"let the good times roll..."

Christmastime in the Philippines!

 Talon's awesome minivan he is now driving around! Ha, ha.

 Can you see the creature one this shovel? If ya don't look close ya miss it...

Well, as you can see Talon is doing real great. He is now assistant to the president and still is loving every single second of his mission. A lot has been happening for Talon out in the Philippines- so much so that I am even having a hard time now keeping up on all the changes and transfers for this blog! For Christmas all of the family got together and made Talon a Christmas tree and ornaments with our pictures on them for Talon to decorate and put up in his apartment. We also sent him and his companion the "12 days of Christmas," which Talon told us in his last email that he was very excited for! Christmas has always been Talon's very most favorite time of the year and we are excited to see what this Christmas is like for Talon out on his mission. Merry Christmas Talon! Only two more weeks and we'll be talking to you on the phone!

"We're on the hunt of lifetime right now...

in Balasan, which has never been hunted before!"

"me and my comp have been working our tails off trying to find those that have been prepared by the lord. and we really are having some luck. we only had one investigator in church yesterday but  we really had a awesome week teaching this week just have to help the people have faith to come to church. but i want to tell you a little about my one investigator that was at church his name is ray custodio he is 77 years old and we just found him last week and he has already come to church 2 times and he even came to a baptism that we had here in estancia on saturday. he is way dedicated and told us he wanted to be baptized and said he would do what ever he needed to do to come to church each and every week. he said even if he has to borrow money from someone to get there. he is kinda a slow learner but he learns it and is willing to try he is a really awesome guy. i think he will be baptized in the next coulple weeks."

Talon was transferred a little bit ago to a brand new area, an area where there have never been missionaries, called Balasan, and he is working hard with his new companion. Also, big news since Talon got moved to this new area- Talon is now a trainer!

"I will go, I will do..."

Well, as you can see in the above slideshows, Talon just sent us a ton of pictures! And I couldn't even fit all of them on the 2 slideshows, there were over 300 pictures and it was just too hard to try to pick a few out to put in a post so I thought that the slideshows could be fun too- so enjoy! (Sorry, some of the pictures are sideways...I don't know how to fix it?) 

Talon is having a great time on his mission. He is happy and having lots of super great experiences each and every day. Here is an excerpt from Talon's weekly email from June 21, 2010:

"...Then saturday we had 2 baptisms!!!!!!!!! it was awesome i got to baptize them also so it was amazing we had a cool experience there to. so i went to the church early to make sure they were getting ready for the baptism but no one was there so i started filling up the font because it takes a long time to fill up and then the water stopped coming at only about 1 foot of water the well went dry. no more water. and along with that the water was completly brown and smelled so so so rotten and gross haha so we waited we didnt know what we were going to do the baptism was supposed to start at 6 and it was 630 now  and then all of the sudden it just started pouring rain like harder then i have ever seen in my life it was so so cool and it filled up the well with enough water that we could fill up the font enough to have the baptisms. barely enough and it was brown and nasty. but we did it and it was so so cool even if the water was not clean and there was barely enough they just wanted to be baptized. i know that the lord prepared a way for us to have that baptism. it really was a great spiritual experience..."

In other news, Talon has not only been transferred to a new area, he is no longer on Panay Island, (and he has a new companion- Elder Ellsworth from Arizona) but he is also part of the new mission in the Philippines, instead of being in the Philippines Bacolod Mission, Talon will now be serving in the Phillippines Iloilo Mission! Talon is very excited for this change- the new mission opened on July 1, 2010 and Talon will probably be getting a new mailing address for this new mission soon, so watch out for that so that you know the right place to mail letters to him!

 ALL the kids seem to love Talon so much!

 One of my favorite pictures from this batch.

 Their shirts say "Mormon Helping Hands."

 A service project.

 Such a beautiful place!