The Rest of Jon and Maria's Visit

Wednesday, we needed to do a little mission work, so we picked up Jon and Maria and delivered two fans and an iron to missionaries. Maria had a chance to do a little language encouragement to a sister missionary who had been out about five months and is struggling with Tagalog. Next we drove down to the Cavite Mission to deliver a missionary's empty suitcase that for some reason had been in our mission home for a year.

When we returned to Manila we took Jon and Maria to the Balikbayan Handcrafts store to buy authentic Philippine souvenirs. Jonathan bought a magnificent ship! And I always pick something up when I'm there, usually jewelry.  I didn't bring any of mine from home but about five pair of earrings, so I can use more. To end Wednesday, after a short nap we went to Caruso's, a lovely Italian restaurant the senior couples frequent.

Thursday we drove to the Philippine Missionary Training Center which is located next to the Area Offices and across the street from the Manila Temple. There we met President and Sister Beck, the current MTC president and his wife, who were formerly Maria's Manila Mission President when she served in 2004-2005. We had a very nice visit with them, which included them extolling Maria's virtues as an exemplary missionary, followed by lunch in the MTC cafeteria and a tour.   Right now, only Filipino and perhaps some island missionaries train there, but soon, all Philippines-bound missionaries from all over the world will receive their training there. It's a very exciting growth and will be of great benefit to the missionaries in getting a feel for the food and culture as well as training proselyting in the actual country. Funny note: A new missionary just called from our ward, a Japanese elder who lives here in Metro Manila, has been called to serve in Cebu, Philippines, where they don't speak Tagalog but Cebuano. He will travel to Provo to learn the language, and then return to serve in the Philippines! I think that will not happen with the expansion of the Philippine MTC.

President and Sister Beck, Maria, Jon, Cheryl, David

They are planning two new buildings on the campus.

After the tour we went over to the temple, where we did a session, and happened to run into the Atoigue family I mentioned in another post. 

Near the back of the temple

Following the temple we took Jon and Maria to a nearby mall for Jon to look for a bag to carry his stuff in on Sunday--I'm sure there's an actual name for such a bag--and then went to another favorite restaurant, L'Artizan, the French restaurant and bakery, and home, after unsuccessfully trying to find the restaurant at which one of our apartment owners worked.