Christmas in the mission field is something special. We spent time with all of the missionaries right before Christmas. We wanted to wait as close to the holiday as possible to visit all the missionaries, so we would give as much time as we could for presents to arrive and be delivered. As far as I know we did pretty well. We have a couple of stragglers, which is normal for here, but the missionaries are all in good spirits, and I believe were pretty well taken care of this year.
We really enjoyed our time with each missionary. I just loved the activities we had with them.
The missionaries in Rwanda went to a fun place. I don't even know what it's called, but they had all sorts of games, horses, trampolines, even a small zip line. There was even a place for a barbecue. There are many missionaries from different countries, in Rwanda, who haven't ever done any of these activities. It was pretty fun for all of us. I'll just mainly be posting pictures of the activities.
In Ethiopia the missionaries planned a service for our Christmas gathering. We spent the day at an orphanage in Addis Ababa. The missionaries just played soccer with the kids. Afterwards we went inside and sang Christmas songs to them. It was a really special day to see the missionaries interact with the children, and make their day a little bit brighter.
While we were waiting to go to the orphanage, the missionaries were at the church throwing a football back and forth. The football got stuck in a palm tree... Elder Trippe saved the day when he climbed the tree in his proselyting clothes to knock the ball down. I had to get a picture.
In Uganda, we invited the missionaries to the Kololo Chapel for lunch. We had a spiritual meeting in the Chapel, and then moved to the cultural hall for some fun skits and songs. I took lots of pictures of the missionaries eating, but mostly videos of the skits and songs. They really did a great job. Mostly kept it appropriate, and fun. I loved their creativity!
Elder Dickson singing The Spirit of God in 4 different languages.
The bags behind us were gifts for the missionaries. A mission DVD, a book of tender mercies written by the missionaries, a pen that has our mission scripture on it, and a few other things we thought they would enjoy.
The mission DVD was very well done. Here is a LINK to it if you haven't seen it.
We thought that we ended the day with enough time for our missionaries to travel home to their own apartments before Christmas, however, the traffic getting out of Kampala was TERRIBLE. One zone of missionaries who had quite a long drive back, got stuck in a pretty bad traffic jam. After about a 2 1/2 hour wait in the traffic, they could see that they would not get back on time. The zone came to the mission home for Christmas Eve! I enjoyed having them in the mission home on Christmas Eve. We were able to let Elder Winiata talk to his family in New Zealand. The rest of the missionaries helped me bake some cookies. It felt a lot like Christmas having them there cooking with me.
They left early on Christmas morning, and were able to get back on time for some Christmas dinner appointments, and most important, Christmas calls home.
On Christmas Day we had about 8 missionaries come over and use our technology to talk to their families. That is my favorite part of Christmas in the mission field, listening to missionaries talk to their families. It chokes me up every time. I think I will miss having Christmas in the mission field. I will definitely love to be with my family, and see my grandchildren enjoying the excitement of the Christmas Season, but I will miss this... a lot.
This is my favorite picture! These are all of the missionaries serving in the Uganda Kampala Mission right now. We love them all, and are so grateful for all they do.
