Transfer!

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, we did not think it would happen in our whole mission but it has…we got transferred.  I know we showed you the pictures of the apartment we found in Sagbayan last week and beyond all expectation we have been able to get the rent check and contract signed in an unprecedented 5 days!!! The wheels of the mission finance department general turn much slower than that so we have been amazed to be able to get moved in less than one week.  We have never found a new apartment and gotten missionaries in to it in less than 5 weeks much less 5 days!  I am pretty sure the Lord really wants us to be in Sagbayan.  We are there and today had our first real 3-hour block of church meetings.  I guess it went okay but when the missionaries had announced a fireside immediately following the meetings…absolutely NO ONE stayed for it.  They were pretty done after 3 hours of church because up until today we have only been having a 2-hour block. All good things will take time I guess.  President Elder Bell, as he is so lovingly called, extended numerous calling this week and he was so pleased when all of them accepted the call issued to them.  So now we have a Young Women's President that has been a member for about a month.  Same goes for the Primary President and almost all of the other callings.  But, the members are eager to do their best and let us train them the best we can.  It is going to be amazing!

In between all the moving this week we had a lot of other things to do also.  It was a week of missionary comings and goings.  The district will call on us to help them when they have missionaries coming home to Bohol or leaving Bohol for missions.

This is Sister Perla.  We had the privilege of taking her to the Tagbilaran Airport as she left to serve her mission in Quezon City.  We have worked with her on several occasions since we have been here and we know that she will make a great missionary.

This is Sister Shajhin Sefuentes and we had the honor of delivering her mission call to her and watching her open it!  She is going to be serving in the Quezon City Mission also!  We have worked with her a lot.  She actually served here in Calape for four weeks when a sister had to go home for health reasons.  She lived right next door to us for those four weeks and she is going to be a remarkable missionary! We really love doing things like this.  It is the frosting on the cake for us!

I also have to share a story of one of our elders that will be heading home in just a couple of weeks after faithfully serving his mission.

This is Elder Talan.  I asked him to share his story with us yesterday while we were waiting for a baptism to start.  My goodness!  What a story he told!  He comes from a family that are Jehovah Witnesses, his parents and all six of his siblings.  When he was about 14 years old he had friends that were members of the church and were always trying to teach him about the gospel.  Well one day he heard the story of Joseph Smith, who as a 14 year old boy, went to a grove of trees and prayed to know which church to join.  He reasoned that he was a 14 year old boy and he too wanted to know which church to join and so he followed the same course.  He got his answer and against his parents wishes joined the church.  As he approached the age of 18 and wanted to serve a mission, his parents told him that if he left on a mission he would not have a home when he returned.  But he really wanted to go so he filled out his papers but when the time came to submit them he just couldn't do it because he really did not want to lose his family.  Months later he again felt compelled to serve and again filled out the papers and again ripped them up.  Finally he had such an overwhelming desire to serve he fasted and prayed that his family would have their hearts softened and on the third attempt, acting on faith, he submitted his papers.  His family held firm that they would disown him but he stayed on course and was determined to serve.  The night before he was to leave for Manila MTC he asked his bishop to go with him to say goodbye to his family, knowing it would be the last time he would be able to see them. He said he was touched by the fact that his mom cried when he hugged her goodbye but he walked out the door and the next morning left for his mission.

He has received two letters from his family while he has served for two years and over that time miraculously his fathers heart has been softened.  He will in fact be able to go home to his family and knows that truly miracles happen when you follow the Lord in faith.

We just loved his story.  We hear stories like this all of the time from these humble missionaries and each time we wonder, would we have been so brave, so faithful if it had been us having to make those kinds of decisions?  Our young missionaries are amazing!  Young people all over the world make these kinds of decisions.  You can not help feeling like you are in the presence of greatness when you walk and work among them.

We also had a lot of other really busy things to do this week besides move.  For instance…this is how our Saturday played out….We got up at 4:30 AM so that we could make it to a baptism in Ubay which is at the very northern end of our island, by 7:00.

This is the baptism of JanePaul Canebano Bual, who is nine years old.  He is being baptized by Elder Emfield.  And then we raced back to Calape to attend the funeral of our District President's father who had passed away Tuesday morning.  He was older and quite frail but sadly he died while his wife was in Cebu attending the annual district temple trip.

After the funeral we raced back to Sagbayan so that we could teach seminary at 4:00.  By the time the day ended and we had finally prepared everything we needed for church today we were really ready for bed.  There are days in the mission that you just feel the hand of the Lord sustaining you so that you can do all that you are called upon to do.  We are so thankful for 'His Hand', otherwise we could not do it!

We are so excited for this coming year and the opportunity to help Sagbayan Branch grow.  We are busy, busy, busy but we sure love hearing from home.  Your letters are like the best treat of our week.  Even though we are so busy and so happy serving here…we still miss you and love to hear all about your week too.  We are supposed to get internet in our new apartment tomorrow so hopefully we can actually receive emails if you send them.

Before we sign off we will just share a couple of pictures from our travels this week that are just sights you usually don't see in the states….

We have often wondered if anyone ever falls off the back of these trikes.  This lady solved the worry by tying herself on to the trike with her scarf.  She was pretty sound asleep and her husband kept turning around to make sure the scarf was tied tight enough to keep her from falling off.  Only in the Peens!

And this…..

Look at the concentration on that face!  That is some serious coloring.  This little girl is new in our primary, today being only the second time she has attended and she really took that coloring seriously!  Oh my gosh…the kids here are soooooo cute!!!

Well my loved ones, that is going to wrap up this week for us.  We sure love you and thank you for your love and support.  In the interest of time…I am speaking for the both of us this week.

Love you forever,

Elder and Sister Bell (Papalo and Mamala)