Grady and Karen's Philippines Cebu East Mission Experience: What a week.

Sorry for being late - a lot happened this week.

Before passing judgement prematurely and coming to the wrong conclusion, we should explain why Preident Maughan was caught sleeping in Elder Velasco's hospital bed.

The week started with a meeting Monday evening at the Mission Home for all 12 Sister Training Leaders, followed on Tuesday with the monthly Mission Leadership Council (MLC) meeting in the Lilo-an Church building. MLC includes the Sister Training Leaders, Zone Leaders, Assistants to the President and President and Sister Maughan, a total of 34. This meeting starts after breakfast and goes until about 3:00 in the afternoon. It is for leadership training and provides an opportunity to discuss challenges and issues that come up in day-to-day missionary work. President and Sister Maughan and the Assistants put a lot of time and effort into preparing for MLC.

President Maughan giving instruction at MLC.

Elder Baladad and Elder Grimpluma conduct and train at MLC.

Wednesday was pretty much a normal day in the office for us, and we had just finished dinner when we got a call asking if we would help transport a missionary to the hospital in Cebu. This was about 7 PM. Next thing we knew we were off to Danao which is about 30-40 minutes north (depending on traffic), We picked up Elder Velasco, who was suspected to have appendicitis, Elder Goulding, his companion, and Elder Chavian, a Zone Leader who also came along, and set off for Chung Hua hospital in Cebu which is about an hour or more to the south of us (depending on traffic, of course). Chung Hua is the best hospital in Cebu.

On the way in Sister McNett asked Elder Velasco how he was doing. He replied that he was enjoying the pain. As long as they can joke about it we know they are OK. The roads here are rough in places and we know he felt every bump. We made it in pretty good time and took Elder Velasco to the emergency room where it was determined that it was, in fact, appendicitis and he would be operated on later that night or early the next morning.

Enjoying the pain.

We made sure Elder Goulding and Elder Chavian were able to eat dinner and worked out insurance and payment issues so that Elder Velasco could be admitted to the hospital. About 11:30 PM we returned home leaving the three elders there. The drive home was 30 minutes compared to the hour+ it took to get there. We decided from now on we will do all of our driving here between midnight and 6 AM.

Elder Velasco had the surgery Thursday morning and is recovering nicely. He was even able to leave the hospital Saturday and is now under the watchful eye of Sister Maughan.

Along with Elder Velasco, President and Sister Maughan were also dealing with major health issues involving three other missionaries. These issues required a great deal of their time and attention along with help from the Assistants and two other Office Elders. There were a couple of long days and really short nights. By Friday morning when Maughans were able to visit Elder Velasco in the hospital they were pretty beat. Thus the picture above with President Maughan borrowing the hospital bed. By the way, he did give it back.

On Friday while Maughans were at the hospital we met a landlord to finalize arrangements to rent a house for the Weatherstons - our new office couple coming in October.

House for new Senior Couple

Avocado Tree

It is a very nice house not far from us with a large open living area and landscaped yard. There is even a guava and avocado tree.

On Saturday we traveled to Bogo with President and Sister Maughan to attend a District Conference there. The drive is beautiful passing through a mountainous area. We haven't been up that way for almost a year. We returned on Sunday afternoon but may have to save those pictures for another day.

Before we end this week we want to share a picture of Sister Osumo (batch!) and Sister Inlao who are assigned in Lilo-an and visit the office regularly (who is that in the background?).