Grateful

I remember a Bright Music song we used to listen to when our children were little:

"An attitude of gratitude will see the good before the bad; 

An attitude of gratitude is finding reasons to be glad."

I have been wanting to post this for awhile, a post of the good things to remember.  

The last week of August, we were becoming more concerned about the number of missionaries that are approaching their release dates, and not getting any new ones.  I did some figuring and discovered that if we didn't receive any new missionaries by the end of January, we would only have 56 left!  Having gone from over 200, the reality of what was happening was a little frightening.  We joked that the last one out would need to turn out the lights.  But yet again, we have been reminded that the Lord knows our needs and is very aware of us. (This situation is also the same for all of the missions in the Philippines.  We are all functioning on a skeleton crew).  Last week, President received an email that informed us that 6 re-patriated missionaries that live within our mission had been temporarily assigned to their home mission, as 6 months have passed and they will not be able to return to their original missions anytime soon.  What a blessing!  They are excited to come and serve with us until their missions are over or until they are returned to their original mission.  Since they have already served anywhere from 4-18 months, they will not need to be trained.  We are thrilled and preparing for their arrival on Tuesday.  We received another exciting email on Friday.  19 missionaries that live within the mission boundaries that have finished their on-line MTC training at home and then have been waiting to go to their assignments will be re-assigned temporarily to serve here!!!!!  This is an answer to prayers!  Now we can keep Areas open that we were going to have to close.  They will arrive on September 23.  They will need Trainers.  We have barely enough Sisters left to train the newcomers.  We haven't had new missionaries for so long, that we hardly remember what to do, but we will figure it out.  We are grateful.

On September 4, after 49 days in a hotel room in Manila (what she lovingly named the "Manila Microtel Hotel Mission"), after 4 cancelled flights and a few tears, Sister Camral flew home to Iloilo on Friday!  She is still at a hotel for her 14 day quarantine, but at least she is at home.  She was able to see her mother from the car as she gave her a smartphone to use while in quarantine.  Now the end is in sight.  Hallelujah!!  Sister Camral has been such an example of taking what is she was given and making it better.  She and the other stranded missionaries she was with kept working, kept studying, kept each other going.  So many blessings.  She wasn't alone.  She was joined by her best friend who was also returning from her mission in France and her cousin, who was returning from another mission, and they were able to go home together.  We are grateful.

We have 4 "Wrinkled Angels" as President Craig calls them, Elder and Sister Warren and Elder and Sister Beck, who could have gone home in March, but chose to stay here and continue serving.  We would have been lost without them.  We know that it has not been easy, and they have spent more time in the car than they would have wished to, but their help has been so needed.  With all the new missionaries arriving, we will be on the road again, getting them to their Areas.  We are grateful. 

We have a great group of people here that help us every day with all of our needs.  The Philippines is indeed a land of hospitality.  People are good and so kind to us.  We are grateful.

We are blessed to have an amazing group of missionaries to work with.  Our young mission leaders are inspiring in their effort to keep the mission going.  They are figuring out the new ways of finding and teaching and they are thriving.  We are grateful.

In early August, Kipp felt an urgency to hold in-person Zone Conferences.  We scheduled 5 individual conferences (one for each Zone).  We weren't sure how we could make it happen.  Rules keep changing and cases of Covid have been rising here.  But he was determined.  We were going to have them all over a week's time, but the last one had to be re-scheduled twice, once because we had to put 2 missionaries in a quarantine because they had been exposed to Covid at church, and the second time because they were going to put the Province in a hard lockdown on the day we had it scheduled.  We worried.  We nearly cancelled it the night before, but felt we would be okay.  The decision however weighed heavily upon us.  Were we taking unnecessary risks?  On Monday we held the last conference in Bambang.  It was uplifting and helped erase the pain of 6 months of not being able to gather together in Zone Conference.  We are grateful.

The flowers are blooming.  

The crops are growing.  

There is lettuce at the grocery store. (There was none except wilty awful stuff for the first year of our time here) 

We are healthy.

We have air conditioning!

Technology allows us to talk to our family and see them, even though we are halfway around the world.  

Our Father in Heaven lives and loves us all.  Prayers are answered.  The Church has been Restored.  We once again have prophets and apostles to teach and lead us.  The Holy Ghost brings us comfort and inspiration.  Life is good.

And we are grateful.