Just a quick update to let you know President Sister Mortimer are probably home by the time you see this.



The first picture is of all the senior couples with our new Mission President and his wife (President & Sister Anderson). We had a quick interview with him this morning and then lunch with all of the senior couples. In the picture we (Elder & Sister Bringhurst) are on the left, next is President and Sister Anderson, next to them are Elder & Sister Ganir, next is Elder & Sister Quiambao (they will be going home in a few weeks, and we will miss them dearly), next is Elder & Sister Ralphs. President and Sister Anderson are warm and friendly people, and he clearly has the Spirit with him.



Yesterday we took Elder & Sister Ganir on drive through the Rain Forest (a national park not far from here), and then on to Gumaca for lunch. On the way back we stopped at place were we could pull off the road and snacks are available. We were amazed at the amount of damage done by the recent typhoon. There is a picture attached, but you may not recognize the damage because you haven't seen the before to
compare with the after. They have a monkey tied up near the snack stand and we gave him one of my cookies. We hadn't gone far when we saw all family (troop is probably the correct term) of wild monkeys run across the road in front of us. There were even more in the trees where they ran to, but we couldn't get a picture of any of them.



As we drove on the view of Tayabas Bay opened in front of us, and I have meaning to get a picture every time go through here, so we stopped and got one this time. It might not mean much to you, but the vista is quite remarkable, and will help us to remember the beauty not far from where we live.

Last Saturday we went to Bara to work with the Sisters who live and work here in Lucena. Bara is an island within the city limits of Lucena. We wanted to support the Sisters and see if there was need for help for families living there following the typhoon. These people are quite resilient and most everything is back to normal.
About the only thing abnormal was the number of old trike tires the kids were playing with. I took one and rolled it through a clear area and a boy jumped over it. Before long we had as many as a dozen boys all lined up to jump over the old tires I rolled to them. Attached is a picture of some of the boys and their tires. One of the reasons we wanted to go was to work with Sister Noche. She is part of the family described elsewhere in our blog, and she is serving a "service
mission" here – meaning she will only be here for 6 weeks. She will serving a full time mission soon.



There are some other pictures we took on Bara so you can see the way the Philippines was 50 years ago. The little girl in red is my friend. We helped her parents get married so they could be baptized. We love these people dearly as do others who visit these wonderful humble people.