We're in Manila!!!

We arrived in Manila last night! We flew from SLC to Seattle to Tokyo to Manila...very tiring.  We were transported to our hotel where we stay for three nights. On Monday we have to be fingerprinted, get our permanent visas, and go to a missionary devotional at the Manila MTC. Tuesday we get to attend the Manila Temple before being driven to our new "home".

Today, we went to church with 2 sister sisters (like us) that are serving in the Area Office here in Manila. In Sacrament Meeting, a young man opened his 'mission call letter' and bore a beautiful testimony...in 'tanglish', a cross between tagalog and English.  We sang from an English hymnal, the announcements/business were in English, and the talks were half English and half tagalog.  The Sunday School and Relief Society lessons were in English, but some of the comments were in tagalog, and prayers were all in tagalog.  We were told that everyone understands English, but many are uncomfortable speaking it.  English and Tagalog are both National Languages.

We passed our MTC office training!

Our last week at the MTC wasn't as hard as we were anticipating.  That was a relief!  We were in office training from 8am-5pm Monday through Thursday.  We made it through that, but were worried that we weren't going to receive our visas before Friday when we were scheduled to fly out.  I checked with the travel office each day with no luck.  Then, on Wednesday before we finished class, the secretary came in to tell us that our visas arrived in SLC...we could pick them up on Thursday in the Provo office!!!  The travel office had told us our flights would be cancelled Wednesday night if our visas didn't show up...they were just in time!

Our adventure continues. 
Love to you!
Donna and Diane