Monkey-ing Around

It’s been a fun and busy week. Monday night was FHE. We had a spaghetti dinner and then played some Thanksgiving themed games.  (Thanksgiving Matching game)

We’re pretty sure spaghetti is a fairly traditional Thanksgiving dinner since turkey is dang hard to find and afford. The fun treat of the evening was getting our new Zone t-shirts. Friends in the Naic Branch (Herbert and Aira) designed the Captain Moroni themed picture. We’ll be bringing ours home (with quite a few others) so we’ll have some additional fun memories.

Tuesday was Temple Day and Going Home fireside and dinner at the Mission Home.

 It’s hard to believe that we were part of the going home group this time. It really doesn’t quite seem real yet. Transfer day was on Wednesday and we got 4 new Elders and 1 new Sister. Things are always changing in the mission field. We met the new comers Friday morning at District Meeting and they are terrific. Sister Frost transferred to Makati and is now a TA with Sister Betts. What a pair! Right now our Zone is on-fire (still) and hoping for 50 baptisms in December.

We went for a drive up Ternate canyon while waiting for a meeting and a herd of monkeys ran across the road in front of us. It took a minute to get the camera but still caught one in action. This is one of our favorite scenic drives in the area.

We were honored to host lunch on Sunday for Pres. and Sis. Howard . His brother and sister-in-law, Brent and Bonnie, are visiting from Malad, Idaho.
Lunch guests. Brent and Bonnie Howard, Pres. and Sis. Howard and the Smiths

 It was a real pleasure to have them here. Our apartment complex missionaries were here and also the Sister TA’s came out from Makati.
 

The Elder TA’s are also visiting the Zone and came later for left-over lunch and visiting.
E. Richwine and E. Langer (ZL's) in a self-portrait

After lunch we took the Sister TA's to the swinging bridge in Maragondon. They insisted on a smooching picture (we didn't mind).

We have actually set out a suitcase to start putting a few things together for the trip home. We got our travel plans at the first of the week. These are the new, updated, final plans according to the email. We leave Manila at 6:30 a.m. on the 9th of December. We arrive in Hong Kong at 8:30 a.m. and have a lay-over until 1:05 p.m. then on to LAX. We arrive in LA at 9:35 a.m. (again on December 9th) and depart for LV at 2:37 p.m. with a 3:46 p.m. arrival time. This gaining and losing days business is strange! We have just two more Sundays in the Philippines.