Well, this past week was interesting. We had an holiday on Tuesday (some Islam annual event), so we
had the day free for ourselves. But Sister Morello had been fighting a viral something, so we just chilled around the apartment. As for Sister Mother’s viral something, she’s just too hardy to let any infection keep her down. She’s back to near normal, like the energizer bunny - running at full speed and making me nuts.

As to the other interesting items of the week - We (our group of senior couples) handle large
displays on family history, building open houses, national family week, etc. which need to organized
into large shipping boxes. They are boxed around the country for stake and multi-stake (this is a geographic area like a dioceses) events. We have had years of old displays - some broken,
others just tired and worn out - stored in our limited space downstairs in our building. They were taking up space that our active displays could better be served from. Therefore, this past week Elder Bailey and I took a day and cleaned, inventoried, and arranged the old/worn-out things to be disposed of and generally cleaned the rooms. I came home (wearing my grubbies) all dirty from head to toe, but the result is we can now find everything more easily and are prepared for the influx of Christmas tokens we give to VIP’s, and Other Opinion Leaders during the Christmas Tree Lighting of the Temple Grounds and other events coming up shortly. Apparently Christmas in most of the Philippines is off the chart - very big deal. They have Christmas Lights and other Christmas things stocking the stores already, with Christmas music playing or being performed in the malls.

I’m still working on the details of an event to invite various Embassy personnel working on our
requests for foreign visas for our young missionaries to our complex to brief them on our Church and
tour our campus. Our plans are for this to occur sometime early in November, if we can arrange the
details and finalize everything. It’s somewhat exciting to reach-out to diplomatic officers to educate
them on our mission and intent of going into the world to share the good news of Christ.

Lastly, the other couples (two other seniors we serve with here in our Public Affairs Office) are just wonderful - they watch out for us, help us, guide us, offer unconditional love and friendship and support us in so many ways. They are just generally “great people.” As each of us do, they have their challenging and joys with family members: some sick with serious illnesses, others dealing with poor life choices, and still others missing the joy of new baby (a grandchild), a big success on a new job, or a work assignment on a family member’s job. But generally they serve without missing a beat and
move the work forward. We have such big shoes to fill as one goes home at the end of November and
the other in the first part of April 2014. Generally I have found that replacement couples do not overlap as we have (one goes home and another comes in a week or two later). Apparently our situation of coming several months before our leaving couple goes home is very unusual, but what's new? Sister Morello and I have always been somewhat unusual in nearly everything we have ever done. Also this might be due to the fact that we are just very slow learners. No matter, we are here, staying for twenty-three months and we will learn to love it with all of its craziness.

This last Saturday, Sister Morello went off to a Women’s (all day) seminar while I stayed home to clean around the apartment and shop across the street for some items. As is nearly always the case, when Sister Morello came home from everything, we had to go again across the street to finish what I had only started. But after finishing up, we ended the day with bowling as couples with three other senior couples from our apartment building. I'm still waiting to break one hundred, so you know how good I am. Sister Morello is still learning the game, having never played before coming to the Philippines. We are certainly the weak members of the group, but we are having fun. Further, as our social group we played Uno cards at the Bailey’s with popcorn, snacks and lots of fun. Socializing as couples has been very nice as we work hard and play hard. This upcoming Saturday, we (about ten couples) are going rafting and waterfall-looking at one of the national points-of-interest. We will take lots of pictures to show, but it seems like a lot of fun and enjoyment for each of us: an all-day event as friends!

Well, that’s all I have for now. I need to start preparing a twenty minute Sacrament Meeting talk that I was assigned yesterday at Church and get prepared for Bazaar (some type of major shopping trip with the ladies) tomorrow. Life is good, may the Lord bless everyone and Lindsey have that baby!

Love Dad Morello,