This past week was another full week, especially the last half of the week. On Wednesday, we had a wonderful opportunity to have three general authorities speak to us during an Area Office Devotional. Elder Renlund was here as was Elder Johnson and Bishop Budge. Elder Huff had to play the piano for the choir and I sang with the choir. That is maybe the second time he has played in the presence of an apostle. The cool thing was that he talked about the two hymns we sang (I think he chose the hymns, actually) and then also talked about the new hymn book (will it EVER come out?). We heard some really important messages from all of them, then he wanted to shake hands with each and every employee and missionary who was there. On Tuesday, I was asked to prepare a craft and songs for Mabuhay House, so the general authorities’ wives would have something to do with the residents when they visited there. That was fun and just a bit nerve-wracking. Since we just had Independence Day, I had them make the flags that we learned how to make at Project P.E.A.R.L.S on Saturday. I also had them sing their national anthem, which Melody Ledesma said has never been done at Mabuhay House! I really want to learn it, since it is sung at every school function we go to, but it’s quite challenging. Maybe I need to make that a goal. Here are some pictures from Mabuhay House:

After the devotional , we had to leave for our LOOONG road trip. We had to go way up to the northern part of Luzon to the city of Laoag to do a monitoring and evaluation of the RACHEL donation for their school division. We stopped about half way, at San Fernando and stayed with the Heslops, the humanitarian couple who are serving up that way. They have an apartment right on the beach, so that was such a nice change! The next morning, they came with us and we drove for another 5 hours to get to Laoag. The curriculum head in the division met with us and had our two day visit all scheduled. And of course, we had to be fed everywhere we went. We visited 5 schools total over the course of a day and half and everywhere we went we heard the phrase “MORE RACHELS” over and over! We really tried to get them to talk about the pros and cons of RACHEL, which I think they did, but of course, they really feel that one per school just isn’t enough to really utilize them the way they would like to. Now the tough job of preparing a good, comprehensive report about their usefulness in the schools begins. I will probably leave that up to Elder Huff. We had an amazing lunch at the school of fisheries. Really good, healthy food. Everyone was gracious and generous with their time. I think it was worth the long drive to see how things are going. Next time, though, I think flying might be in order!

After leaving Laoag, we stopped for the night in Vigan, which is a town that is truly unique here in the Philippines. It still has many buildings that were here when the Spaniards had control of the Philippines. We stayed in a hotel that was supposedly built in 1898. The cobblestone streets, the horse carriages, the old architecture, all made for a refreshing break. We even took a short little bike ride. All in all, we are glad we made this stop.