When I'm 64

This song means even more today than it did some 42 years ago.
We were invited to have dinner last night at the mission home with President and Sister Tanner and the office Elders. Along with the fancy, Elder decorated cake they had this little surprise:

It is called a tarpaulin here. They come in all sizes, are relatively inexpensive and are created and used all the time here for special occasions. It was a fun way to celebrate a birthday. We still don't know why a unicorn.

On Monday evening there was a special dinner and fireside for senior missionary couples serving in the Cebu and Cebu East Missions. It was held at the temple compound in Cebu. Elder Steven Snow is a member of the Seventy who is currently serving as Church Historian and Reid Neilson is an Assistant Church Historian and the Managing Director of the Church History Department. They travel a couple of times a year to various areas throughout the world as part of their duties and this year came to the Philippines.  The growth of the church in the Philippines has been dramatic going from four missionaries in 1961 to 710,000 members today and the church is wanting to make sure that a proper history of that growth is recorded.





 After dinner they talked briefly about the scriptural basis for keeping a record and the difference between recording facts (like names and dates) and keeping histories (like recording personal experiences) and how both are important. We then had about 30 minutes to ask questions, which went way too quickly.

From left to right are Reid Nielson, President and Sister McCurdy of Cebu Mission, Elder and Sister Snow, President and Sister Bowen of the Philippine Area Presidency, President and Sister Tanner of Cebu East Mission and Elder Perez who is a Philippine Area Seventy.