Dear loved ones,

            Pleasant Greetings, and more Blessed New Year 2018 from CA, USA! The year started with more Blessings and Graces from GOD, rewards for our faithfulness and complete Trust on His Love, Mercy, Generosity to provide for all our needs!!!  Yeah, GOD the Father, JESUS, and the Holy Spirit - I LOVE YOU!!!

            The year started with family life crisis, and these trials strengthened my resolve to TRUST in the Lord completely, for his Mercy and Compassion; These too will come to pass, be STILL and GOD will act: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, He promised. We abide by His Will, Love, Goodness. HE alone knows what is Best for us!!!

Our Tuesday Bible Study class started on Jan. 16, with Msgr. Robert Barron’s Catholicism series: The Pivotal Payers: St. Francis of Assisi - The Reformer; St. Thomas Aquinas – The Theologian; St. Catherine of Siena – The Mystic; Blessed John Henry Newman – The Convert; G. K, Chesterton – The Evangelist; and Michelangelo – The Artist; The subject. is very interesting, knowing the lives of these outstanding personalities in our Church History         

The cold winter days are kept warm with the coffee joe that church goers are treated after Mass on Sundays and Wednesdays. Our group welcome the opportunity to bond together, updating on our whereabouts, caring for one another – truly the Church as Jesus meant it to be!

Other highlights of the month:

·      Sean makes it a point to remind me to watch The Good Doctor on Mondays, with the new Season shows: still wonderful Freddie Highmore!

·      Still kept busy Keeping up with Doctors’ appointments and Tests for Good Health Maintenance; Kaiser making true to its slogan: Thrive!

·      Our St. Mel Church held an Open House / Dinner for Church volunteers on Jan. 20. It was to see and talk to families you have seen for more than 10years yet you got to talk and know them, like the Esguerra family whose sons (now 12 and 7) I have seen for the past 10 years, and many other people;

·      Visited Red’s (Sean’s Claret classmate) 3-storey building-pad in downtown SAC, then treated us for Lunch at Boiling Crab, as our New Year feast!

·      So Blessed to serve as Eucharistic Minister when Archbishop Bernardito Auza celebrated Mass at church on New Year’s Day. Msgr. Auza is the Vatican permanent representative to the United Nations in New York. He is from Bohol, graduate of UST, and classmate of Fr. Bobot Clemen, my Panglao neighbor. Msgr. Auza was in SAC, CA for the family reunion of his Clan with 12 siblings. Enjoyed photo ops with them!

·      Movies watched: Pitch Perfect 3, and The Greatest Showman!

Much love and Best Regards!!!

SUSAN BG