December Doings

We have had a lot of things going on in the month of December. I am sure I am leaving out some of the things that we have done but I am going to hit the highlights. We had Zone Conference a couple of weeks ago. We always have such good things presented by the Assistants and President Dowdle. This time the sisters got to meet seperately with Sister Dowdle though. She gave a wonderful message and it was just nice to be able to meet with all the sisters. We have a great group of sister missionaries. They are doing fantastic work here in Guam and we also got to meet with the sisters from Saipan who also are great.

On December 8th we went to the airport to pick up the Hertzbergs. They are the new Family History Couple and we are so excited to have them here. Elder Clarke has had a great time acting as tour guide while we have acquainted them with Guam. We look forward to getting to know them better.
On December 10th Elder L. Tom Perry arrived to form the new Barrigada Guam Stake. We had some really good meetings with him and it was fun learning a little bit more about him and seeing what a warm friendly man he is. I was so surprised to see how tall he is - 6'4". I have always seen him from the top of the Marriott Center at BYU or the Conference Center top balcony and from that distance he seemed small. I loved listening to him and all the other speakers at conference.

Monday night we spent FHE at an investigators home. He has invited us to share in his Theme nights. He is fixing dinner for his extended family and the missionaries teaching him each Monday. We are anticipating his baptism on Jan. 1st. He truly was a golden contact. His desire to learn and his enthusiasm has been inspiring to us.

We had our final Institute class of 2010 on Thursday. It was a bit sad because it was Juliette's last night for good. She is going to be moving to Palau and we are so sorry to see her leave.

One of our students has proven to be a great cook as he keeps bringing treats each week to Institute.
One week he made cream puffs and then dipped them in chocolate to serve us.

Last week he brought apple pie and ice cream. Thank you Andrew for all your good works.

We have made a habit of playing games after our lesson each week and this week we set up a badminton net and brought out the ping pong table.

I must say we have a few very competitive kids in our group.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to the Micronesia Mall to see the decorations in the center court. They were impressive but the highlight was the light and sound show. Last night, we invited ourselves to the Yigo Ward Christmas Activity which was a treat and then we took the Hertzbergs to the mall to see the light and sound show. My favorite number was a Mannheim Steamroller number. I had to go home afterwards and play my Christmas music.



It is moments like that that have made me feel like it is actually Christmas. It is not in your face as much as it is at home and when it is 85degrees and sunny it just does not seem like it can be Christmas. We are looking forward to Christmas Eve with the missionaries to make this Christmas a special one. We hope that this will also be a special Christmas for all of you.