Christmas, Noisy New Year, and Frogs

We let a week slip by without a post. We just couldn't find the time.  We spent the days before Christmas doing our Christmas conference twice--half of the mission each time.  Christmas day was spent with the Clark's working part of the day and sharing Christmas dinner with their non member neighbors. In between we took cookies to a park and gave them away to random people.  There were some surprised looks when they received cookies from white people.

Then last week was transfers and that always is a busy time.  Elder Whiting and I taught the departing missionary adjusting to post mission life/career workshop.  It's a 4 hour presentation and it was a lot of fun. The funnest part was watching the missionaries struggle to say their first names again after so long being just Elder or Sister.  They thought they were breaking some rule or saying a bad word or something.  It was quite funny. By the end of the workshop however, they were more comfortable with it.

The mission received 27 new missionaries on Wednesday, and by Thursday evening everyone was paired up with their new companion and on their way to their new area.  New Years Eve was so noisy with all of the fireworks, that there was no sleeping until the wee hours of the morning.

Earlier on New Years Eve Sister Whiting and Sister Clark began taking Christmas decorations down at the mission home.  As Sister Clark was standing on a step stool to take down the garland around the outside door, she screamed.  Sister Whiting thought she was falling and grabbed for her.  As she did, she saw the reason for the scream as a frog jumped out of the garland at Sister Clark.  The garland was full of frogs!  The security guard, Jose, came to our rescue and took the garland down, but those dang frogs kept jumping at us as we shook the garland to get them out.  Then, to top it off, there was one frog left on the side of the house.  Sister Clark pointed her finger at the frog and said, "you can't stay there."  As if that was its cue, the frog leaped a good 12 feet and landed right at Sister Clark's feet. We squealed and screamed again as it hopped off into the bushes.  We are still giggling about it!

As the new year begins, we leave you with a quote from Elder Neal A. Maxwell: "Refuse to let yesterday hold tomorrow hostage."

Mahal Kita

Jeepney of the Week

The dormant volcano, Mount Arayat at Sunrise

The Christmas Gift Room.  Thank you for your generous donations.

Merry Christmas!!

Our wonderful Christmas.  Thank you all for the gifts and cards. The Diet Coke was a gift from
an Elder to Sister Whiting.  It's a real American  Diet Coke! Thanks for the Tabasco Sauce,
the Nestle Quick, the M&M's and the Kipper Snacks!

Filipino Walmart on wheels