WE FELT LIKE ROYALITY LAST NIGHT! I wrote about the October time frame about a couple that had come to the Temple and got married, one of the first couples after the Temple opened. Then they came back with a group of youth from their stake for Baptisms for the Dead. Well they are back for more Baptisms for the Dead. They have 220 youth in the Stake and Bro Ledesma is the Stake YM Pres. They bring 1/3 of the worth/eligible youth to come to the Temple every six months. They will be here again before we leave in October. They are from Bacolod which is on an island to the west of us. Cebu City is on the East side of Cebu Island and Bacolod is on the West side of Negros an Island just West of Cebu. They had to bus across Negros then ferry across to Toledo, on Cebu Island and then bus across Cebu Island to the temple. I am giving you this background so you will understand what I’m rambling on about, as Paul Harvey would say, “the rest of the story”.

We were the coordinators in the Baptistry yesterday when the Bacolod So youth came and Bro Ledesma is still the YM Pres. He was in charge of this group of youth again. He mentioned they were thinking of having a Fireside at Patron Housing in the meeting area at one end of the floor later in the evening. I mentioned that a lot of the groups do this but they use the Chapel just across the parking lot and mentioned that Bro or Sis Gale could probably help them in scheduling the church. He then asked is WE would be their featured speakers. He mentioned how the youth last time had had such a good time and that they just loved Bro & Sis Cummings, so he thought since we are still here it would be very appropriate for this batch of Youth to get to know us also. What else could we do but accept. I told him we would just meet them at the Church around 6:50 which would give us time to find them and be on time. They called about 6:30 to be sure we remembered as we were frankily preparing something to say, which we assure them we would be there at the appointed time.

After the temple we went to lunch/dinner (luner) with the Asher’s and then came back to our apartment to work on our talks. As we were getting on the elevator to go up one of the local Stake Young adults came rushing into the elevator and asked us to come to the Stake Young Adults meeting at 7:00 and talk to them. Asher’s spoke to them a month or so ago so they were excluded. And of course we had to decline their invitation.

When we arrived they were ALL assembled in the chapel in their Sunday best and as we entered they all stood and greeted us. We were so humbled at this gesture that it brought tears to our eyes, and even now just writing about it-yes girls- dad is tearing up. No one came late which is totally unusual in and of itself because Mormon Standard time is so in fashion here. After a brief opening exercise, scripture and the 13th Article of Faith, Shauna spoke and gave an excellent talk for about 10 minutes and then I spoke for about 20 minutes. Closing song and prayer and then thought we are so out of here. Not so Fast! They wanted to have a group picture out in front of the temple. Each one had to have their own picture and each one wanted a picture of us with them and their friends. Soooooo about a half hour later we were free.
We, in a very very very small way know how humble the Prophet feels when the whole conference center rises when he enters for conference. The pictures are of those wonderful youth. Bro and Sis Ledesma are directly in front of us in the vertical picture.