We never knew there were places on this earth where it rains like it does here. We got a little taste of it last year, but we arrived in the mission at the end of the rainy season. What an experience for a couple of kids from Utah! We look forward to returning to lower humidity, albeit it will be interesting adjusting to the cold again. We just don't get cold here. Ever.
Thursday was Zone Conference. If you remember, Sister Whiting was asked to lead the zones in the mission motto and scripture. It took a lot of work to get her brain to remember it, but she did, and nailed it! Not that anyone in the congregation knew or even cared, but that's okay. The conference was very spiritual and motivating, as we had great discussions on our mission study articles regarding faith, accepting the Lord's timing, and the ministry of angels. In addition, we reviewed all of the finding tools available to us and shared success stories. The missionaries are challenged to baptize every week--which with faith and hard work is very doable in our mission. Some of our elders and sisters are already doing it. It's not really about the numbers, but about stepping up the efforts to find lost Israel. The numbers take care of themself. Hopefully the young missionaries left with confidence and motivation to make baptizing every week happen.
In addition to the spiritual topics of the mission, we took care of some temporal business as well. It amazes us to see the lengths (and expense) the Church goes to to take care if it's missionaries. Earlier this year it was manifested in the Church providing smoke/carbon monoxide detectors for every single missionary house. We have 90 houses in our mission, so just times that by 350 or so missions throughout the world and you can see the Church takes the health and safety of it's missionaries very seriously, regardless of the cost. This week each missionary in the mission was offered flu shots provided by the Church. Se we rolled up our sleeves and got shot! Actually, Sister Whiting had worn a blouse with sleeves that couldn't be rolled up, so she found a very large (think Polynesian) white shirt in the mission supplies, changed into it, and got her shot. She got a few laughs, but it worked out just fine.
We were fed a nice lunch at Zone Conference, (the caterer is a member of the stake presidency and does a really nice job) and when dessert came around, it was a really good warm tapioca pudding with fruit in it. Elder and Sister Whiting were chowing down when Sister Whiting realized that it had bananas in it. She immediately took Elder Whiting's dessert away--since he is allergic to bananas--and it wasn't long before his throat started tightening up. Even though he kept insisting he was okay, Sister Whiting made him take some Benadryl; and Elder Whiting ended up missing the afternoon session of Zone Conference because he was sleeping it off in his office. But it did the trick! Thank heavens for Benadryl!
Yesterday, we drove to Cabanatuan where the mission presidency did priesthood leadership training for three districts. 62 priesthood leaders attended--an amazing show of support. While Elder Whiting, President Clark, Elder Dansie, and mission presidency counselor President Cruz conducted the training, Sister Whiting, Sister Clark, and Sister Dansie had a girls' morning out. We went to the mall at 9 and realized it didn't open until 10. But the nice mall cops let us in and we found an open snack bar in the food court, bought drinks, then sat down at a table to wait for the stores to open. We kept getting these looks from the mall cops, then one of them came over and asked if we were waiting to see a movie. We said no, we were just waiting for the stores to open. A few minutes later another mall cop came over and asked us the same thing and we told him we were waiting for the stores to open. Well apparently that is not allowed, (the Tagalog word is Bawal) and they asked us to leave the mall. Oops! We thought since they let us in it was okay. The only thing we can figure is that when they saw our name tags they thought these three white women were employees of one of the stores, so they let us in. We hope no one lost their job over it! It was just strange.
Today was Branch Conference in Dapdap, so off we went to Dapdap again-three Sundays in a row. The branch was packed with stake leaders, members and investigators, and from what we could understand, was an excellent meeting. After the block, we were again invited to stay for lunch (remember the goat guts), but excused ourselves because we had gotten a message from President Clark that we were needed to help with an emergency transfer. All of the events of this week were accomplished in an almost constant rain. We feel like ducks or frogs or fish or something!
We leave you with this quote gleaned from Zone Conference by Daniel H. Burnham, the architect who designed many of the distinctive buildings in Chicago, and which is often quoted by general authorities:
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood. And probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans, aim high, and hope (have faith) and work."
See you in September,
Elder and Sister Whiting
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| Jeepney of the Week |
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| Slide taken from the Assistant's Powerpoint presentation. Sister Whiting's job is to make sure the Baptism Records are properly filled out. |
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| A true life mission success story-- One convert led to 8 baptisms and 6 investigators--and counting |
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| Tarlac Stake and Dapdap Branch leadership. Right to Left--Sister Tess Nacon (who irons Elder Whiting's shirts), Sister Pascua, Sister Whiting, Sister Mercado, other stake leaders. |
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| Storm Front |
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| High wire act. OSHA would have a meltdown in the Philippines! |
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