The Adventure Continues...the Philippines!: Anniversary, Wedding, and Birthday Celebrations!!!

Dec. 17th, we celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary!!!

Here we are at our office in the PAO.

We went out to dinner at "Tender Bob's" and when they found out we had an anniversary,

they brought us this cute little bunt cake! Tasted great with the Banana Split!!!

The week continued to be filled with festivities as on the 21st, we were invite to the

wedding of Aleli Ayala and Rex Anda in the Manila Temple.

Aleli is one of our Public Affairs Directors.

Aleli also asked me to speak at her reception in Quezon. Well that's our mission

so I thought, "great"! Then she told me, "not Quezon City, Quezon Provence - four hours

away in another mission!" We, along with the Bailey's, were up to the adventure so we got

permission from Pres. DeLaMare and Pres. Teh and and left right after the ceremony!

We drove over to Taal Lake on our way and could see the volcano over Roger's

left shoulder. We traveled on to Lucena where we spent the night!

The next morning there was a long line of people outside our hotel. We found that the

owners son also owns a large franchise of "Big Mak!" and every Christmas they do a

food giveaway for 1000 people. The only bad thing was that there were more people in

line than bags of food.

Roger and Edie at the Queen Margarita Hotel. We met the gracious owner

who gave us each a very nice 2013 Calendar.

Then we were off to Antimonan! It is a little town built right on the coast!

The LDS Chapel was on the main road as you go into town. We met the Bishop there

so we stopped for a little lunch then changed our clothes for the reception.

Rex and Aleli were very happy! They had a big program with lots of pictures. I gave a

talk for her then Sis. Bailey and I sang a song, "I Love to See the Temple." She wanted us

to help Rex's family understand a little about why they would want to get married in the

temple even when many of Rex's family could not view the wedding

as they are not members of the Church. We hope we helped.

They had a huge feast afterward! Lechon, roast pig with all the trimmings. They even had

little crabs but my camera ran out of batteries so I couldn't take a picture!!! We had to

leave as soon as we ate as we had a long drive ahead of us on a Sat. night! Suddenly we

realized that we were only a few days from Christmas so we began to celebrate. We and the

Bailey's sang until we were hoarse! We sang every Christmas Song and Hymn we could
think of, and parts of many others that we couldn't remember! It was a wonderful and
seemingly, very short ride home!
Roger drove the whole way and did a great job in unknown territory!!!