November 23, 2014 - Sunday

We made it to the Philippines!  We arrived late last night after some 8,000 air travel miles and 28 hours of actual travel miles... A trip I won't mid taking one more time!

We traveled on some huge aircraft that held 320 passengers.  There were 4 classes of passenger travel and we sat on the very back row of the economy class!  It was probably the most challenging for me to sit for such long periods of time!  We never did see the sun set until we arrived in Manila.  That was interesting!

So, it is now official, Sister Lasher and Elder Lasher are full time missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We had many very interesting conversations just from people seeing our name badges.  

We had several former missionaries come right up to us and engaged in some wonderful dialog.  We also had several folks who talked to us who had great admiration for the missionary efforts of the Church.  

My appreciation goes out to all the missionaries, who may never quite understand the impact they have had on people, who have impressed these kinds of people.  They were very complimentary about all the missionaries they have seen in their travels throughout the world.  It is such a privilege to be a part of this great world-wide work!

Mom and I had a comfortable room last night.  We had representatives from Church Travel meet us at the Manila Airport and took us to our room.  We got to the room just a little before 11pm and we were tired.  But it was really only about 8am in the morning Rigby time!  We have an adjustment period for sure!  

We meet for our Church meetings this afternoon with a small branch.  A brother will be picking us up in about 2 hours and we will meet with our first Church members!  More to come!

Well, we made it to the Branch Meeting that started at 2pm Philippine time and met some absolutely wonderful people!  Brother Clem has been our driver coordinator and we finally met him and his family.  What a pleasant and happy group of brothers and sisters.  We instantly felt that we were a part of their congregation.

For each of our grandchildren taking piano lessons or who might be thinking about taking these lessons, this is a note for you!  The branch lost their pianist about 3 months ago when he moved out of the area.  One of the counselors in the Bishopric has 3 daughters ranging in age from 11 years old to about 8 years old.  After a few weeks without a pianist, their dad asked them if they would like to play since they knew a little about the piano.  They were NOT receptive to that idea but dad was persistent and encouraged them to at least try.  Well, we heard them play today and they were not only good at playing the Hymns for the Sacrament services, but they were happy to be doing it.  They were so excited when we met them to tell us about their callings to play!

The rest of the meetings were great with many of the branch members participating.  There were several testimonies that were shared about miracles in their lives and in missionary service.  Probably the most touching came at the end of the meetings when another Primary young girl came up to us and said she wanted to be a missionary "just like us".   Tell me Heavenly Father doesn't know each of us and where He needs us to serve!  We sure found out today that two senior missionaries discovered that their service is needed here in the Philippines....