A Mission - It's a Happenin' Place!

NOVEMBER 2015

Through the course of nearly 18 months, I've taken so many pictures that are never viewed by anyone but me.  This is a small taste of the unseen pictures that have been taken.  Our Zone Conference pictures are at the end.  If you have a missionary in the Angeles Mission, you'll definitely want to scroll down to see them.

These are some of our dedicated Sisters as they greet everyone before church begins.
The children are drawn to our Sisters who make everyone feel welcome.

The Vicente's are the first couple that President Clark has married in the Philippines.
They were a cute couple with two children and were married 
days before they went into the waters of baptism.  

These are our priesthood leaders in our most remote area - Baler.  The three men in the middle are three of the Branch President's of the Baler District.  They are bookended by some of our wonderful missionaries who serve in Baler.  

We dined at the Costa Pacifica Hotel with our Baler leaders and some of their wives.
The rain outside did not dampen the enjoyable time we had with them.

On the way over the mountain from Baler, we stopped in Bongabon.  I walked the halls and found this lovely group of young women.  It is always quite interesting to see what I find when I walk into a classroom.  These young women were very kind when I shared some of my "tagalog" skills with them.  I'm sure they were thinking I should stick with the English language.  

Standard of Excellence (SOE) in our mission is 2 baptisms per companionship per month.  Whenever this is achieved, President Clark and I treat the Zone to a pizza party.  Here is Tarlac Zone before diving into their lunch.  Sadly I didn't get a picture of the Guimba Zone where we delivered another SOE pizza party.  Our missionaries are doing a great job finding, converting and baptizing.  It would be well worth it to us to buy pizza for all 12 zones if they each baptize SOE!

Occasionally we host Family Home Evening at the Mission Home.  It is a treat for us but also for the investigators and members of the ward near our home.  The Sisters did a great job this evening teaching about families.  We played quite the game of Fruit Basket for our activity.  Let's just say that President and I were some of the first to sit down.  One of the members brought pancit to eat afterward.  We loved having the Whiting's join us..  

Just a few months ago, Orson Callister was a missionary in the Angeles Mission.  He quickly flew back by himself to make some great visits.  One was to the mission office.  He came in on Preparation Day so the Elders that work in the office with us were dressed just like him, 

ready for an activity with their zone.

We've had several of our missionaries who have returned home come back to visit.  They will always be our missionaries so we are delighted to see them again.  This is Samantha Carter who visited with her family about six months after she went home.  Samantha got engaged just a couple of days before her family boarded the plane to visit the Philippines.  The fun thing about it is that she is marrying another one of our returned missionaries.  And this is not the first couple to have done that. We are all about eternal families?

More missionaries return!  This time they came back as a married couple!  Sister Bongolto and Elder Wick are now Mr. and Mrs. Landon and Cherelyn Wick.  We loved sitting down with them and hearing their love story across the miles on Skype. 

ZONE CONFERENCE - November 2015

In November we had Zone Conferences at four locations.  With three zones at each meeting we have a very nice size for teaching and learning.  The November Conference focused on teaching with the Holy Ghost, Sabbath Day observance, Follow-up 200 and Lesson Staffing.  A great missionary spirit was felt and a good time had by all.

Last Missionary Standing Winners
It gets more difficult as time goes one to have just one missionary standing.  
These sisters all tied for the 1st prize!
Way to go Sister McGoon, Sister Norman and Sister Resture.

Sister Bonozo and Sister Remund are on fire!  
They are also the recipients of Last Missionary Standing.

Sister Cauilan and Sister Ioane were the winners of the Paniqui, Santa Ignacia and 

Camiling Zones - Last Missionary Standing.  

In the Angeles, Mabalacat and Tarlac Zones, Sister Aguspina and Sister Ram won the prize.       

Here is a group picture of seven of our India Visa-waiting elders.  They have been in the Angeles Mission for over four months now. Four of the elders just found out they will be going back to India the end of December.
We will miss them but we're glad they get to go back to the mission to which they were called.

Zone Conference never goes by without a delicious treat at the end of the meetings.
This time it is Sister Lopez' delicious banana bread.