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.