Busy Times are Best!

Hello Family and Friends

Another fantastic week in paradise. It seems like we have so many projects going at the same time it's hard to know when one stops and the other begins. So I will just give you an update on a few.

The welfare project is a great one.  Because I was call to be the Branch President in Sagbayan our calling is double fold.  We assist and help with the missionaries and we also oversee one of the fastest and finest growing church units in the Cebu East Mission (I may be a little partial but I am allowed to be these are our people.)

We met this week with Elder & Sister Zorn, welfare missionaries in Cebu, and Elder & Sister Villarete from LDS Family Services area office. We presented our summary of the welfare project we are applying for in Sagbayan. We were very encouraged learn that we are on the right track.  I think the thing that will work great is we have a lot of very good farmers in our branch and they just need a hand up to change their lives greatly.  This pig and goat project is not our project, we are just organizing the talents and abilities they already have.

A group of very devoted people work for the betterment of all.

The District Presidency even got involved... Pres. Nueva & Pres. Lorzono

It was a pleasure to meet Elder & Sister Villarete. He had served as a mission president, Area Seventy and a member the Area Presidency in the Philippines.  It is great to meet some of the true first Filipino pioneers in the church.  We are humbled by their sacrifice and dedication to the Lord and his work.

Just want to show you again a group of our own personal guardian angles that follow us around and help us ever day to do the work of the Lord.

 Angels loading chairs after the group meeting today in Danao.

  

A great group of youth who give their all for what they know to be true.

Well at the end of sunday I am just about give out. So we will hit the sack and start a new week tomorrow with renewed purpose and strength. It seems like the best calling in the Church are the most demanding.  It has alway been that way and I guess will continue to be so in the future.

May the Lord bless you with His choicest blessing as you serve him and bless your brothers and sisters.

Elder Bell  (Tatay, LoLo & Amigo)

Ayo Family and Friends!

Elder Bell is right….we are worn out by the end of a busy week.  I don't know how we find the energy to write this blog some weeks as we always do it on Sunday night and we are so exhausted by the end of Sunday that we just fall in to bed.  That being said…..here we go.

We always try to start our week with a little p-day breakfast with our Sagbayan missionaries.  We had not hardly met our new missionaries until last Monday.

Our Sagbayan missionaries this transfer;  Sisters Nacalaban and Goldthorpe.

Our Elders: Ramos, Johnson, Birdigiul and Salazar (left to right around the table).

We had a couple of other happenings this week. We attended an excellent zone training.  We are always so impressed with this young leaders and the amazing things they teach us at our trainings.  It further testifies that we are engaged in the Lord's work and that He certainly qualifies those whom He calls.

Enjoying a lunch with the Tagbilaran Zone after this weeks training!  Such great missionaries!

The number of missionaries serving in any mission goes up and down as the months go by.  Currently the number of missionaries in Cebu East is down quite a bit from this time last year so we are having to shut down several apartments on Bohol.  This week these two great zone leaders from Tagb helped us move and clean out an apartment on Panglao that had been sitting empty for several transfers.  Needless to say when an apartment sits empty, it soon is taken over by cockroaches!!

This is Elder Tamayo and Elder Wilson. We have worked with Elder Wilson for a long time now and appreciate the dedicated missionary and leader he is.  We were also very impressed with Elder Tamayo today!

I twisted Sister Shamrell's arm a little to come up to Sagbayan and give piano lessons to several of our young women who really have music in their souls.  So finally the lessons have begun.  Sister Shamrell is at the beginning of her mission so the girls should get a good nearly two years of lessons by the time she goes home.  I hope they take this gift seriously and learn well and fast!

Sister Shamrell teaching Angel Viodor and Jamiaca Jandayan how to count and lead music.

We got to help this new little one finally come home on Tuesday night and I snuck over to the Viodor house and loved on her for a little while!  Those cheeks are hard to resist.  She had an extended stay in the hospital but is doing well now that she is home.

MaeKyla Seliote Viodor

GIANT cockroach!

And just for fun…this cockroach was so giant!  The key fob is 4 inches long just for a little comparison.    He fortunately was missing a wing and could not fly away as I took this picture.  Ahh…ya gotta love the Peens!!

Well, that was our whirlwind week and we are so thankful to be serving this mission at this time.  It has been very rewarding and challenging and wonderful.  We have grown in ways we never thought possible.  We have learned to appreciate each others strengths and learned to rely on each other and the Lord like never before.  We feel the tender mercies each and every day showered upon us in many ways.  Some so simple you hardly take note and others so profound it moves us to tears.  Throughout this journey we have grown to love a land and a people that we never knew existed.  We have learned so much from these, our beloved brothers and sister in the gospel.  And for that we are so very grateful!

Love you forever,

Sister Bell (Mamala to all)