A Visit from a Counselor in the General YM Presidency and our Area President

The cultural hall was packed as was the rest of the building.

Elder and Sister Larson, The Edwards and Elder and Sister Breese

Brother and Sister Gibson and the Assistants

Brother Gibson, First Counselor in the General YM Presidency and his wife along with Elder Edwards and his wife paid a visit to our area. They did a training session in Tuguegarao on a Tuesday night. We were amazed at how many people showed up. Every hallway and room was packed with TV monitors placed throughout the building. The training was on the revised Duty to God program but also had many applications to all leaders.
After the meeting we headed down to Cauayan and ate a picnic dinner on the way home. I prepared ham sandwiches, chips, bananas, lemon bars and cookies. We didn't think they would want to go out to dinner before we started on the 2-hour ride home. It was fun to visit with them.
They spent the night in the Mission Home and the next morning I served them Creme Brulee French Toast and fruits. Before they caught their flights back to Manila we had plenty of time to visit and introduce them to some of our senior couples and the Assistants to the President. I had told them about Elder Rondilla and they were so interested in his story that they had him give a special video message to President Monson. (Last week they were in Texas and flew home with President Monson so they will have an opportunity to share his message with him sometime.)
They left a wonderful thank you note and several cool trinkets for us. One was a really cool coin depicting the armour of God.
On the way to the airport the guests rode in the van with the Assistants. We followed the out of the Mission Home parking lot. Instead of turning right, Elder Mulliner turned left. I asked the President, "Why is he turning left?" The President answered, he is avoiding the new traffic light at the end of our street. So he drove up and around only to run into a parade on the left hand side of the road and a slow funeral procession in front of us on our side of the road. In about 20 minutes we finally got even with the Mission Home but one road over. They he turned down another shortcut to avoid the busy street and we ran into not 1 but 2 other funerals. We wanted to text Elder Mulliner and say, "Way to impress a General Authority with your short cuts." It took us a half hour to make it to the airport which would have taken only 8 minutes if we would have gone the normal route! It'll be a while before Elder Mulliner can live that one down!

A school was celebrating it's anniversary and classes of children were dressed in costumes. Even though we were in a huge hurry, it was fun to see them marching in their parade.