Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Christmas in the Philippines part 2 . .

December 22nd and 23rd, 2011

We had our senior couples meeting/Christmas party at the mission home. All of the couples stayed at the mission home that night. We had a full evening planned with more activities on Saturday.
Each of the sisters brought food to go along with the ham and turkey.The tables were set for the season.Sister Lopez and Sister Rosero and their families were invited to join us as well.Sister Rosero and Sister Lopez both help with the cleaning at the
mission home and our house. They are sisters ~ can you tell??After dinner, we presented the nativity with all of
the senior couples taking part.Elder Apolinario admiring the ornaments that were brought to
the zone conferences and now adore the mission home Christmas tree.Then it was time to go caroling to some of the neighbors on our street.
We had a stocking to give to each home we visited with a Book of Mormon and
some literature about the church . I believe there was also a treat inside.One of the neighbor's invited us all into his home and
then he sang carols with us.Back to the mission home with all of the colored lights!The next morning we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast . . . . . .and then we were off to visit the orphanage. This is the same orphanage we went to when Andrea & Ryan were here. We were able to purchase some stockings and goodies to put in them with some donated funds (no church funds were used!). We had the kids act out the nativity in costumes that we brought along with us. They are so cute!
We played Christmas bingo with candy to mark the cards. The kids really enjoyed it as well as this older lady who was there.We had two pinatas for the kids to break. The younger kidsand the older kidsThen we has a special visitor come to visit the kids.We even caught Santa kissing Sister Martino . . .We all enjoyed being there with all of the kids and
I think that all of the kids enjoyed it as well!When we got ready to leave the kids all sang a special 'thank you' song to us.
I think it brought a tear to each of our eyes!One of the things that the children and adults do to show respect
to an older person is to take their hand and touch it with their forehead.
This little girl was doing it to Elder Jewkes so he did it back to her . . .Back to the mission home for lunch of leftovers from the night before.
We all went away with the true meaning of Christmas in our hearts
and knowing we had helped to make Christmas a little
brighter for these beautiful children!

1 comment:

  1. I LOVE this post about the orphanage...I'd want to bring every child home!! What great experiences you're having:)

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