Slow Week - Not!

So what happened this week? Let's see...

This was transfer week, Sister Tanner had a birthday, Elder Head left the office to become a zone leader in Bogo, Elder Miranda and Elder Remer are now assisting in the office, one of us got a ticket for making an illegal U-turn, we delivered a load of stuff for apartments to Lapu-Lapu and took the zone leaders there to lunch at McDonalds, one of us also ran over a dog, and we visited both the Giasano Grand Mall in Mactan and Pacific Mall in Mandaue for the first time. I believe we have mentioned before how malls are big here, both in size and popularity. We may not have mentioned how many dogs there are - and how they like to sleep in the road...

One of the joys of being a financial secretary is the opportunity to meet with every departing missionary one-on-one to take care of a few finance related items. Sister McNett is in contact with these  missionaries several weeks before they leave as travel arrangements are made and other related items taken care of.   It is a chance to get to know them a little better, find out their feelings about going home and what some of their future plans are. We feel privileged to be a small part of the transition to the next phase of their lives and are grateful for this contact with them. The situations they return to are as varied and unique as each missionary, but we wish them well as they continue with their lives.

Surprise!

This was supposed to be a transfer meeting.

Happy Birthday Sister Tanner

To announce transfers the two districts in our zone meet together after their individual district meetings to hear of new assignments from the zone leaders. One by one they will write the names and new areas on the white board for those who are being transferred. Needless to say the other missionaries are very attentive during this process and there is generally a lot of verbal interaction.

Transfer Meeting

So it was a little odd that Sister Cook didn't react when they wrote her name and new area on the board. About 10 minutes later we hear 'What! Am I being transferred?" from Sister Cook. The area here is called Lilo-an (pronounced Lee-low-ahn) and her new area is Loon (pronounced here as Low-oon with long o's). She thought that the zone leaders were just kidding with her and had written an abbreviation for Lilo-an on the board and that she was staying here. The next thing we hear is "Am I being transferred to Loon?" (Loon pronounced as you would expect it to be pronounced in the US.)  We will hate to see her leave the area but know she is going where she is needed and will do well where ever she is.

Looking over the transfer list.

So what do people here associate with Mormons?  We were having a conversation with two young women wanting to sell us something at Pacific Mall. After reading our name tags they asked us which church we were with. We asked them if they had heard of the Mormon Church. One of the girl's face lit up and she said "David Archuletta?" We told her, yes. that's the one.