The Taoist Temple in Cebu is a Chinese place of prayer. There is a sign where you go into the "temple" that tells you how to know the answer to your prayer. It says you should throw these little blocks on the ground and how they land tells you what your answer is. I'm thankful that I know about the Holy Ghost and how to pray to Heavenly Father and get answers. Some people have some very different ideas, don't they? When the missionaries teach people how to pray, it changes their life. When you open this blog, you might want to go to the bottom and read about the last picture first. It might be easier for you to understand. I love you so much, Grandma

Elder and Sister Burton are from Salt Lake City. Their children wanted them to serve a mission and are helping pay for them to be here. They are both artists, and Brother Burton has been making little model Filipino houses when he has some spare time on Preparation Day. He gave one of these houses to us and we will bring it home with us. Aren't they cool looking? Brother Burton plays the piano, and he is using the keyboard in this picture to teach people how to play. Not very many people here know how to play the music for singing in Church. I am glad some of you are learning how to play so when you go on your mission you will be able to play songs for church. Some branches sing without a piano and it's harder that way.

Elder and Sister Outcalt are grandparents too. They came to the Cebu Mission in June. Bryce and Spencer, Sister Outcalt is the aunt of someone in your ward, Matt Holyoak. This picture is taken at the place where a new church house will soon be built in Tubigon. We really like the Outcalts. They are excited to be missionaries here. They are helping the new members of the church learn how to be leaders. They are helping young men prepare to serve missions. They are such good helpers for Heavenly Father.

Elder Outcalt has lots of hobbies. One is making wooden toys. The easiest wood to find here is bamboo. He made these cars out of bamboo. He is going to teach the Young Men how to make cars and then they will take them as gifts for an orphanage. That's where kids live who don't have any parents. I think they will like having these toys, don't you?

Here is Grandpa with the missionaries from the Calape Zone. We are at Sagbayan Peak. The missionaries next to Grandpa are Elder Hodges and Elder Latimer. They were AP's when this picture was taken. Elder Hodges went home a little while after this picture was taken. He lives in Washiongton. Once a week missionaries have "P-Day." That's short for Preparation Day. That's when they can write letters to their families, clean their apartments, shine their shoes, and stuff like that. But once in awhile they can have an outing to see things that are close to where they live. We were happy that they invited us to spend part of their Pday with them. This is a small zone with only 8 misisonaries. One zone has 28 missionaries.

When we were in Negros early in August we went up into the mountains to see a power plant. That's a place where they are using steam from under the ground to make electricity so people can have lights in their houses. In this picture I am with Sister Wolf (on the left of the picture), Sister Burton, and Brother Wolf. Over by Brother Wolf is Elder Hankins. He is an "AP" or Assistant to the President. The AP's travel with us almost everywhere we go, and they do a lot of teaching to help other missionaries learn how to work. Sister Burton and her husband are full time missionaries. Brother and Sister Wolf are very good friends, and Brother Wolf is a counselor to Grandpa. I want you all to know that I love being a missionary! I love every single missionary who is in our mission. If they get sick it is my job to help them get better. It is so fun to learn about this country. I know that every person here is a son or daughter of God, and that he loves every one of His children. That's why missionaries are so important. They help people learn about Heavenly Father and what they need to to so they can live with Him again.

In this picture we are in front of the mission office. The big banner was designed by your Aunt Tania. On the left of the sign is a round design that is our mission logo. It says "Success Through Obedience". These missionaries are the new "batch" that came to us on August 9. The Elders are all Filipino, but Sister Lilo is from Tonga. She was in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah for two months to learn how to speak Cebuano before she came. The Filipino missionaries go to the MTC in Manila and they don't learn any language there. In the Philippines the national language is Tagalog but almost every province has a different dialect. Filipinos learn some English in school too. So when they come to us some of them already know three languages!

Do you know what missionaries do all day? They don't just go up and down the street knocking on people's doors. In the morning they get up at 6 o'clock and they exercise and shower and eat their breakfast. Then they have one hour to study the scriptures and Preach My Gospel. See if your Dad has a copy of that so you can look at it. It's a book made by the church leaders to teach missionaires how to be effective. Next companions study together, and then they go out to teach. Every week the missionaries in a district get together and their district leader tells them things they need to know. And every six weeks we have zone conference with two or three zones. In these pictures the missionaries are at a zone conference in Dumaguete. They are practicing how to tell people about our Church and about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. We have 24 Sister missionaries, and 110 Elders. Eighty eight missionaries are Filipinos, and some come from other countries like Malaysia, Tonga, Samoa, Canada and Australia. The rest are Americans.

When our meeting with the missionaries was finished, they caught a ride to their places in this tricycle. There is a man in the front riding a motorcycle that is attached to this "side car." There were 8 missionaires who rode in this little trike!

When we went to Sagbayan Peak, we went to a butterfly "room." I remembered that Kate likes butterflies, so I took these pictures thinking of her. I bet some of the rest of you like butterflies too. I was surprised I didn't frighten that big butterfly away when I stood by it to have my picture taken.

This is the Loboc River, and those people are riding on a "pum boat." Grandpa and I were riding on one of these boats with Tania and Lenette last August, 2006. The bright orange you see in the green trees is a "flame" or "fire" tree. You can see why it got it's name. All the flowers on it are bright as fire.

This is a HUGE lobster and some crabs. This tank with them in it is in front of a Chinese restaurant across the street from the mission office. We like to go there to eat. But we have never eaten a lobster or a crab there!

Here are some children in Lamac. This is inside the house where they have church. It is very small, and there are lots of people who come to church now. These children stayed after church because we were there. They were entertaining me while I waited for Grandpa to interview the missionaries. They were playing a game with their shoes. They would put it on the floor behind them, and then bend over backward to pick it up. It is very hard to do! Some of them sang Primary songs with me. I love it when I can sing with kids.

One day we had a meeting in the Tagbilaran, Bohol, church house. After the meeting was over all the missionaries were outside, but I stayed inside to sweep the floor and make sure everything was clean. Two of these boys were peaking at me through the open door, so I talked to them. They had just finished school across the street, and they wanted to play basketball in the church parking lot, but there were no basketballs. They asked me if I had a basketball. I was sorry I didn't, but I gave them each 5 pesos so they could get some snacks. That made me their friend! After they got the snacks they came back to thank me. By then I was finished cleaning up, so I sat by them on the stairs and talked with them. They are very good at speaking English. I had fun talking with them. I told them why I was living in the Philippines, and that our missionaries had a very important message for their families. I asked them that if they saw missionaries close to their house, to let the missionaries come in and teach them. They said they would. I hope some of them will join the Church and become missionaries, too!

When we lived in the condo, these two men were some workers there. The one with the white shirt is a guard. He watched so no one could come in unless they lived there. If they didn't live there, the guard would call us and say "You have visitors named______. Is it ok to let them come up to your place?" The man with the orange shirt washed our car and helped fix things that were broken.

For two months we have heard some strange creature around our place. Finally last week Jesse caught it. In Cebuano it is called a "halo". It's much bigger than any of us expected it to be. It's kind of gross-looking, but Jesse said they are not mean. He was taking it home with him to eat it for dinner. He said it would taste like chicken!

This is me with Sister Olpin and Sister Tukuafu. On the day of this picture they were waiting to go to the airport to go home. Sister Olpin lives in Utah and Sister Tukuafu lives in Tonga. They had all morning to wait and so they helped me make cookies. These cookies are called "Peanut Blossoms". Bryce and Spencer, Pam Lewis taught me how to make these cookies with Hershey kisses. All the missionaries loved eating them!

This is the senior Primary of the Baclayon Branch, on the island of Bohol. They have their meetings in a house, and there are not enough rooms so the Senior Primary has their class outside. There is a blackboard on the left side, and the lady by it in the white shirt is the teacher. In Baclayon Branch there is a family with 12 children. Their mother is the Primary president, and all of them help her set up chairs and lead the music. The girl with the peach colored dress, and the one with the light yellow are her daughters.

The lady in the middle is named Carol Belarmino. Everyone calls her "Sister Carol." She is a member of the Church in Bohol, and almost every time we take the ferry to Bohol, she is there to meet us and gives us flowers to wear. In this picture we had Elder and Sister Edwards with us. Elder Edwards is a general authority in the First Quorum of the Seventy. They live in Manila and are in charge of all the 15 missions in the Philippines. Elder Edwards was a mission president in Africa before he came here.

Here are some pictures of a "mercado". They sell all kinds of stuff here, including food. But I don't have a picture of the food at this mercado.

After the ground-breaking ceremony we noticed three little boys who were having fun digging in a dead log. It is all crumbly because worms have been eating it. They liked watching the worms. They were pretty gross-looking worms, and they were big and fat and white! Boys here also like to play with spiders. They get them on a stick and watch them make a chain to hang from.

On Bryce's birthday, August 30, we couldn't even call him on the phone because we were on a different island. We were in Bohol. There will soon be a new meetinghouse for the Church in a city called Tubigon. They have a little ceremony called "Ground-breaking". Here is Grandpa with his hard hat and gold shovel.

This is the fish section of the grocery store. They have SO many different kinds of fish. We have tried a fish called Lapu-lapu and bangus. We like both of them. Do you see in the bottom picture that there is a huge fish head for sell? They make "fish head soup". They keep the fish on ice to keep it cold. On the wall behind is where you can buy some yummy imported things like cheese and yogurt.