Thanksgiving

November 24, 2012

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States.  We had Thanksgiving with the new missionaries and senior missionaries at the mission home.  I made two turkeys, gravy, and rice stuffing.  I loved the rice stuffing and think I might continue making it when we are home for holidays.  Here in the Philippines there is not and stuffing bread available so I would have had to leave the bread slices out to dry and then cut it or crumb it.  Well if I had done that we would have had ant stuffing because if we leave anything on the counter it is covered with ants in seconds.  Rice stuffing is made just like regular stuffing: sauté the onion and celery season it as you would bread stuffing, then combine it with rice cooked in chicken broth.  It is so good.  We had a pretty traditional meal with the other couples making mashed potatoes, and an apple crisp dessert.  There are no pumpkins or canned pumpkin here so that mean we could not make pies. 

The day was very nice other than missing my kids and grandkids.  It was difficult to not be home with everyone.  We were able to talk to the Mitchells, Faith and Josh and Dan's girls and Julie, before we lost internet, but we missed talking to the Pearson's, Tisdale's,  Padilla's and the Sheldon's.  We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family and are thankful for them and our many friends who support us on our crazy adventure.

We have been to Iloilo twice this month and will have PEF training here in Bacolod November 30 and December 1 with all our service missionaries and our boss Franco and Jibb from Manila. We have everything prepared for the training: motel reservations, meeting accommodations and meals catered. We are anxious to learn about the recent changes implemented and how they will impact our work.  Hopefully, things will be streamlined a bit.  It is so difficult to get the applications complete and the tuition checks released we often find ourselves banging our heads against the wall with frustration.  Our work is very rewarding though as we see the students doing well in school and changing their futures.

Our mission had a new couple arrive Tuesday, whose name is Chin.  He is Chinese American and she is Caucasian.  They are from North Salt Lake City.  They will live in san Carlos.  Elder Chin is a retired pharmacist and  his is a registered nurse.  They seem very nice and will be a great addition to the mission.  Our mission will increase by about 100 missionaries before spring due to the reduction of missionary age and increase of missionaries serving.  That will be exciting.  We heard that a mission has been opened in China with about 80 expected missionaries so that is very exciting. What a blessing that will be for China.  The church is really growing here in Asia.

Once again, I want to thank our family for their love and support as well as tell them how very much I miss them.  If and when we serve another mission we will request is be one of the shorter missions in the U.S. so we can still see our family occasionally.  This being thousands of miles away from them is the hardest part of our mission.  We love you so very much and pray for each of you daily.