We Hit 5 Months - But Who’s Counting!!!

I Love to See the Temple!!!

It has been a busy few weeks for us here in the Philippines. Now that we work both shifts on Tuesdays, it feels like we have a lot less free time—which is kind of silly, since we don’t usually do much in the morning before our shifts anyway. Funny how things like that work. I thought working full days would be more difficult than it actually is, but we’re enjoying the extra time in the temple and getting to know more of the temple workers who serve in the morning shift.

I’m always in awe when I see a temple. They are all so beautiful and are usually situated in places where they can be seen from a distance. I love seeing the gold Moroni on top, and I’m a little sad that the tradition is mostly being done away with. It’s such a beautiful symbol of the Restoration of the gospel and the gathering of Israel in the latter days. Now that we live on the temple grounds, I’ve made it a goal to nurture that feeling of awe and not let seeing the temple become commonplace. So far, it’s worked—and every day I’m so thankful to live on these beautiful grounds that are dedicated to the Lord and the work of salvation.

Last week, I had a wonderful experience while serving in the temple. I had been assigned to be in the Celestial Room just as an endowment session was letting out. One of my responsibilities in the Celestial Room is to open the door as people enter from the other room. As I opened the door for a young woman, I noticed she was wearing a tag indicating she was going through the temple for the first time. When she reached the door, she paused, gasped, and covered her mouth with her hand. She began to cry. She was so overwhelmed by the beauty and grandeur of the room that she couldn’t move. I’m sure she had never seen anything like it in her life. Her escort soon came over, took her hand, and gently guided her in. As I watched her, she continued to look around the room with awe and wonder—her eyes still filled with tears and her face glowing with light. Her reaction deeply touched me, and my own eyes filled with tears.

As I pondered her experience, I thought about what it might be like when my time comes to pass through the veil of this life into the next. I’m sure it will be more wonderful and amazing than anything we can imagine—and maybe even a little overwhelming. But just like this young woman, we will be greeted by our Heavenly Parents, the Savior, and our loved ones who have gone before us as they welcome us home.

Here is a link to photos of the Cebu Philippines Temple:

Photos of Cebu Philippines Temple

I had an interesting and touching experience one day as I was heading to initiatory. When I arrived, I noticed three sisters waiting for their turn. As I approached them, one of the sisters suddenly lit up with excitement when she saw me. She came right over, took my hand, and said, “I’m so happy to see you! I know you—we’re friends!” Then she added, “We were good friends in the pre-existence. I remember you.”

She sat next to me for a while, still holding my hand, and continued to express how glad she was that we could meet again. She was very sweet, and I truly enjoyed our conversation. It was a tender moment that left a lasting impression on me.

Saying Goodbye to Missionary Couples Going Home

Several of the missionary couples that we have met and interacted with will be completing their missions in the next few weeks so we will be saying goodbye to them. It seems that is a big part of being on a mission - meeting wonderful people, getting to know them and then having to say goodbye to them. So before they left our wonderful humanitarian missionary couples arranged an activity for all of us.  It started in the afternoon with a service project at a local elementary school. It turned out to be kind of interesting - a sister in our ward is a teacher there and said she would make the arrangements for us. Well, when we showed up she was the only one who knew we were coming. There really wasn’t a lot for us to do and the principal told us there would be a professional cleaning company coming in to clean in a couple days. So we cleaned a classroom, a stairwell and swept some of the common areas. the classroom are small and old with no air conditioning. We wished we could have done more, but we did what we could.

This is the floor of the classroom. :(

Our next activity was a group picture with all the missionary couples from the Cebu City Mission, the Cebu City East Mission and the Temple Missionaries.  We will miss so many of these wonderful couples. 

Following our group picture, we went back to our apartment and grabbed our pot luck dish and met up for dinner in the dinning room of the patron house. We played a fun get to know you game and had dinner together. It was a fun activity and it was great to get together with such wonderful and faithful people. We are sure going to miss them when they go home but we will also be getting a new group to replace them and we will enjoy getting to know the new missionaries. 

Love you all and miss you like crazy. Write when you can, we love hearing about what’s going on at home.