cheese in the center to make cheese bread, and taco meat to make empanadas.  They are very creative.

 One sister brought two bottles of orange pop, then poured it into plastic bags with a drinking straw for each of us.  Delicious!
Sunday was traveled an hour to Rosario for Church.  It was their Primary Presentation, and the children did a magnificent job.  The following are scenes I snapped as we passed on our way to Rosario.

                                                                     Lots of traffic!

                                    This means, "How is my driving?"  I wonder if they ever get any calls????

                                                          Tree-lined road in the country.

 These are buckets of dried fish as we passed the area where they catch and dry fish.  It's really smelly!

                                         More fish.  The bottles on the right are vinegar.

                                     We went through a mountainous area to get to Rosario.

                                           Here is the sign pointing to the Church.

                                                    Rosario Branch Meeting house.

 After the meetings, the Branch invited us to enjoy a meal with them.  I think they were celebrating the Primary Program.  Anyway, it was delicious and we had a great time.

 Our meal of pancit, green beans with some kind of a sour thing in them (they were actually good), cassava with coconut, and a rice cake.

 This is one of the families there with 10 of their 11 kids.  The two middle girls are preparing for missions.  The youngest boy is the one who flipped his tie in time to the music when he sang, "I Want To
Be a Missionary Now."  So cute.

This is the gecko who always hides behind the water tank.  I don't know why I can't get a good picture of him, but you can kind of see him in this larger picture.

 There he is barely outlined behind the water tank.

Today we were just sitting down to work on our blog when we heard American voices outside and someone saying Mormons.  Brad looked out and it was the Office Elders.  We invited them in for left-overs, and they accepted.  That was the perfect end for a great week!

Well, that's our week in pictures.  Hope you enjoyed!  Have a great week, and we'll see you next time.  We are having 29 more missionaries coming this week, with 6 going home.  Great news!  Take care and see you later.