MOM'S BIRTHDAY AND MORE

Time to get caught up. We had a great Valentine's Day with roses, dinner, and cards from the family. I was wondering what it will be like to celebrate Valentine's Day in the Philippines next year. We had a great time for a few days with the kids, so Steve and Jana could get away. It's always amazing how much is going on in a family, both in and out of the home. Lisa was dancing in Ogden, Tyler was practicing a musical number for school, the other boys were busy playing, building and sharing a little fun time with grandma and grandpa.

We were invited to share some of our humanitarian mission experiences with a Church video team last Monday. They interviewed three couples and will create a training video for the humanitarian couples to see while they are at the MTC. We felt honored to be invited to share our feelings and experiences. The whole interview process opened our minds to the marvelous experiences we had and the tender mercies of the Lord that are extended to His children throughout the world.

After the video shoot we went up to Layton to join with Julia, Lisa and Mom to celebrate Mom's 87th birthday. We had a great lunch at Mimi's and Mom was finished off her black forest birthday cake with a "sweet" smile.  

We finished up the celebrations with Mom and motored down the highway to get home in time to clean the building. It was a fun experience to be together with everyone. We completed the cleaning project in a little over an hour and off to FHE.

Tuesday, 22 February, we received an email from our mission president, President Jensen, with a warm greeting and expressed an interest in a video call later that evening (our time). We returned an email to him with our greetings and indicated we would be available that evening for a Skype video call. The evening came and Cam, a close family member and returned missionary from the Philippines came for dinner and a Tagalog lesson. We finished dinner and got started in the lesson with numbers and simple greetings and then the time came for the call. I remembered we didn't confirm the time, so I checked email and saw a brief email from President Jensen... 8:00 pm was the time and he needed my Skype name! Only 15 more minutes 'til the call! I returned to the lesson. A few minutes later I felt prompted to check the computer again. President Jensen had called just moments before and needed me to accept his call and add him to my caller list. I did that and called him back and there he was. Our first contact! 

I called Marlene into the office and we joined President and Sister Jensen in a warm and informative conversation that lasted almost 2 hours. We got to know each other and shared family information. Moved into the mission basics and spoke of the imminent move of the mission home from the cool mountain resort community of Baguio to the hot, humid lowlands of Urdaneta. The new location will make them more accessible to more missionaries and district members. It will significantly cut their travel time to get to the missionaries and district events they need to attend. There is a large stake center there, now a mission home and soon a temple.

We then spoke about our work, strengthening the saints and supporting the priesthood leadership and working with the missionaries. It sounds like a wonderful opportunity to love and serve the saints and also do some proselyting there. We will have a clean, air conditioned apartment, and a car for transportation. It reminds us that we will return to our familiar third-world living mode and enjoy the simple life, albeit hotter this time! We should have an Internet connection (likely a slow connection, but a connection) in our apartment, so we can continue the blog and emails.

Yesterday, Wednesday, Mom had her Beehive class over to the house for a Mutual activity. She showed them how to make fabric flowers. The kitchen table and island were setup with the "flower-making" materials, extension cords running to key locations for the glue guns and several plates of treats. They girls and Mom had a great time making lots of beautiful flowers and eating all the treats.

While they were upstairs doing their creative thing, I was downstairs supporting the BYU Cougars on to victory over CSU. The big game is coming this Saturday when BYU and SDSU meet for what will likely be the deciding game for the league championship.

Well that's a little of what we have been doing without going into too much detail on the mundane - replace shower grout, weather stripping, yard work, microwave replacement, cabinet modifications, closet cleaning, picture scanning, trips to Costco, etc.

Have a great day!