I let the holidays get in the way of our blog, but we are happy to be back and catching up again! Lots has happened in the past few weeks. The weeks leading up to Christmas were amazing but VERY busy! The Mission Leaders hold “conferences” approximately every month to stay closely connected to all the missionaries. Everyone is away from their families, so we try to make the holiday conferences REALLY fun with great food, gifts, gift exchanges, songs, performances etc. etc. etc. President & Sis Fernandez obviously work the hardest addressing the needs of over 200 missionaries. Us “senior” missionaries get to work on making it fun as well. We pooled our resources and baked & decorated cookies, got little stockings & candy, engraved personalized pens, and even made candy-cand reindeer for those little stockings! We also took part in the “show” in each area and came up with our own musical routine of dancing and singing to familiar Christmas songs. Seeing a bunch of OLD people dancing around the stage and doing stupid stuff to fun music REALLLLY entertains young folks! Our routine involved the Grinch, an angel, dancing with candy canes & even Christmas waltzing … & ended with us throwing fake snowballs at the audience to “let it snow” music. For some strange reason OLD people throwing fake snowballs at 20-somethings in 100-degree heat is HILARIOUS and we had a lot of fun! The young missionaries seemed to enjoy it all, and hopefully we helped with feelings of homesickness!
ABOVE: part of our performance at the zone conferences. Us OLD people are in the background and the "office" missionaries are obviously hamming it up. (Left to right Jacob Oliverson, Tyler Zayas, Prince Brigham Espinoza, and Raymond Jared Sayson)
Happy holiday seniors with Sister Pew - a GREAT missionary! (left to right; Sis Heath, Nina, Sis Pew, and Sis Garner) all in our holiday best! Still smiling even though we are all exhausted!
Above: a picture at one of our smaller zone conferences. Happy, fun times!
Above; a shot of Roy showing off in one of our performances. The missionaries LOVE him!!
Above; approximately every six weeks missionaries go home and new ones come in. This was a picture of amazing young people who have give 18-24 months of their lives to tell people about Jesus Christ and His Gospel. This is all funded by THEM ... as we get to know them better, it gets harder and harder AND more tearful to send them home!
We were SO blessed with two Christmas miracles! The most important was Sarah, Ethan, Lina and Emma’s visit to the Philippines for Christmas; can you believe it!! They planned a very special holiday trip-around-the-world as a family that included Madrid, Spain; riding Camels in Egypt close to the pyramids & spending the actual Christmas holiday with us! The girls learned to snorkel while they were here and we had some gorgeous, fancy food, and a lovely few days at a really nice resort in Dumaguete, Negros Island. I was sad when they left but so blessed to spend the holiday with a bit of our family. They seemed to get a kick out of my little Christmas tree decorated ONLY in laminated family pictures. And I made the girls a little Christmas stocking filled with Filipino things.
The other MIRACLE that happened was obtaining our Philippine drivers licenses on December 23rd. We had become so discouraged without the ability to be mobile and having to depend on others during our 60 days waiting that we started praying and begging the Lord for the ability to drive again. As always – He blessed us, and we now have licenses that don’t expire until 2028 & are fully mobile again! It was a LOT of work to get those licenses following a rather odd 2-day process… BUT…. Because of the timing we were able to do the picking up, dropping off & driving when Sarah’s family were here with us. Right after that, we got back to work helping the missionaries with the many, ongoing needs associated with housing. That was the BEST gift for Christmas … EXCEPT of course our Savior!
We enjoyed a LOT of celebration in the Philippines for Christmas. It is a VERY Christian nation, and they do Jesus very openly here. Unlike the states which seems to have begun apologizing for our Christian celebrations, everyone here loves Jesus! I lost count of the public nativity displays, many of which are life-sized and displayed at almost every business etc. Nobody calls Christmas trees “holiday” trees and as I stated, NOBODY apologizes or hides the fact that “Jesus is the reason for the season”. I LOVE that about this country. We went to the roof of our apartment building for New Years fireworks, and I’ve never seen anything like it! AND….. there is another holiday that is celebrated in January called “Sinulog” that commemorates the conversion of the Filipino people to Christianity way back in the 1500’s and is associated with a miracle they experienced. Sooooooo, one holiday just kinds of runs into the next and nobody even takes their Christmas decorations or trees down…. And mind you – they put them up in September and October! Filipinos love their holidays!
Above; one of the gifts Sarah's family brought us for Christmas... on Christmas Eve! Just like the Wise Men... Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh FROM EGYPT!! I'll keep them forever!!
One of the few negatives, I must admit, the heat REALLY gets to me sometimes. I am a walker and have spent 40+ years walking and “fixing” myself with outdoor exercise. I just can’t do it in this heat and although we both still exercise, it is challenging! They laughingly explain that the Philippines has two seasons, HOT and HOTTER! Boy oh boy are they correct! Our NM family has started a lovely, cold season with fluffy snow at Thanksgiving, and I’m “baking like a toasted cheeser!!” (the movie Sandlot), while I try to get somewhere that I am “almost” not sweating. Didn’t think I would crave four ACTUAL seasons OR snow as much as I do here! But the tropical flowers and fruit are wonderful too!
OK…. I’ve gone on too long AGAIN! I’ll include a lot of fun holiday pictures and promise to follow my 2024 resolution of NOT getting behind in our blog. And… I realized over Christmas that we are 6 months into our two-year mission! The time is FLYING!
Above: Lina snorkeling
Above; Emma snorkeling that same day! Wish I could bend my knees like that!!
Above and below: New Years Eve from our apartment rooftop in Cebu City, Cebu Philippines. Pretty amazing show. One has our Temple in the background. and the one below was just a fun shot.
I'll close with this of a woman that I will LOVE the rest of my life JUST like my sisters!! She is Therese Heath, wife of our mission Doctor. I can't believe we got this shot because it is a PERFECT example of her enthusiasm and happy spirit! She organizes everything! She sings beautifully! She plays the piano and accompanies her amazing flute-playing husband! She alters and mends ALLLLL of the missionary's clothes. She is everyone's biggest fan and never stops feeding hungry missionaries! She has them over at least once a week to help them feel at home. Her and Elder Heath also handle all of the missionary medical issues and often have sick missionaries in their little apartment for a few days at a time. They run back/forth to the hospitals and address every problem from acne to Dengue fever and even surgery recoveries. We truly love these two and Sis Heath takes the place of my sisters every single week and keeps me laughing and feeling happy!! Missions also introduce us to new and WONDERFUL people!!
Happy New Year, you two! 💕✨