A Spiritual Feast

Sunday, June 13^th was the dedication of the Cebu City Temple.  It was wonderful.  President Monson, Elder Oaks and Bishop Burton were there from SLC.  Our own Area Presidency was there also.  We attended the 3^rd (and final) dedicatory session on Sunday afternoon.  The new temple is beautiful and we were honored to be the session that Pres. Monson decided to speak “off the cuff” to.  He kept saying that his remarks weren’t in the script but he continued talking and telling stories.  We loved it!  He also did the dedicatory prayer.  The night before (Saturday) there was a big Cultural Celebration that was on live broadcast to all the stake and district centers in the Philippines.  The youth from the Cebu Temple District did native dances in costume.  It was extra special because they had huge screens that broadcast youth from the outlying areas doing the same dances.  It would have been impossible for them all to fit in the arena and the cost of transportation would have been too high so they filmed other groups ahead of time.  We were worried that Pres. Monson would have issues as he kept his suit jacket on the entire time!  The temperature had to have been in the plus 100 degree range and humid.  They must have had an aircon positioned to cool him. 

                Monday was FHE.  It was the first official one with the new Zone members and it was very nice. 

We had spaghetti and meatballs (Italian style).  Filipino style sauce is with very sweet tomato flavored catsup-ie stuff.  Even the natives ate a ton so it must have passed with approval. 

Tuesday was DM and choir practice.  We have some terrific voices in the new group.  It is a very talented group.  Wednesday we went to Makati for Mission Presidency meeting.  Then, on Friday we fixed breakfast for the Zone at 6:30 in the dang morning

and then went to Manila to the Ocean Park. 

We enjoyed our time with the other senior couples and the fish were happy to see us.  Dinner was at the Manila Hotel. 

It is one of the older and more elite hotels in the city and was quite impressive.  Elder Smith had fish and fries and Sister Smith had pasta with eggplant and marinara sauce.  They were pretty yummy.  We had several baptisms this weekend but it was raining or rushed and so didn’t get any pictures.