This was another whirlwind week the life of the Bell's on Bohol.
At the first of the week we said Goodbye to Holly and Tharon. They had a very long surprising trip home. Tharon got a blood clots in his lungs while he was here. They discovered it when they were on the plane going home and he was taken to the emergency room when he returned home. Gladly everything is turning out OK and he is recovering. It was great to spend what time we did with them. They are great family and friends.
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| Holly and Kathy at Sagbayan Peak in the Chocolate Hills |
In the middle of the week we said Goodbye to the Halladay's, the other senior couple that have been serving on Bohol. We are sad to see them go but are so grateful to have been able to serve with them. They were great missionaries and did so much for so many while they served on Bohol. We will miss them but want you all to know they are the best!
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| Our dear friends Elder & Sister Halladay returning home to Brigham City, Utah |
We also had to say goodbye to some of our favorite missionaries this week as it was transfer week and Calape Zone had lots of missionaries reassigned to other areas. It is always hard to see them go but we always get to greet a whole set of new equally great missionaries!
Well Sister Bell and I kind of went on splits for the transfer. She handled the Elders and Sister from Calape and Ubay Zone from the Tubigon port with the Multi Cab and I handled the Tagbilaran port for the Tagbilaran and Velencia Zones with the truck Halladay's were using. The Zone Leaders worked out a plan to make transfers possible without putting such a heavy load on the Couple Missionaries.
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| A shot of our departing Missionaries and a few extras. |
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| Our cute little Sister Reyes with her original free copy of the Book of Mormon she received and marked before her mission. |
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| Sister Bell and Elder Grey loading the luggage rack on the Multi Cab. |
Sister Bell and Elder Grey loading the luggage rack on the Multi Cab.
(I have to admit here that I did not think that putting a luggage rack on to the Mulit-Cab was such a great idea and certainly voiced my opinion a time or two! I stand corrected Elder Bell. It was a fabulous idea and made transfers go amazingly smooth! Worth every peso!)
Transfers went very well this time without a hitch. Nindot Kaayo!
Well I am going to turn the rest of the week over to Sister Bell.
I love all of you and also love the Lord and his Gospel. Thanks for letting us share a small part of this journey with you.
Daghang Salamat (the very most thanks)
Elder Bell
Happy Day Light Savings Folks! (this means you are only 14 hours behind us now!!)
We did have a busy week for sure and certain! It was hard to say goodbye to the other Bells! It was so nice to have family for 20 days in a row. I loved every minute of it. We even had some great P-day activities mingled in with all of the missionary work. We are so glad Tharon made it home when he did as I am not sure how his blood clots would have faired here in the Peens! The other day I saw a sign advertising the 'annual blood letting'….not too sure I even want to find out what that is all about.
We also had a really amazing baptism yesterday. The core family in our little Sagbayan Group are the Racomas. They have 13 children but joined the church after some of their older children had already grown. Well about two months ago their oldest son, Edgar, came to church. The first time I greeted him he told me that he had come to church with his mother to honor her beliefs but that he had no interest in the church. But, he continued to show up for every sunday since that day and now he honors his mother by joining her church as a full-fledged member! His second son, Lendon was also baptized with his father and both confirmed members of the church today in sacrament meeting. What a wonderful blessing for the Racoma family.
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| The Racoma family (or at least a few of them) |
We had yet another goodbye this week. The grandmother of some of our seminary kids passed away. She was not a member of the church but some of her children and grandchildren are. They asked the missionaries to come and put on a service for them friday night at their home. They live pretty far out in the bukid and so we gathered up some of the members from Sagbayan and headed out to their family home. We ended up waiting a long time for everyone to gather for the service and so the many, many kids started to play games. After a little while, I heard the strains of primary songs floating up to the house where we sat waiting for things to start. Song after song met our ears. I could not help but remember the very specific blessing I received from President Jones as he set me apart to be a missionary. He blessed me that I would have a great impact on the children and that through them their parents would be taught the gospel (or something close to that anyway). As it turns out I had taught all of those songs to the children in Sagbayan since I have been here and there they were teaching them to their new friends and all of the adults within hearing of this amazing spontaneous chorus! I must admit I got a little teary-eyed as I witnessed this blessing coming true in a very real way as I listened quietly on the side-lines.
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| Angel teaching the children songs |
The little girl in the bright blue jacket is Angel. Elder Bell calls her my guardian Angel because she watches out for me always. She carries my bag and holds an umbrella over me rain or shine. She helps me set up and take down primary pictures. She always makes sure I am the first to eat, etc, etc. It is Angel leading the singing of the spontaneous choir concert.
So, just one more picture before I go. I was transporting missionaries on Thursday and these two, Elder Jennings and Elder Lockhart snatched my camera and took quite a few pictures including this selfie!
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| Elder Lockhart and Elder Jennings two of our new missionaries! |
We are so blessed to have so many friends and family members that support us with prayers and letters. Thank you so much for that. We feel that love and support across the miles. We love what we do and we know that in some small way we are helping this great work of bringing the gospel to all of the world roll forward in this part of the vineyard. These young missionaries are amazing and we are so blessed by their amazing attitudes and hard work. Our future is definitely in good hands with these young adults who will be the leaders of tomorrow.
We love and miss you all!
Love you forever,
Sister Bell (Nanay, Lola, Amigo)
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