Thanksgiving Dinner and Christmas Decorating

Today is Preparation Day and the day we celebrate Thanksgiving in the Baguio Mission Home. We were invited to a special turkey feast at the mission home, hosted by the mission president and his wife. They sourced parts of the dinner from all over the Philippines as they traveled for meetings. Fortunately they have a great freezer and a lot of experience to make this all possible.

 The Butterball turkeys were done to perfection... fall-off-the-bone tender!

 President Jensen is a master at carving the birds and was generous with the pre-dinner samples... to everyone's delight.

 The kitchen was filled with the aroma of freshly baked turkey and all the trimmings.

 Mashed potatoes & lots of gravy, stuffing, sweet potato pie, carrots, tossed salad and Jell-O salad, and muffins with strawberry jam!

 More mashed potatoes and gravy with the main course... Thanksgiving turkey!

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 A plate of delicious Thanksgiving bounty!

 Dig in and enjoy. The American and Canadian missionaries dug right in... the local Philippino missionaries were a little cautious, but after the first taste they were ready to clean their plates too. They especially enjoyed the sweet potato pie and turkey.

 After dinner President Jensen gave instruction to the missionaries to decorate the mission home Christmas tree and they jumped right into it.

President Jensen brought a 7.5 foot pre-lit Christmas tree from Costco with him. What a joy to see the missionaries decorate the tree while they sang and delighted in this sacred holiday season.

 Elders: Frost, DeGuzman, and Lee savor the first bites of Christmas fudge.

 The sisters get the honor of placing the little Philippine Nepo huts and bright red ornaments on the tree.

 Many hands make the decorating work go quickly.

 We all took a little time to sit and enjoy the Christmas tree... the glow of the lights and the colors of the ornaments and ponder the events of that sacred birth long ago.

Now it's time for the serious desserts: pumpkin pie, cherry pie, cakes and toppings.

It was a wonderful few hours away from the heat and noise of the day. We joined in the common bond of love of the Savior and serving Him. The food was amazingly delicious and prepared with great love, but our hearts were filled with gratitude for the most precious gift of all... the Lord Jesus Christ. We savored the sweetness of the occasion both temporally and spiritually. We are so blessed and we thank God for those blessings.

Haircut Time

Today is Monday, Preparation Day for missionaries and that means a haircut for me today. I go to Arto on main street. You can't miss it. It's where everyone that is anyone in town goes for a haircut. You see the police there and the presidents of local organizations and a lot of retired men that are all connected by friendships of years gone by. I fit into the mix mainly because I have long grey hair and need a haircut.

This is Arto's barber shop. I was standing in the traffic filled street to take this shot. I'll have to add another picture from across the street so you can get the feel of open air, traffic, marketplace and people.

 I was here this morning a minute after 10:00 and had one person ahead of me. I got the man waiting to take a picture of me in the chair. Arto uses his scissors like a true professional and keeps everything sharp and clean.

 A self-portrait in the chair. Arto keeps focused on his work.

 Tools of the trade: fan for the hot days (everyday), rubbing alcohol, baby talc and brush for a dry off after the haircut. The electric converter to power the US made electric clippers in the drawer (used very sparingly, maybe 30-45 seconds) and a sharp razor and scissors also in the drawer.

 Another great haircut from Arto! Most haircuts cost 40 pesos (94 cents), but Arto charges 60 pesos ($1.40) and it is well worth it!
 I'll really miss this experience when we return.

 A few days before this Mom got her hair cut at the chapel after a zone conference. Sister Cooper is a senior sister from Australia. She works at the Employment Resource Center in Dagupan and has offered to cut the sisters hair, so mom took advantage of the offer. She has cut mom's hair a couple of times and it has worked out just fine.

There was a lot of hair blowing around the room and I was a little nervous how mom would feel about the haircut. But not to worry... it turned out just fine. The question now is... Who will cut mom's hair when Sister Cooper goes home at the end of January?

This picture was before my haircut and after mom's. This is Sister Eldredge. She left for home, Sandy Utah, today. We will miss her. She was a very strong sister missionary.

This Week - Sticky Rice and More

A few miscellaneous pictures on the camera this week.

A gift from a member... sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves. It is a sweet blend of rice, coconut and sugar. It tastes sweet, has a definite coconut flavor in a gummy rice base. It was given piping hot and is best eaten hot, but people eat it hot or cold. It often comes in a small cigar-size wrapped in a banana leaf and sold on the street to people in passing cars, buses, bikes, trikes and just walking to the market.

This is what it looks like... it tastes better than it looks, but it is not for the weight conscious.

Power out, flashlights on! Last week at dinner time the power went out for over an hour, but that didn't slow down mom. The flashlights came out and the cooking went on.

We had a "candle light" dinner at home. As soon as we finished dinner the power came back on and we enjoyed a few hours of A/C in the office.

Packages gt to us, but often they have been opened and run over by a truck or two.

Mom was in heaven again when we went to the mission home to connect to the internet. Our connection had been out for 8 days and she was going through grandchild withdrawls. I disassembled the phone and computer equipment and hooked it up again at the mission home. It was great to get connected again.

We chatted for hours and it was great! We got the internet set up in our home again and everything works well now.

We enjoy being a part of the baptisms each week.

The sister in the middle had been reactivated and is now going to the temple with her family and her "branch family".

Sister Jensen, Sister Perkins and Mom were discussing the experiences of the week, plans for coming district conference and a few new recipies.

Happy Birthday wishes and songs shared at zone conference.

Mom working at the desk at home. The windows now have grid-style bars over the windows to prevent future theft.

The backyard trees are growing. We shared a stalk of bananas with our landlord.

These bananas still have a little longer to grow before they are ready.

Philippino oranges have a greenish skin, but still have a wonderfully sweet orange fruit inside. They do have a few more larger seeds.

A Variety of Sights and Activities

Our Internet service has been out for over a week, so we missed talking with the family at home and getting their emails. But the work is going on and here are a few pictures of our activities last week.

We drive by this "Northern Paradise Resort" often and thought you might like to add it to your places to visit.

This is especially for our friends, Elder and Sister Gordhamer in Malaysia. Their sweet "daughter" Sister Herbalario is now serving in our Baguio, Philippines Mission.

 

...she is learning the language quickly and is a great missionary all ready!

 We review most of the missionary apartments in the mission. There is great effort to have a clean, safe "refuge from the world". The zone leaders give the missionaries a few "hands-on" refrigerator cleaning instructions.

 We deliver and sign apartment contracts all over the mission.

 This is the new apartment that is located in the heart of the missionaries area. It will save them time and money to live here. It will also extend their evening working hours. They had to come home early before the transportation shuts down or walk 6 miles in the dark - I mean real dark - to get home. This apartment is already decorated with Christmas lights. Welcome home elders!

 We walk paths like these from the roads to get to the member homes. Most of the time the trail is a long way from where we park the car. Here we are just about back to the car. You can see it at the end of the trail. We are glad the rainy season is over and we don't have mud and water on the paths.

We joined Sister "Lady" and the Relief Society president on their visits today. We love to go on member visits with someone that can speak Tagalog.

 At one of the homes we visited the baby had a great swinging hammock in the front room. Maybe we can bring one of these home for the deck.

 This is the source of water for this house. It works all the time and you don't have to worry about  power outages to get water.

Christmas is everywhere and has been since September 1. Here is a Recycle Tree made out of plastic pop bottles.

 And another view of it.

 This one was made with hanging bells

 This tree is made of dried rice stalks. It will be decorated as we get closer to Christmas.

 The cycle of rice planting and harvest goes on... the man in the field is running a machine that has broad paddles that flatten and smooth the muddy bottom of the rice field to get it ready for planting again.

This is what it is all about... rice! and lots of it. They eat it as a main course three meals a day. These unmilled rice grains are drying on the highway.

 The rice is dried for a day on any cement or blacktop surface, including main highways. After the rice has dried all day, it is swept into piles and scooped up and stored in bags that will be taken to the mill. It creates some very interesting traffic patterns some days. The bags weigh 50 kilos/110 lbs.

 Scooping the rice off the road and into the bags. The bags are taken to the mill where it is prepared for eating and most of the gravel is cleaned out of it. This works well for the highway department... they never have to worry about sweeping the streets. The birds and chickens love this time of year... they get all they can eat.

Crime Won't Stop The Work

We woke up this morning and discovered we had been robbed! My computer was missing... then I realized my computer bag with flash drives, batteries and computer and camera cables was missing. Hey, where's my camera? It's gone too! The crushing blow came when I discovered that my external hard drive was gone with all my backup files. What a heart break that our pictures are all gone... except those that are on the blog.

We were blessed that all the robbers wanted was the newer electronic equipment - my computer and camera. Marlene's computer, the printer, car keys, money was all safe Most importantly, we were safe! We feel so blessed. It could have been worse.  We are recovering information and settling our emotions, but we will recover and move on. 

Last night we went to a great district Cultural Event for the youth and had a wonderful time. I had lots of pictures to share, but they are all gone with the thief. We were amazed at the creativity and excitement of the youth just gathering together. Each branch put on a skit with no more props than colored paper, crepe paper and cardboard. The skits portrayed challenges that the youth experience staying faithful and striving to go to the temple. It was very moving to feel their faith, testimony, and commitment to the Lord. The wonderful thing was it was not the leaders that did it... it was the youth that developed the ideas and wrote the script, choreographed the dancing, and made the props! It took them about three weeks to pull it all together. We were so proud of them. After the skits there was a fashion show of costumes made of newspaper... simply amazing what they can do with a newspaper. Then there was an International fashion show with costumes representing other nations. The costumes were beautiful, but not as beautiful as the youth that were modeling them. After the fashion shows there was a dance for all the youth. What a fun event and it all ended with a closing hymn and a prayer.

We are blessed in so many ways. We love serving these wonderful people and are lifted and blessed by them in return.