Merry Christmas

(This was miss posted in her sisters blog and is now out of order as of time)


Christmas caroling here is a mix between trick or treating and fundraising.  The most common carolers are groups of young children. They will go door to door singing, they will sing until you bring out a few coins for them.  Sometimes groups of adults will go out caroling, as a fundraiser for some organizations. You usually have to give them more than just a few coins.     If you don’t want to give them money you just call out “patawad”  or forgiveness.

 

This week there was a little earthquake. But for some really weird reason I didn’t even feel it. I was putting away some laundry in the bedroom when I heard Sister de Guzman call me from where she was sitting at our desks. I walked out of the room to see a strange look on her face, and I saw things still swaying back and forth, but I didn’t feel the earthquake at all. How weird is that?

We had our Christmas Conference this week. We had half the mission there. (Fun fact: Angeles mission is the largest mission in the Philippines when you consider not only the number of missionaries [250+] but also the geographic distance and the number of stakes and wards that are covered) For part of it each zone was in charge of presenting a musical number. My zone may or may not have beat boxed to “Hark the Harold Angels Sing.” Yep, that’s how we roll.      Conferences are so great because you get so spiritually uplifted. It is also great because of all the great missionaries you get to see. I was so happy to see Sister Ocampo, my first trainee. I love her and I am always just so proud of how awesome she is.

 

These are some random people and occurrences from this last week:

-After coming to church for 3 months, Michael finally settled on a date for baptism: next week

-Brother Ray- a less active member whose last prayer was when he pleaded that his mom wouldn’t die. She did die, and he hasn’t prayed since that almost ten years ago. We could see how sad his soul was.

-JB is a ten year old boy who approached us. He wanted a Book of Mormon. We weren’t sure how serious he was so we told him if he came to church the next day we would give him one. He came to church, received a Book of Mormon and we will be teaching him and his family this next week.

-Anna Rose-our recent convert who cried when we told her she shouldn’t join in some of her old Catholic Christmas traditions. She didn’t come to church yesterday…

-Kate: I went on exchanges in an area that I worked in a month or two ago. Kate is a recent convert who I met the first time and we had a special connection. This time I gave her the CTR ring off my finger (It was just one of the cheap ones you get from primary. I have a couple and always wear it just for the purpose of giving them away.



I hope you all have a wonderful magical Christmas. I’m excited for all that will be happening this next week. The Atonement is the best present we could have ever been given!