2014 Christmas in Manila- Part 2

After we finished our project for the orphans, it was time for our Christmas Dinner!  In the Philippines, a traditional dish is lechon....a pig baked for hours in a pit.

These two pigs arrived via taxi.  

Angel and her husband cut up the meat for us.  It was delicious!  We also had pizza for those not desiring lechon and rice.

  Then we cleaned up and set up for the Nativity play.

The Nativity was probably the most inspiring part of the whole activity.  Each person portraying an individual in the Christmas story really tried to put themselves in their character's place and imagine how they felt that Holy Night.  They did a wonderful job, and the Spirit was felt very strong.

After the Nativity play, we watched together "The Fourth Wiseman" which tells the story of a man who sold all he had to find and bring gifts to the "King" that had been foretold. Along the way, he ends up giving all of his gifts to others in need, so that when he finally sees the Savior, he has nothing to give.  But the Savior tells him, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

2014 Christmas in Manila-Part 1

 The Manila Christmas Party was tons of fun!  What a great group of elders and sisters!  Everyone was so excited to see each other!
        

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We began the party with crossword puzzles and word search puzzles. They competed as teams to see which group could complete the puzzle first.  Look at the intensity with which they played!

 

 The table that found the most words won candy bars!
 

Then we played Pinoy Henyo.  We have never seen a group of people have so much fun trying to guess words!  

 Then we had a White Elephant exchange. It was humorous to see people's reactions as they opened their gifts and found all sorts of strange, cute and funny gifts.

 

 After the games, they sang some Christmas songs.  One fun song was "The Twelve Days of Christmas".  Each table (or two) represented one of the days and would stand up sing the part for the day and do some action they made up.  It kept getting more and more creative each time.  We had a good time laughing at some of their ideas!

After the final game, we sang a few Christmas songs and then Santa, Mrs. Claus and four elves appeared.  They brought projects that the missionaries could work on to help provide a New Year's Party for some homes for orphans.  While most of them worked on the projects, each District got their picture taken with Santa and Mrs. Claus...and their elves.