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.