Our Christmas was certainly different this year! Now that isn’t a bad thing, really. We did have time for reflection and to truly ponder the true spirit and meaning of Christmas. We managed to get the whole family together for a Zoom devotional on their Christmas Eve (our Christmas morning). Modern technology is a marvel that way, but it still isn’t as wonderful as having one-on-one with each family and person. We missed that! We didn’t have even one single present to open, but that didn’t even phase us. We enjoyed good music, good feelings, helping with the MTC missionaries, and traveling to CEBU. So that brings me to the next part of our Christmas, which was traveling to the airport to go to the island of Cebu. We have been wanting to go and visit sister Flores since we arrived here. We knew she wasn’t getting any younger and we hadn’t heard from her in many months, so we felt an urging to go down their. Christmas break was the perfect time, since our office was basically closed all week and nothing much was going to get done for our humanitarian projects anyway. We did learn, though, that it isn’t such a great idea to try to fly on Christmas. We couldn’t seem to get a Grab (like Uber) ride to the airport, so we had to drive ourselves and figure out the parking there. We almost didn’t get to park in the lot, since it was full and they wouldn’t let him in to park for over 20 minutes. But we did make it, and after some delays, we were able to fly down to Cebu. The flight itself only took a little over an hour, but you know how it is to deal with airports. Anyway, we were relieved to arrive at our hotel and the sweet Teicherts, who are new humanitarian missionaries in Cebu, came and picked us up at the airport and then had us over for dinner. Another purpose for our trip to Cebu was to visit with the Teicherts and see if they had any questions or concerns. They are the only humanitarian missionaries down here, without much support really. So we had great visits with them on Monday and Tuesday, going to a potential project with them at a home for abused girls and checking out an amazing home/garden of the local councilman. We also visited a beautiful garden up in the mountains, really close to the city. Here are some pictures from our time with the Teicherts.

Our next big event was meeting up with the Flores family. 50 years ago, Elder Huff and his companion, Elder Mackay, tracted out Sister Flores and her husband, Jaime, in Lapu Lapu. At that time, it was a much smaller village. Now it’s a busy place with a half-million people and even has an international airport there. When we (Elder Huff is now telling the story) first met them, Sister Flores seemed really interested and was especially hopeful that we could bring something that could help her husband and their young family. However, it was obvious that Brother Flores had been drinking and was not prepared to hear our message. Sister Flores pleaded for us to come back. We came back a week later, and had similar results. We all decided that it probably wasn’t time to teach them. Two or three weeks later we were going home after a long day of work. We passed by the Flores’ home, but didn’t pay much attention. However, after walking another block or two, we both got the powerful impression that we needed to go back and try again. This time, Brother Flores was sober and we had a wonderful introduction. From that time on, both Brother and Sister Flores were very receptive to the gospel. Elder Mackay baptized Brother Flores first, because Sister Flores wanted him to take the lead. A week or two later, I personally had the opportunity to baptize Sister Flores. We also baptized their two oldest children. By the time I finished my mission, Brother Flores was the Branch President of the Mandaue Branch, then later the Branch President and Bishop of the Lapu-Lapu Ward. Sister Flores has been a leader of the Church in the Lapu-Lapu area for the last 50 years. She even showed us letters from Elder Boyd K. Packer and Elder Dallin H. Oaks thanking her for her work in helping to translate the Book of Mormon into Cebuano. She is a truly a treasure, as is her whole family. I have often said that if I had only baptized one family on my whole mission – the Flores family – it would have been well worth it. Thanks to the Flores family for all they are, and for the time we were able to spend with them on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Elder Huff scheduled a time for us to go to the temple: 3:00. I originally thought that wasn’t the greatest time- kind of the middle of the day. But! Tender mercy!!! In our very session was the great grandson of Erlinda Flores and their family. He was going through the temple for the first time since he will be leaving for his mission soon. I’m so glad they recognized us! You can see him at the temple and again wearing the missionary t-shirt that he designed!

On Thursday, we had an adventure day. It was wonderful to be in nature nearly all day! That’s something we have really been missing while on this mission. We don’t have a lot of green space near us in Quezon City. So we drove our rental car for about three hours to get to a small town called Moalboal. This is a coastal town that is known for snorkeling and diving with the sardines. We rented our equipment (we forgot to bring ours, again!) and headed out to the ocean where we had a truly magical time snorkeling. We didn’t have to swim out far at all to see the millions of sardines, then went a little further to find the turtles. We did find two turtles, which seemed smaller than the sea turtles in Hawaii, but much more colorful. What was surprising to us, though, was the colorful and varied coral along the reef there. There were also some colorful fish, but the true highlight for me was the coral. We probably spent around an hour and a half there, then had a delicious smoothie bowl ( a first for us here) then drove another half hour or so to get to the canyoneering adventure. We were hoping to just hike in on our own and see the first couple of waterfalls, but it wasn’t open to hiking due to damage from last year’s typhoon, so we opted for the full on canyoneering adventure. It’s called Kawasan Falls and is actually a series of at least 7 waterfalls, with lots of jumping into falls (not my favorite thing) and swimming from one waterfall pool to the next. We even got to ride on the back of a motor bike to get to the top of the trail. That was on my bucket list here as well! We could have done a zipline, but it looked way too high up for my liking, so we opted to just hike the first part. We probably spent around 4 hours hiking, jumping and swimming from one fall to the next. We had our own guide, who was very helpful and made sure I was safe (thank heavens for him!). We were glad to have done this, but I don’t think I need to repeat it. It was a bit exhausting! Then we still had our long drive back to Cebu City through narrow roads with pedicabs, tricycles with no lights, scooters, big trucks and people walking alongside the dark narrow rides. It made for nerve-wracking driving at times. Luckily, Elder Huff is getting it down!

Some other highlights in Cebu: visiting the Minor Basilica of the Holy Child of Cebu and wandering through the market.