July 4th Happy Independence Day

July 4, 2012

We have had a busy week.  We traveled to San Carlos on Sunday which takes two hours to drive there.  We had to leave the house by 6:00am to get there for 8:30 am church.  We went to both branches and met six of our PEF students.  They were so happy to see us.  They  thought we were angels! They have never had a PEF couple visit them.  They smiled and smiled and hugged me.  We are going back on Saturday afternoon to help teach a class.  Saturday morning we are going to Escalante which is at the north of island.  We will meet the priesthood leaders, Institute coordinator, the service couple and many students who will be there for the "Planning for Success" workshop.  I am excited to meet more students.  Then we will drive south to San Carlos for their class.  We will not get home until late, but it will be worth it.  Today we met a sister missionary who was just transferred to Bacolod.  She is from Pakistan.  She is darling. She has a quick smile and is so friendly.  She has two brothers also serving missions currently, one in Manila and one in Pakistan.  If was cool to meet her today because her birthday is tomorrow, just like mine!  She was so excited!

Friday and Sunday of this week we will travel to Panay Island to meet all the leaders and Institute coordinator there and to attend church on Sunday.  We will have to take the ferry and then a taxi to the offices Friday. 

We taught our first workshop Tuesday.  Dan said he was a nervous wreck teaching teenagers and young adults, but he did great.  I had prepared a power point to liven up the presentation and the other teachers here loved it and so today I prepared power points for the next two sessions.  I felt so talented as now I am in demand to build other presentations. 

Our Ilongo is moving "gamay lang" (a little).  Everyone in the office want us to speak English so we only have each other to practice with.  So of course by the time we get home we do not have enough energy to practice.  The cross over between English and Ilongo is amazing.  The people here just switch back and forth when they need any vocabulary  word that is not common in Ilongo. 

Our Mission President, President Tobias will be going home to Manila on Sunday and our new Mission President, President Lopez (from Hawaii) will be coming.  President Tobias took all the senior couples to two different sights and dinner on Friday night as a goodbye.  We went to the ruins in Bata (neighboring town)The grounds are beautifully landscaped and the building is not really a ruin.  It is the block exterior walls of a large sugar plantation. During World War II to keep the Japanese from using the home as their headquarters the owners burnt the interior to the ground.  The tile floors are still there and they are beautiful.  The grounds are used as a popular wedding spot often at sunset when the exterior walls glow gold.  The tour guide said the walls glow because to the egg whites they used as a bonding agent in the concrete.  The egg whites also made the concrete feel smooth like granite instead of rough like concrete

We also went to a beautiful ancestral home in Silay. It was so beautiful and elegantly restored.  It shows how the very wealthy lived at the when Silay was the capitol. We enjoyed spending time with the other senior couples and with President and Sister Tobias.  They will be greatly missed here.