How do you describe a week in the life of a missionary?

Is it a list of activites?

Monday: district meetings

Tuesday: Receiving all of the things from the Dover’s house that belong to the mission, and trying to find places to store them until we can distribute them to missionaries who might need some of the things.

A visit to a young man who is paralyzed from the waist down from a motorcycle accident two years ago,

Wednesday: Zone activity, with volleyball and basketball in the church parking lot, followed by pizza.

Thursday: Zone conference in Cebu City.

Friday: A trip to Balamban to buy a laundry tub and blender for the sister missionaries, and a visit to an elder who is not feeling well.

Visits with the sister missionaries in Toledo during the afternoon and evening.

Is it sights and sounds?

Sitting on a covered “patio” listening to the young man in a wheelchair and the elders playing the piano, laughing, and singing.

Feeling the ocean breeze waft across the hillside, fluttering palm fronds and bringing delightful coolness.

Standing in a church parking lot and looking a copper mine on the mountain across the valley.

Watching young elders and sisters laughing and cheering each other in a parking lot ringed by coconut palms while a group of school children watch curiously at the gate.

Listening to amazing musical presentations by young men and women ages 18 to 24, while knowing that they got up a 3:00 AM to ride a bus to Cebu city and only had time to practice their songs maybe twice before preforming.

Walking in the rain down a two foot wide “sidewalk” between tiny homes almost touching each other while exchanging a cheerful “Maayon Hapon” (good afternoon) with the families along the route.

It is activities. It is sights and sounds. But most of all, it is feelings: joy, laughter, tears, compassion, gratitude, testimony, and amazement.

It really totally indescribable.