Catching Up

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving and a restful weekend.

Last Sunday, we had a Zone baptism.  The zone decided to do their baptisms together in the ocean.  There were 31 people baptized for the month. (see the picture).

The following week was transfer week.  We were so busy taking missionaries to the port and picking other missionaries from the other side of the island to be brought back here in Occidental side.  This transfer we got 4 new missionaries and opened two new areas.

I decided to do a service project (personal) with our missionaries.  I just wanted to distribute some rice to needy families,( and there's plenty!).  But out of the blue, someone contacted dad and I and told us he wanted to donate some groceries to be distributed to needy families… and 10 bags for each branch in the whole MIndoro Occidental. He wanted the missionaries to manage the delivery of the goods. So that was indeed a miracle because we were just planning it with the missionaries and then the following day, we got the call about the huge donation for our service project.  The people here in Occidental Mindoro will be greatly blessed this Christmas.

Week 16 - December 11-18

Today was our District Conference.  We were speakers together with our Mission President and his wife.  We talked about temple preparation and Temple Covenants.  We saw many people attend.  Some had to drive their  overloaded tricycles from 45-50 kilometers to go to the meeting.  Some branches would take a huge truck and fill it up with chairs to bring their members to the meeting.  Others would walk several kilometers away to attend the meeting.  These are the faithful Saints here in the Philippines who would make great sacrifices just to go to church.

After the Conference, I hosted a luncheon in our apartment with all the missionaries in the Zone.  I also set up one of our rooms to be an interview room for our mission president.  So, while everyone was eating and conversing, our mission president did all the interviews for the missionaries here.  Our apartment is the extension of the mission home here in MIndoro.

The following week was the service project with our missionaries.  We distributed the donated food to the needy and did caroling.  It is so touching to see the people's faces light up as they receive their bag of food.  They are happy to have something to eat for Christmas. While we were doing this, I would also distribute lollipops to the children.  One kid kept on going back to me and did "mano po" to me...it is a gesture of touching the back of the hand of an elder lightly on one's forehead...it is a sign of respect. (see pic)  This week, we also had a mini mission where our zone went to this one branch and we all went out to visit inactive members.  That is part of our "linking arms" goal where the RS Pres and EQ pres...assign the missionary to pair up with the Branch leadership to visit part member families as part of their re activation efforts.  We are praying that we were able to reactivate some members  on this fellowshipping effort.

 

Week 17 - December 19-24

We traveled to Cavite with the ZLs and STLs (Zone leaders and Sister Training Leaders) for the upcoming Christmas Conference.  The rest of the missionaries in our Zone traveled the day after.   We would usually rent a van that would take missionaries across (by boat) to Cavite.  The Christmas Conference was so fun for them.  The Filipino missionaries  had never experienced an activity where we had centers and they would have to rotate to the different activities of their liking...like Bingo (was a hit,,because of their Catholic background), color therapy, making snowflakes, repairing hymn books and attaching notes to the Book of Mormon.  Often Filipinos will just have games for every activity.  So, this activity was something very new to them.  We fed them cereals for breakfast (Filipino missionaries did not eat it) and rice with vienna sausage.  For lunch they had chicken fingers with mashed potatoes and chocolate cake with ice cream for dessert.

Coming back from Cavite was very difficult on the boat.  There were long lines of cars lined up to go to Mindoro.  We were there by around 8am and we didn't board the boat until 2:00pm....We arrived at Mindoro port by around 4:30pm and we had to drive back to our area for the 3 -4 hours.  I was stressed by dad's driving in the dark because of tricycles and motorbikes that do not have lights at night.   Miracles that day:  We were able to board the boat in spite of the long lines at the pier and were back to our area safely.  The Lord provided a way for our safe return to Mindoro and be back in time for Christmas.

Yesterday, December 24 here, I hosted a Christmas get=together for our missionaries here in our zone.  We had kare-kare, bicol express, laing, grilled bangus and sinigang. I ordered lechon but it did not arrive on time.  For dessert, we had biko, buko salad (coconut strings), leche flan, mango float, and brownies.  The elders and sisters had a good time and were happy with their traditional Filipino treats.  For Christmas, the missionaries sang to us and each one of them handed us a sweet note.  One made a hand made little TV and put our pictures on like a roll where we can view it like a film.  That was very cute.  The song they sang is in the church Christmas music..a Tagalog version of "Light the World"..."Liwanag ang Mundo".

Our Message:  Thank you for the joy you brought into my life.  We love our mission in the Philippines!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!  WE LOVE YOU!