We have finished our first week of service in our office in Bacolod.  Yesterday the maintenance men were paining the Institute where our office is so we spend the day driving north around the top of Bacolod to find the chapels were we will be traveling and training.  We found many of the chapels and took most of the day to drive to Sagay and back.  That is about one third of the distance around the Bacolod mission. There were sugar train trucks all along the way stacked twice as high as the truck bed.  One had even had the cane fall forward covering the front windows of the truck so the driver had to pull over and reload the cane.  That convinced us to not follow the trucks too closely.  We were amazed at some of the ingenuity of the road workers also.  Rather than stand in the sun to direct traffic, they built small shade structures and used sticks to flip the traffic signs from "Go" to "Stop"! There are few street signs so you just have to guess by looking at the maps and where you have passes on the maps.  We had wanted to drive to San Carlos through the mountains, but could not find the road so we just continued to travel north instead.

Institute classes have not started yet  so we are not seeing many college age students yet.  We attend Mansungay Ward here in Bacolod.  We will be traveling a lot we have been told but we have been able to meet with our ward two Sundays and the people are so kind and welcoming.  The children are so sweet to let the funny white lady hug them and talk to them.  I always ask them how old they are and compare them to whichever grand children are that age.  They also like to see the photos I have in my iphone so even though I cannot use it for phone calls it is getting a lot of use that way. We have found out we can get calling cards to use on the land line (home phone) that is very reasonable.  So we will get some and start calling our family in our mornings which is the night before at home.  We love you all and hope you are doing well.  We pray for you by name each day.  Heavenly Father may get tired of our repetitious prayers, but we believe he will bless each of you as we serve Him.  Keep smiling!