Secret Elves Send Us Gifts

In August I was contacted by a group of mothers who wanted to make sure every Elder and Sister in our mission received a Christmas gift in December. They found out how many missionaries we would have in our mission on December 25th, and then they started to plan, purchase, pack, and mail enough gifts for all 220 of them. This was a huge project and we will forever be thankful for the love and charity that was extended towards the Cavite missionaries. Here are the pictures of this great project from the receiving end.

Three Balikbayan boxes arrived full of gifts. We unpacked everything then separated the gifts into "Elder", "Sister", or "Miscellaneous" boxes. The 10 small boxes under President Tye's desk are filled with food. (granola bars, fruit snacks, peanut butter, Nutella, trail mix, candy, and beef jerky)

Sister Folau and Sister Jones helped me with the separating of gifts. They are two of our Sister Training Leaders (STL's) who were assigned to help with this project. The beautiful framed picture of Jesus Christ was the only one in the box. Instead of having just one lucky missionary receive such an elaborate gift, this picture will stay in the mission office and will be a reminder to all of us of the kind act of service given to the Cavite Missionaries on Christmas 2014.

  In order to make sure every missionary received a gift, and that all sent items were divided equally, we used the conference room at the mission office and created a spot for all 220 missionaries. I wish I had a way to show the whole room. Every available "usable" spot was taken. It was an awesome sight.

 

 See the masking tape on the tabletop and foot? It is there to help us divide between the different Sister gifts and Elder gifts.

After all was divided, each pile was sealed into a Ziploc bag.

 

 

These are the Cavite Mission Elves - Senior Couples - that are helping sort the gifts.

 Presents were wrapped and taken to the Mission Home. Elder gifts had a green ribbon, and Sister gifts, (on the desk), had a red ribbon. 

 At the Christmas Devotional on December 17th, we played a game that helped us hand out the gifts. Thank you to the secret elves who made this event possible for all missionaries to receive a Christmas gift.