Week 78--December 18-24, 2016


Our replacement couple, Elder and Sister Dickson, arrived on Sunday, December 18, just in time to attend Church with us.

With us having a limited amount of time left Tom is devoting his Sundays to completing the Mission History.

On Wednesday, December 21, Baliwag, Malolos, Valenzuela, and Kaloocan Zones gathered at the Valenzuela Stake Center for Christmas Conference. On  Friday, December 23, Montalban, Fairview, Novaliches, SJDM, and SJ North gathered at Camarin for Christmas Conference. Each morning was the spiritual half of the conference. President and Sister Bertin both spoke. The missionaries then watched the movie "The Golden Plates." Each day one of the Senior Couples spoke on establishing Family Traditions. Each couple talked about some the traditions that they have in their family. Traditions help to bind a family together.

 Lechon was served for lunch. It is served cold and so not as tasty as it could have been if it were hot. A delicacy is to eat the skin that is cut up with shears into pieces 2 inches by 2 inches. The rest of the meal was rice, chicken teriyaki, green salad, cold corn, and chocolate cake.

One of the highlights of the conference is the Talent Show. There are many talented missionaries in our mission.

Elder Tripole and Elder Kirifi sang for the group.

 Elder Carson sang "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserable.


















Elder Talamai and Elder Picar love to sing.

 The Malolos Zone performed a skit of the Savior's birth and sang "O Holy Night."

 On Thursday there was a 5 week Trainer and Trainee meeting. Thirty-eight pair of shoes lined up by the door is a lot. As part of the meeting the trainees receive their 72-hour kits. Nineteen bags are ready to go for when they leave.

Elder Harrington passed out five book safes to those who qualify. He learned that yesterday there was a break in at one of the missionary apartments. All had their money stolen expect the one who had his stored in a book safe.

Montalban Zone took the stage with the Elders leading the dancing.

 The songbirds (Sisters) of the Novaliches Zone sang and danced.

SJ North Elders have all the right moves.

 However, the SJ North Sisters can dance well to the music also.

SJDM Zone performed a couple of songs.

Elder Harrington represented the office very well both days with his Knock Knock jokes. Sister Harrington assisted by finding some jokes on line that he could use.

The other fun part of Christmas Conference is the gift exchange. Sister Totiana is all smiles with her 50 peso bill as part of her present.

Sister LeFevre is all smiles with her banks.

The Elders are all smiles with their presents.










I want what you got.

 This has been a busy week for the delivery and pick up of packages. The missionaries were all happy that they had arrived.

Shipping from the United States to the Philippines is very expensive. Many of the boxes have candy and other items that are readily available here.







Every spare minute we had was spent training Elder and Sister Dickson on the duties and responsibilities they will take over from us.

On Saturday we went to see the new Star Wars movie "Rogue One."

We have already received feed back on the gift of Book of Mormon Stories we gave each family last week. Sister Aldemita and Sister Gonzales told us that the families are reading the book. It is really helping as several of the investigators are children.

Week 77--December 11-17, 2016

We are entering into a month of lasts. Our last senior activity was an outing on Wednesday, December 14, to La Mesa EcoPark.

We left a busy, car jammed Commonwealth Avenue and drove into a pristine area that is La Mesa Nature Preserve located in Quezon City. This park gives us a feel for what the Philippines used to be like.

Tom and Garnalee pose for a picture in La Mesa EcoPark.

We learned about the banana tree which really isn't a tree but botanically a berry produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants. The banana heart can be eaten as a salad or sauted and eaten as a vegetable. There are two banana hearts in the pictured.One is reddish purple and the other one is green. 

Another variety of palm tree is the fan palm.

One of the beautiful and unusual flowers.

Another flower that reminded us of exotic birds stacked one upon another. They are called lobster claw.

Plant with beautiful variegated colored leaves.

Located within La Mesa EcoPark was a zip-line that was enjoyed by the senior couples.

Elder Harrington zipping along on the zip-line. He was the first to ride and the attend neglected to weigh him. Lucky day for him that he got to go first. There was a 200 pound weight limit so Tom with cell phone, clothes, and keys he was probably over the 200 pound mark.

The day concluded with dinner at a Filipino restaurant called Funnside. You make your dinner selection from an assortment of fresh, sometimes live seafood. Then it is prepared according to your tastes, e.g. grilled, fried, steamed.
Left to right: Sister Bremner, Elder Bremner, Sister Bertin, Sister Swift, Elder Swift, Sister Broadhead, Elder Broadhead, Sister Harrington.

The last batch that we will get to see exit. Left to right: elder Bermoy, Elder Manapori, Elder Perrut, Elder Narciso (one of the APs), Elder Perkins, Elder Nielsen (one of the APs), Elder Maynez, Sister Stancliffe, and Sister Hulme,

The rest of the group: next to Sister Hulme is Sister Generalao, Elder Kaho, and Sister Asif.

Us with Elder Manapori who is from Sydney, Australia.

Us with the Assistants to the President, Elder Nielsen and Elder Narciso. Elder Nielsen will be transferred and go back out to the field.

Us with Elder Perkins who was an Assistant to the President. He is a special young man. He is from Salt Lake City.

Us with Sister Generalao who is from Cebu.

U with Sister Stancliffe who is from Bakersfield, California. She spent most of her mission as a Sister Training Leader.

Us with Sister Asif who is from Pakistan.

Sister Hulme is from Santa Barbara, California. She was an excellent trainer and trained many new missionaries.

Another last was the La Mesa Ward Christmas Party on Saturday night that we attended. There were many games that were enjoyed by all. This game is called the Balloon game that is a relay game. The partners had to hold the balloon between them with using their hands as they hurried around the course.

Another relay game was the Spoon game where you held a plastic spoon in your mouth, picked up a piece of wrapped candy from the seat of a chair, carried to the other end, and dropped it into a box without ever touching it with your hands. Elder Harrington was a good sport as he participated in the game. The gentleman lost to the ladies 3-4. Not pictured is musical chairs with a twist. The husbands were seated on chairs in a circle and the wives had to walk around the circle while the music played. When the music stopped the wives had to quickly sit on their husbands' laps. The last wife to seat on her husband's lap was eliminated.

We had been asked by Bishop Villaester what we would like to bring to the Christmas party to give to the children that they could remember us by. After much discussion we decided to give copies of Book of Mormon Stories in Tagalog to each family. Just before dinner they were distributed. Each of the children came up and thanked us personally for the gift.

Dinner was a catered meal of rice, mixed vegetables, ulam, spring rolls, fruit salad, and a pouch drink. Dessert was a corn flan and sticky rice.

Tom testing his abacus made from Styrofoam, toothpicks, and five centavo coins.










On Saturday, December 17, Heather graduated from Boise State University with 2 degrees, one in Literature and the other in Linguistics.

Week 76--December 4-10, 2016

In Primary Sharing Time the children learned about the prophets who prophesied about the birth of Jesus Christ. These wonderful little boys represented the prophets Isaiah, Nephi, King Benjamin, and Helman. Samuel was off some place else when the picture was snapped.

Brother Don Remorosa is all smiles and giving a thumbs after he received his mission call to serve in the Philippines Cauayan Mission. He reports in February. He has served as the Ward Mission leader while we have been here. He will be an awesome missionary.

Sister Gonzales and Sister Aldemita came for dinner on Sunday, December 4.  Garnalee made Million Dollar Baked Spaghetti. Which is kind of like lasagna but a lot easier to make. For dessert is was Slow Cooker Lava Cake. That has been a hit with the missionaries each time they have come for dinner.

A snowman Filipino style that won't melt in the sun. It is made from old tires and then painted. Another use of recycled material.

This year the Redwoods has gone all out with Christmas decorations. It is beautiful all lit up at night.

 A White Christmas in the Philippines is different from a White Christmas in Blackfoot, Idaho. On Saturday, December 10, sixty-five candidates were baptized throughout the mission. This picture shows the ten candidates and the baptizers from the San Jose Del Monte Stake.

The missionaries of the San Jose Del Monte Zone and the San Jose North Zone gathered for a picture with the candidates.

After the baptisms the San Jose Del Monte Stake held its annual Christmas Concert. After Many people displayed their talents throughout the program that lasted two hours. The missionaries of the two zones joined in the closing number.






Tom has been working on his last batch of tax forms and rent checks which is Quarter 1 2017. He is leaving a few for Elder Dickson to do when he arrives. Garnalee is doing a variety of odd jobs. She has things to do for the incoming December batch but that needs to be left for Sister Dickson to do when she arrives.

This transfer cycle Zone Conferences are held. We had the opportunity to attend on Thursday, December 8. President Bertin gave a wonderful workshop on drinking from the fountainhead of pure doctrine. He reminded the missionaries that their personal study time should be from the Missionary Library of the scriptures, Jesus the Christ, Our Heritage, True to the Faith, and Our Search for Happiness. Sister Bertin gave a workshop on Prayer. She pointed out that the Book of Mormon begins with a reference to prayer in 1 Nephi 1:5 and concludes with another reference to prayer in Moroni 10:4-5. The workshops by the Assistants to the President and the Zone Leaders were on the companionship of the Holy Ghost and recognizing and following the promptings of the Spirit both as missionaries and helping the investigators feel that same prompting.

On Saturday we donated one of the Family History Hopscotch games that Tom created to each of the eight wards in the San Jose Del Monte Stake. The Stake Family History Director was very appreciative. Our intent was that a game go to the Primaries in each ward to help the children connect the idea of a family begins with me and progresses back through the generations to a Forever Family.