MISSION HIGHLIGHTS: New Year's Eve at the Mission Home

New Year's Eve in the Philippines is very dangerous. The day after Christmas, fireworks stands pop up all over the city and you can purchase literally any kind of fireworks. Everything is legal. And these people all seem to be pyromaniacs. They love firecrackers of all kinds. If they don't have fireworks they will shoot guns up in the air. So we have a mission rule that all missionaries are in lock-down in their apartments at 6 pm on New Year's Eve.

We started a tradition last year that missionaries who live close to the Mission Home could come and be locked down with us. So this year we had 22 elders and sisters. (The sisters all stayed with the sister missionaries a few blocks from the mission home. We drove them at the end of the night.) We had all kinds of fun foods and munchies. The missionaries enjoyed playing basketball, football, ping pong (Sister Pulu and Sister Acal ended up being the champions). One group played Mexican train. We showed the movie 17 Miracles and then went out to watch the spectacular fireworks display. Everyone was in bed soon after midnight. The next morning started with warm showers, pancakes for breakfast and then a race back to their areas for church services.

We love spending time with our beloved missionaries!

The fireworks were spectacular. Every direction we looked the sky was filled with amazing lights.
Thanks to our kids back home, we had wonderful pepperoni to put on our homemade pizzas!

There was plenty of food for all.

Most of the filipinos played basket ball in their flip flops and they were tough to beat!

The senior couples came and enjoyed spending some time with the missionaries although it looks like they got a quiet minute or two to visit while the elders and sisters were out playing ball.