Week 34

May 16, 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

Magandang umaga. Another week has slipped by. Most days the time seems to go by so quickly. The weather is still very hot. We are still without internet service so we will send this letter if the internet is ever functioning again.

Well, it is later and the internet is working – who said that we don’t believe in miracles.

Sister Howard is making more progress. She has been in the hospital for over a month now. She is getting stronger. She has a rare drug resistant strain of pneumonia. Her kidneys are functioning well. She is off of the respirator and her white blood cell count is reduced significantly since last week. She is in isolation because of the bacterial infection but she is doing better. We have witnessed a miracle in her life. We continue to pray for her and for President Howard.

We really enjoy our senior couples. We love being in the Temple together with our missionaries. Friday, May 13^th was originally scheduled by President and Sister Howard as our senior trip to Tagaytay but that was placed on hold due to Sister Howard’s illness. That day happened to be Elder Spencer’s birthday so we decided to go to Tagaytay and celebrate as senior couples.

We had a great time and ate at a bed and breakfast restaurant called Sonja’s Garden.

It is an all-you-can eat restaurant but with a twist. The menu is set and they bring it to your table in different courses. If you like something in particular they will bring you more of that item until you tell them to stop. It was good but it was more different than good. Being different made it a great place to eat. We had fresh squeezed orange juice, green salad, hot bread, pasta, salmon belly (no one really liked that so I had my fill of salmon), and some interesting desserts (fried bananas with jack fruit, rice cakes, very rich chocolate cake and candied potatoes – not sweet potatoes but regular potatoes caramelized in brown sugar).

We walked around the gardens for a bit. There was a couch in a nice shady spot where one could stop and rest so Mom and I decided to have our picture taken on the couch. There was however a large spider (his leg span was probably 5 inches) above the couch. It wouldn’t move and most of us thought it was fake. (Mom said it Wasn’t fake!!) After Mom and I had our picture taken I took a piece of paper and touched the spider – it wasn’t fake!! We all had a great laugh.

The spider is the X above Dad’s head. He looks like he only has 4 legs but look closely and you’ll see he has 4 smaller legs he pulls into his larger legs. When Dad touched him he put those legs out and moved away just a bit.

President Howard moved Zone conferences up in the schedule to accommodate his availability while Sister Howard is still in the hospital. We had Zone Conference on Thursday that was exceptional. We were able to view a talk given by Elder Holland at the Provo MTC in January 2011. What a powerful message and great motivation to all of us. We met in a Chapel rather than the mission home (wow, the mission home is in shambles due to the remodel).

There was a different feel to the conference but it was nevertheless a very powerful meeting. We will miss President Howard when he completes his mission here. We do look forward to President Stucki and what he will do in this mission. We have been blessed to be here. No question about it – we have been blessed.

Well, one of these days we hope to be able to send this letter. We pray that you are all doing well. We love you and miss you. Please give everyone a hug for us. Thank you for your prayers and support. We couldn’t do this without you. Keep hanging on and doing your best. Heavenly Father is aware of your needs. This we know. Remember to BE good, DO good and BE men and women of Christ. AND ALWAYS remember to say your prayers.

Love,

Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Janene and Grant