My Cup Runneth Over

Maayong Buntog to all my Pamilya & Amigo's

Our hearts are full this week with a whirlwind of events that surpass all expectations.  It is hard to know where to start.  So I will just start with the Group (Branch) party for Sagbayan.  Sister Bell and I decided we would host a party at our house for the members of Sagbayan.  Much fun, food and games were had by all.  There were 10 investigators that attended and all had a great time.

Games and fun by all.

Dirty Ice Cream (the best home made Mango Ice Cream you will ever taste.

There were approximately 55 in attendance.  Since they live about 45 minute drive from our house we transported them in our Truck and Multi Cab. This is what a Truck and Multi Cab look like with 55 people in them.  I took a head count and there were exactly 30 in the Multi Cab.  A new record.

Sister Bell on the go

The bar has been raised to 30

These people are so great. The feeling you get when you are with this group can best be described
by Moses 7 verse 18: "And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness" and Mosiah 18 verse 8-9: "As ye are desirous to come into the hold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light;  Yea, and a willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death", that is exactly how they support one another and lift one another.

We also received pictures from our beloved mission daughter, Sister Astilla, of her homecoming with her family as she returned home from a fantastic mission.  She effected and helped many people on her mission and we are two of them.  Thank you for helping us and also being a dear friend.

Well I am going to turn the rest of the wild week to Sister Bell.

Let me close by letting you know how much I personally love our mission.  We feel the prayers of our Family and Friends, also the prayers offered over the Alter of all the Temples every day.  I love the Lord and am honored to be called to his work.

Daghang Salamat (Deepest Thanks) to all my Family and Friends.
Elder Bell (Taytay, Lolo, and Amigo)


Maayong Buntag Imong Pamily!

I was telling my good husband this week that I cannot keep up this pace! I think I was retired too many years before this mission so I am not keeping up with the pace of each week very well.  I feel exhausted by the end of Sunday.  Happy but EXHAUSTED!  It was inevitable  that one day we would not be able to get our blog out on Sunday night and finally this week it happened.  Don't worry though, we are  okay and just trying to catch up this morning.

I wanted to share this week a really amazing experience we had on Tuesday evening.  We all got the transfer information on Tuesday at District Meeting.  And as expected some of our favorite missionaries got the notice that they were heading out on Thursday.  Elder Caluag from Sagbayan was one of them.  He was pretty sad because he had quite a few investigators that were progressing nicely.  One group of them are three sisters of a new member who all really want to be baptized but their mother who is a devote Catholic was not very happy about it and they were so worried to disappoint her.  So we invited Sister Nueva, our District President's wife, who had joined the church many years ago under the same circumstance.  So we (the missionaries, us, Sister N., and 3 members from the Sagbayan group) all ventured out to meet with the sisters.  We had a short lesson on charity and then Sister Nueva shared her story.  The sisters really responded well.  Then the missionaries turned to me and asked if I had something to share.  I felt very impressed to tell them that we become Christ's hands here on earth to take care of each other.  And that as members of the church we become family and take care of each other like family.  Of course at this point I became a little teary but held it together pretty well.  But poor Elder Caluag, thinking about leaving his 'family' became so emotional he could hardly speak.  Everyone in the room became emotional and could feel the power of the Holy Ghost bearing witness that what we said was true.  Long story short, they and two of their children are committed to baptism on February 13!  I was so proud of Elder Caluag and Elder Malinao.  This was the last appointment of Elder Caluag's service here on Bohol and he left the area still working so hard to bring people to the waters of baptism.  I was happy to part of that experience.  There are no words to describe the joy of the moment!

The sisters with many of their kids and all of us missionaries.  (Elder Caluag bottom left corner)

When we went up to pick Elder Caluag up to take him to the ferry, the entire group had come to his apartment to wish him well and there were so many people in tears I told Elder C that it was like he was attending his own funeral!  This is his first area.  Imagine what kind of missionary he is going to be a year from now!  They send the best missionaries to Bohol.  We love them all!

As we have said before, it was transfer week this week and Elder Bell did a little better than last time.  He at least did not cry in front of them, he waited until they had gone! (just kidding)  But we sent off some of our favorites for sure…..

These are a few of our missionaries heading off to bigger and better experiences in the Cebu East Mission.

Sorry to be so slow in finishing this today….We were called away this morning on an emergency and it took us 12 hours to get home.  It was a very sad situation.  Sister Evangeline, one of our new baptisms from a couple of months ago gave birth yesterday morning to a baby boy.  He was almost three weeks over due and was born with some serious issues.  They rushed him to Tagbilaran while Sister Evangeline stayed in a clinic in Tubigon 90 minute drive away.  We went in to see the baby this morning and they would not let us in until 3:00 this afternoon as they have very strict visiting hour rules.  We couldn't even pull the 'minister' card out.  We knew the baby was probably not going to make it but they still would not let us in.  So we waited until 3:00.

The NICU was such a shocking sight.  The two oldest daughters had been there for nearly 30 hours helping the baby breath with one of the little bags that they had to manually compress so the baby had air going to his lungs.  The oldest daughter is an adult with a son of her own but the other one is one of my seminary students who is only 15 years old.  What a heavy responsibility for these faithful daughters.  They were exhausted.  We had the Elder with us who had taught and baptized this mother.  She had wanted her baby named after him, Manoa.  And so Elder Vuetibau (we just call him Elder V), was able to give him a name and a blessing