Milestones

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Milestone:
a stone serving as a milepost; a significant point of development.


I love the milestones on the highways in the United States.  They particularly help on a long trip in the middle of nowhere, helping to keep our sanity as the roads go on, seemingly forever.  It is good to know were are making progress on the trip, especially when there are no other visible markers.  The ones I seem to watch the most closely are the last 40 miles in Montana, approaching Alberta once again.  One of my favorite songs is "Alberta Bound" by Paul Brandt.  That song gets listened to on full blast many times over as we reach the 40 mile mark.

We reached a few milestones this week.


We had our final round of zone conferences.  We prepared for our trainings as we usually do, and hoped to make the time spent at Zone Conference meaningful for the missionaries.  We feel a strong need to quickly prepare all these new missionaries to lead out quickly.  We trained on the basics, focussing on Doctrine, turning to Christ, and being expert at the basics.  How we love them and love this work.  There is such an energy emanating from missionaries.  We are so in awe of what they do each day and love to watch them learn and grow.

On Thursday we reached another milestone as we celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary.  The years have been filled with smiles and tears, ups and downs, but all in all, it has been a wonderful 38 years.  The missionaries made a big deal of it all.


The last milestone this week was Kipp's birthday on Friday.  60 years old is a senior citizen in the Philippines, so now he can get discounts at restaurants and priority in lineups!  We took the last group of departing missionaries to Banaue on Friday -- Kipp's favorite place to visit.  The rice is beginning to turn gold in some of the terraces, and the harvest will soon begin. All planting and harvesting is done by hand at the Rice Terraces, and they only get one crop a year.






We feel, like Oliver Cowdery, that "These were days never to be forgotten".  We cherish and savor every day, grateful for the privilege to serve the Lord in this wonderful land of the Philippines, among these kind and humble people.








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