Week 69

January 8, 2012

Dear Family and Friends, 

How is everyone this week? We hope that all is well with each of you and that you are enjoying life. How are the New Year’s resolutions coming? 

front yard of old mission office

Well, transfer week is upon us again. This will be an interesting transfer for a couple of reasons. One, we are in the new office and are still trying to arrange everything , two, we are training the new office couple to take over and three, we are being transferred on Friday. 

This will be a short letter because this has been the first full week where we could just train the new office couple. We haven’t done much of anything else. We have tried to put everything that we learned into one week of concentrated training. Fun huh! The Dietrichs are doing well and they will be great in the office.

We had Mission Presidency meeting on Thursday evening and afterwards, President and Sister Vicencio treated us all to dinner at Brazil-Brazil (Manila’s take on Rodizzio). It was good but not exactly the same as back home – they were limited in the types of meat they offered. The pork belly was really good once you cut off the fat, the beef tenderloin was good but the squid –let’s just say that was my first and last time I will have barbecue squid (Mom wholeheartedly agrees)! They did have grilled bananas that were really good. They cut the small bananas in half, dipped them in sugar syrup and then grilled them. I am not a fan of warm bananas but these were very tasty.  The other thing we really liked was the corn soup. It was very good. We all had a wonderful time. Mom and I think that we have eaten out more in the past three months since we have been in Manila than any other time. There is every kind of eating place here – Manila is truly Americanized. 

Well, we are trying to get everything completed before we leave for Palawan and somewhere in between we will pack and clean and sleep. We hope that you are all doing well. We pray every day for your well-being. We hope you are healthy and happy and enjoying life with those little ones. It won’t last long so enjoy it now while they are small. We love you. We pray that you are happy. 

Thank you for your love and prayers. We couldn’t be here without your prayers. Keep smiling and remember to BE good, DO good, and BE men and women of Christ. And as always, remember to say you prayers.

Love,

Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Janene and Grant