San Pablo Philippines Davies Mission

Okay, thought I'd do a random post.  All the fruit we've tried.  Some are specific to the Philippines, some are from other countries but grown here.  It's fun to realize fruit has seasons.  In the states we get used to fruit always being there and we lose track sometimes that they are ripe in specific seasons.  When we got here in July 2017 the pineapples were stacked along the road and I somehow thought that was normal, that they would always be there.  Unfortunately, there are no more ripe pineapples.  We have moved on to other fruit.  We just missed mango season.  There are a few around, but expensive.  What is in season now is rambutan and lanzones.  Also mangosteens just showed up.  Dragon fruit is good now as well.  We have tried quite a few.  We have yet to try durian.  It is a large fruit that's spikey.  I guess it's really good......if you can get past the smell.  I guess it smells like the south end of the north bound cow.  The hotels won't allow you t

We had an amazing 16 missionaries arrive today.  I'm fairly sure it's the strangest sight the neighbors see every 6 weeks.  Americans, Filipinos, all with luggage trudging up the road to the mission home.  They were glad to be here.  Super glad to get some food and sleep.  And estatic to meet their new companions.  It ended up that 2 companionships were best friends from their home wards  and two sisters ended up together (one came in needing to see an endocronologist every month and the other I was working with to get her into see one because it looked like her thyroid was enlarged).  The Lord is in charge and President came out of his office with the matches already made, not knowing the connections.  The pictures tell it all.

Wow, this was a great group of missionaries.  It was inspiring to hear how they thought it was the hardest thing they had ever done....and that they would do it over and over again to learn the things they learned.  They have strong testimonies and the desire to go home and stay faithful.  We lost many of our Mission Leadership Council.

We finished zone conferences two weeks ago.  We did each zone at its own conference, but quickly learned that that schedule was going to be too crazy.  We are switching to tri-zone conferences next time.  The missionaries really like seeing their "batch mates" and the other missionaries.  Zone Conferences were amazing.  The spirit was very active, because I (Barb) taught them about the "promptings", "suggestions", "ideas" that come to their mind to prompt them to do something good.  We talked about how Laman and Lemuel got "past feeling".  The Holy Ghost will stop prompting you about something if you don't listen to the promptings.  He will wait until you are ready to ask for help and act on the promptings.  President Davies talked about how crucial the Holy Ghost is in the conversion process and the need to live worthy of the Holy Ghosts help.  We have amazing missionaries and have heard miracle stories as we went forth to teach.