CHRISTMAS PHONE CALL

Hello family:)
     It was really good to talk to you earlier, but I agree our Christmas phone call went by way too fast! I knew it would though.  40 minutes is not a lot of time! But it was still good chatting for a little bit.
     So now to tell you a little more about my week because I didn't get to tell you much on the phone:  we had our branch Christmas party on Wednesday, and that was a lot of fun! We tried to get our investigators to come so they could meet the ward, but only one ended up coming. It was Helen who we have been teaching, and she has a baptismal date. We went and picked her up and went with her to the party. She has the CUTEST little four year old boy! I'll attach a picture of him, but he is my favorite. During the Christmas party, he kept coming up to me and holding my hand and wanting me to play with him. It was nice because he was like my Gabe away from home:) haha, even though sometimes I didn't know what he was telling me.

"Gabe-away-from-home"

     Then on Friday we had another temple tour. This time it was for the city missionaries, and the sisters in the provinces did the teaching. So Sister Culango and I taught about eternal marriage, and I used a picture from Kip and Nicole’s wedding with all of us in front of the temple and showed it to everyone while talking about the temple. SO Kip and Nicole, you are famous here in the Philippines:)

     Christmas Eve, like I said, we just taught and ended up having five dinner appointments. It was rough! haha. It was funny because we were waiting for one dinner appointment that we scheduled a long time ago, and they were late so we went to their next door neighbor who the daughter is less active and shared a message with her while we were waiting, and her mom gave us both a big plate of spaghetti. As I said, the spaghetti here is really sweet, and I don't really like it. So we both are looking at each other like “What are we going to do?” Then the Cosile family got home and came and told us that they're home and ready, so we just took the spaghetti with us to their house and gave it to the other sisters so we could eat the Cosile's food. So we got out of eating that:) Then the last appointment was with the Relief Society president who I really like, and she really likes me but apparently thinks that I eat a lot :) haha which I probably do. But she comes out and hands me my plate, and it's bigger then everyone else’s and says it's just for you Sister Stromberg. haha Then when I couldn't eat very much, she gave me the business and told me I needed to eat more so I tried, but man it was rough. So yeah, that was Christmas Eve.

New T-shirt from Sister Culango

     Then on Christmas we went to church, and our gift to us is we finally had two investigators come to church. These investigators are kind of a funny story how we found them. We were at Jollybee on p-day Monday (It's a big fast food chain here.), and this mom comes up with her like 10 year old son and asks if she can take a picture with us and her son (of course, because Sister Duncan and I are American). Then we talked to them and found out they lived in our area and got their address and went and taught them. The mom and daughter, Raon who is 20, both seem pretty interested. The dad is crazy though! haha He loved talking to me and talked my ear off. Ha He told me how to make about every kind of Filipino food there is. Then he wanted me to tell him stories from Utah and tell him about the Indians in Utah (You think I know stories about Indians in Utah? . . . haha nope).  It was really funny.  They are strong Christians. I don't think the dad is interested, but he loves talking to me.  They always feed us when we go there. So it was fun to see them at church. Then we taught a few lessons and then went to the Spencers’. So yeah that was my Christmas. It was actually a really good Christmas; other than, of course, I missed my family.

Christmas at the Spencers', a senior couple in Manila

     But it was really good talking with you today. Christmas Eve and Christmas day when we taught, we shared The Living Christ with a lot of our investigators and RCLA's.  It was really neat reading that and then testifying about Christ to everyone at Christmas time. It was neat sharing The Living Christ with those who have never heard of it. If you haven't read it lately, you should because it is so good!
      Hope you all had a great Christmas! Happy New Year!  Love you all so much!
Mahal Ko Kayo!!
Sister Stromberg