Apparently, it has been pointed out to me that I am not labeling the photos; I will improve. The swimming pool in a recent posting is not at our house - too bad - but rather at the pension in Bogo where we spent the night.
The big box is a missionary package sent by a mom to her son. It weighed nearly 200k and was mailed in February! The mom had been calling for months to try to find it and finally located in in a warehouse in Cebu where it was sitting undelivered because the company said they didn't know the place where it was to go. The Mom gave them our phone number, they called, got directions and delivered the box. Then we had to repack it into many smaller, lighter boxes so the missionaries could deliver it to the elder - who goes home October 6! Needless to say, his zone had a feast.
These are boats - mostly used for fishing - in a bay on the way to Bogo. It is generally cloudy most of the time right now since it is the rainy season.
We had a beautiful drive up to Bogo early Sunday morning September 18, - left home at 6 a.m. after some concern about getting out the gate since it had been locked the day before. We got a key after that, but it is very hard to work. Bob did get the gate open and we took off. We saw much more traffic than we expected so early in the morning, but the roads were much clearer after the first hour of getting out of the city. The sun was shining as we drove along the coast of the island and then began the climb up into the hills. We saw many, many three-wheeled bicycles and motorcyles with side-cars that are used as taxis. Unfortunately, it looked like people were going to market, and not to Church. We saw one side car with high sides carrying a huge pig - probably to market.
Bogo is 100 k and about 2 1/2 hours from our apartment. We saw huge fields of sugar cane rolling up and down over the hills and passed a couple of big sugar processing plants.
We arrived early and found Elder Willis - the zone leader - had just arrived. The President had asked him to assist and translate if needed so that Bob could meet with both Branch Presidents and get some required information. That went very well. I visited Primary and YW and helped as asked. I had taken some old Church magazines for the Primary leaders to use to cut up for more visual aids. They asked me to prepare a sharing time for next time when I come, so they can see how to do it, that will be a challenge since I haven't served in Primary in many years. That Primary has three young women as their leaders: two are returned missionaries, the Carabio sisters, and the third is their friend who was baptised three months ago. One of their main problems is they don't know they songs so can't used them to teach and to calm the children. I am thinking about how to help with that.
The Young Women teacher was our new friend Anne Hansen - a Filipino woman married to a Dane- I think, maybe Norweigian. She gave as fine a lesson as I've seen anywhere and obviously loves the girls and they know it.
The drive back home seemed long - we were tired, but not too hungry as we snacked as we drove.
We had Elders Little and Olsen over for dinner in the evening - spaghetti with chocolate pudding for dessert. We enjoyed visiting with them. It was a great day.
One other interesting experience of the week. Two women came into the office to try to sell us an electronic toy with lights and noises and it shot out little plastic discs if the right button was pushed. Elder Edlund talked with them at length and when they left, not only had we not bought anything, but they each had a Book of Mormon and an appointment to meet with the missionaries!
