Mandaue Philippines Stake Conference 15 Nov 2015

It was a special Sabbath to us, as we were at Cebu City Philippines. In the morning, we went to the Temple ground again as there is a Sacrament Hall for the local members.

We woke up as early as 7.00am, as Brother Aden would be meeting us at the Bayfront Hotel Lobby and drove us to the Temple for our sacrament meeting, after which he invited us to go to his stake conference – Mandaue Philippines Stake Conference.

During when we were at the hotel lobby, we saw Brother Aden’s friend, the taxi driver to drive us to the Temple. He called Brother Aden on his hand phone, then passed the phone to Alvin.

After a while, Alvin told us to take the taxi and the driver would drove us to the temple. Brother Aden’s baby was not feeling well as he need to bring him see doctor first in the morning, and he had called his friend to fetch us to the Temple.

We reached there early, as we thought that the first sacrament will start as early as 8.30am. Then, we told the taxi driver to be back here around 9.30am, and took us to Hoops Dome, where the Stake Conference would be held.

We met a brother there as he is the temple chief security, he told us that the first session of the sacrament would start only at 9.00am. I was thinking like, are we able to catch up the stake conference later?

Eventually, there were more and more members coming in to the Sacrament Hall. We met with the Bishop of the ward, but I really cannot recall which Ward was that. It was really a brand new experience for us to attend a ward sacrament meeting.

The sacrament meeting was attended by around 180 people as we saw the deacons who passed the 5 trays of sacrament bread and 5 trays of sacrament waters to the members. The assigned speakers too, were really uplifted our spirits.

At the sacrament meeting, we met with one Chinese, Brother Yew. He was delighted to get to know us that our last name is Yu as well.

Brother Yew told us that, we might be related in that sense as 俞氏is originated from 余氏。He was born in Cebu as his parents were born here too as well. He is the 3rd generations here in Philippines as his grandfather and grandmother were from China.

Brother Yew is a Chinese Teacher here in Cebu. I believe he must be doing a lot of the family history works as he knew most of the China genealogy and all about related to his last name. It was really a pleasure to meet up with him.

After the sacrament meeting, we quickly rushed out and checked whether the taxi driver still there. Yes! He still there waiting for us. He took us to the Lapu-Lapu City which is located at the Mactan island, we have to cross the bridge. After almost half an hour, we reached the Hoops Dome. It is a stadium.

Brother Aden was waiting for us outside. He brought us in to the stadium. There were a lot of people in and out of the stadium.

From one look, we knew that we were at the right place, as we can see most of the men and boys were wearing white shirts, long pants and with ties.

The stake conference had started already. Brother Aden gave us the programs flyers. Actually, it is same as our district conference too, it started at Saturday night itself.

I think we arrived at the right timing, after a while Cebu East Mission President, President President Richard L. Tanner gave his speech.

After him, was Elder Allen D. Haynie whom was sustained as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy last April General Conference. I still remember his talk last October at the General Conference. Both Alvin and I can feel the spirit very strongly.

After the conference, Brother Aden introduce us to his ward bishop. We waited for a while to meet up with President and Sister Tanner, and took a photo with both of them.

We met with Elder Allen D. Haynie, I did talk to him for a while. He is so humble and a very nice person. I was so regret that we did not take the opportunity to take a family photo together with him, but we feel so uplifted on that special Sabbath.

During our way going out from the stadium, we met up with Brother Luis D. Daclan whom sealed us as a family on Friday in the temple.

He was surprised and happy to meet us at the Stake Conference too. We took photo together with him. We have our family photo with Brother Aden and his pretty wife and baby boy too.

We are so grateful and happy for our first ever temple trip, as we are able to accomplish most of our goals: accomplished our own endowments in the temple; our family sealing in the temple; we baptized for our own mother and father in the temple; we attended our first ever ward sacrament meeting, we attended our first ever stake conference; we managed to meet with Cebu East Mission President, President & Sister Tanner; we managed to meet with Elder Allen D. Haynie from the First Quorum of the Seventy.

We feel the love from Heavenly Father on our family as we know that He has planned this trip so well and so wonderful for us, as we are able to meet with the beautiful members or saints in this part of the world, get to know them and Brother Aden even invited us to attend the Stake Conference, and shared his testimony with us. All these beautiful and wonderful experience would not be happened if not by the hand of the Lord who knoweth all things!

We love you so much, Heavenly Father. I say this in the name of our beloved Jesus Christ, Amen.

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