December 19

I have had a good week, but we don't have tons of time today. We're back in Laoag today for a Christmas party with all the missionaries.  Earlier we had some games and then later this evening we will have a dinner.  Its fun!  Tomorrow we will have a Mission Conference, and it is only once a year that we actually get all of the missionaries together in one place, so it's good times.

We have had some success as well in the field.  We found some really nice new people.  One day we were finding, and we were guided to a lot of people that were really ready for the Gospel.  We actually found a lot of people who had a lot of good experiences with the missionaries or other members of the church, and they seemed like they were ready to accept the invitation to learn more about the church.  Hopefully we will see some progression in them in the next couple of weeks.

There was also some big changes in the mission this last week.  Until now, the schedule for the mission was work in the morning, studies from 1 until 4 and then work again, but starting this last week we all changed back to the normal schedule.  So studies in the morning and then work from 12 until 9.  It was good, but a little bit hard on some investigators.  A lot of them were clear in the morning or in the evening, but when it was around lunchtime, a lot of our investigators were not around.  So we did lots of finding!  So it was a blessing as well.

Christmas here in the Philippines is mostly just family time!  There are a lot of Catholic traditions, but the other than that there isn't a ton.  They just do family stuff.  We will probably have to be in the house at 6 oclock because sometimes Christmas can get a little crazy in the Philippines.  Especially with all of the alchohol.

Other than that it was a good week!  There isn't much else to say.

Elder Childs

Sunday Lunch with Some Members