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!!!

 Sun. Dec. 23rd was my 60th Birthday!!! Who would have ever guest that Roger would 

take me to the Philippines to celebrate??? We actually got to call Monica that morning to 

wish her a happy birthday. It will probably be the only time that we will ever have our

 birthday's on the same day! Even after a late night, we went to our little Branch then 

Sis. Bailey made a wonderful chicken birthday dinner for us! 

Roger gave me a beautiful pearl bracelet for my birthday.

 A Birthday kiss for the Birthday girl!!!

 Elder and Sis. Bailey gave me a beautiful pink scarf and some oil incense.

We enjoyed a wonderful day! 

 I even got a rice flour cake for my birthday from the Hadlocks! 

It was chocolate, and  so very good!!!

Training in Cebu

We had quite the adventure as we flew to Cebu in December to meet with all eight of our 

Multi-Stake Public Affairs Directors and some of their councils. We didn't expect to get

 to have as much fun as we did though!!! It all began as we met some musicians as we 

waited for out flight. They asked if we had heard of the Von Trapp Famiy. 

"You mean like the Sound of Music Von Trapps? Yes, we just watched the movie." 

"We are touring with Maria's great grand children. They are going to Cebu to sing 

this evening. Do you want to meet them?" 

Well of course we did and we got our picture taken with them! 

Haidi was as excited as we were!!!

Our adventure didn't stop there as we acturally went to their concert, then bought a CD,

and stood in line for their autographs! They were delightful!

Haidi's cute husband picked us up at the airport but we were a little delayed. 

We couldn't find out luggage! Finally everyone one gone and the same two bags 

keep coming around. I suddenly dawned on me. Our bags were NOT black, 

but were thenice royal blue ones that everyone had left on the turntable!!!

Gerome and Haidi took us to a floating restaurant right on the shore in Lapu Lapu. 

We had our first mussels and tuna belly, which was delicious!!!

This may be the only jeepney we ever get to "ride" in so we had to get our picture 

taken inside. We didn't serve any drinks while we were inside though!

After lunch we went to Magellan's grave. He was killed here by Lapu Lapu, 

the Chief of the Island which now bears his name.

Gerome and Haidi and Sis. and Elder DuPaix

Before our training began of Fri. afternoon, Haidi, Gerome, and Danzel showed 

us some more of Cebu.

We stopped at Magellan's cross. He erected the
cross here in Cebu and the original wood has
been encased to protect it. He was the first to
bring Christianity to the Philippines.

Fri. afternoon we got to go to the beautiful Cebu Temple. We ate lunch at the 

Patron Housing then went to a wonderful session. It was very special to realize that

 some of the people we had been in the Temple with, were some of the Public Affairs 

directors and leaders who had come here for our training. They also wanted to take 

advantage of being near the temple here!

The Cebu Philippines Temple

We held our training in the beautiful new Quest Hotel. They took very good care of us and 

we had a delightful time meeting these wonderful people from all over the Philippines!

Our name plaque outside the conference room.

 We worked hard and laughed and danced and got to know and love each other! 

I even got to hold this precious tiny baby while her mama took a break. 

Filipino children are so beautiful!

Some of the great women we got to train with! Stella, Amie, Tina, Erl, Monette, 

Haidi and me!!!

Since we were so close to Christmas, we had a gift exchange. Didn't know 

Elder DuPaix had so much talent at doing the "Scarf Dance"!

We love our Public Affairs leaders! Didn't know I could feel so close to these wonderful

 people after only knowing them a few hours! We appreciate all they do in their different 

areas all over the Philippines!

Christmas Preparations

Christmas decorations at Shangra La Mall.  "It's a small world" decor!

On Dec. 4th we celebrated the lighting of the Temple with a nice open house at the PAO. Third Floor does a beautiful job with decorating and catering. We all dressed up to meet out guests. Elder and Sis. Bailey and Elder and Sis. DuPaix

Bro. Doug McAllister and his wife Janice are Branch Pres. Counselor and 

R.S. President of our Branch - Makati 4th.

Pres. Micheal Teh, our Area President and his wife Grace.

Sis. Pauline Tapp and our director, Haidi Fajardo.

After the open house, we all went to the Temple grounds for the lighting, 

and the beautiful display of the Belen.

We even had a visit from Scrooge! Pres. Taylor of the MTC did a wonderful 

one-man show for the Senior Missionary Zone!!!

Our little tree in our apartment! The best part - our gifts from home waiting 

to be opened on Christmas day!

SOS Children's Village

SOS Children’s Village in Alabang was the ideal venue for the third quarterly forum of Family Network (Famnet).  Three public affairs missionaries, Sis. Farnsworth and along with Roger and I, attended the forum as representatives for the church. We were told that SOS CV was an orphanage and this peaked their interest as each of their families had been involved in adopting children.
This orphanage was definitely different than they thought it would be as they found that children are never adopted from the village.  It is the last place they come before they enter the world and start careers and families of their own.  This is a place that caters to abandoned or orphaned children who often have siblings. Children are brought here so they can remain together and learn how to grow and function within a family.

This is a family strengthening program where 350 “mothers” head up households that are broken up into “families” of about 9 children. Each “family” lives in a small home where the mother cooks and cares for the children who feel protected and loved. This system allows siblings and family groups to remain intact. SOS believes that every child deserves a living parent and brothers and sisters.  They deserve a home in a village, which is a part of the community or barangay.

Sis. DuPaix and Sis. Farnsworth, posing with a "Mom" and some of her daughters.

This system allows siblings and family groups to remain intact. SOS believes that every child deserves a living parent and brothers and sisters.  They deserve a home in a village, which is a part of the community or barangay.

Just outside the home was a playground where two little girls were playing on the slide.  They were so cute as they interacted as “sisters”, whether by birth, or by being brought together in their wonderful SOS Village home.

Elder DuPaix with the family outside of their home.

Elder and Sis. DuPaix at SOS Children's Village.

We wrote an article for mormonnewsroom.ph about this experience and the article 

was also published in the AWCP magazine, "Inklings".

Thanksgiving 2012 - two days late!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!
We had our dinner the Saturday
 after Thanksgiving.
 We even got Elder Hardick,
 our Canadian connection, to

carve the turkey!!! 
Elder Bailey got a hand in on that, too!

We Sisters did our best to help, too! We did potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin pie!

Sis. DuPaix, Sis. Hadlock, Sis. French, and Sis. Bailey!

What a feast! Some of the young Elders were especially excited to be invited!

Looks pretty normal, right? We told everyone to bring their favorite Thanksgiving food.  

I was just a little surprised to see the chips! The homemade salsa was killer, though!!!

Now, we really told Pres. DeLaMare that he didn't have to serve us but he wouldn't listen!