Another year in service of the Lord and you are blessed to celebrate(well in a way) your birthday on the mission field. I know you're not into the glitz and glam of Birthdays, but I want to tell you how much i love you and also how proud I am to be your sister. It's not an easy thing to be far away from family on this special day. If you look at it on a spiritual note, you have many family who passed onto the other side who is with you in celebrating your birth. Keep going strong my brother. You are a blessing to the people of Belize and I know we are blessed because of your efforts. Take care bro and have a wonderful day! i'll send you a package full of goodies for you to enjoy. Oh make sure your companions don't touch your package when it comes in. hehehe. Happy Birthday Baba!!
Merry Christmas Everyone! Life is more exciting when Christmas is in the air. I've always been a sucker for Christmas but not as much as Halloween. But since it's the Holidays I wanted to share this year Christmas moment. Last week Mika received a call from friend Mike. He wanted to do something special for the Tupuola family. Mika and I was all for it and wanted to know how we can help. That's when he call called us Santa's Helpers. With that being said, we were to go shopping for gifts for Jenny, Kelo and the kids. Everyday for the past week Mika and I would secretly find toys, clothes and stuff for the kids and sneak it into our room to be wrapped. It was pretty fun shopping for the kids cause it kind of felt like we were shopping for our kids. A cool experience for Mika and I. The day before Christmas, Mika and I talked with the kids about doing a White Elephant gift for each other. Reason being, the kids did not see any gifts under the tree and were sad about no gifts for them. So to make things a bit cheerful, we took them to the Dollar Store to pick a gift for their sibling they picked for the White Elephant. The kids being extremely disappointed, they picked a gift, we went home and they wrapped their gifts to put under the tree. I could here the kids whisper to each other, "this sucks, we only have one gift for Christmas!?!" Watching their little faces look so down and sad, in my head I said "Don't worry my dear nieces and nephew you will have more than you know!"
Soon the kids went to sleep and Jenny needed help wrapping her gifts she bought for the kids. She knew that Mika and I bought stocking with treats for the kids but she didn't knew that we had a surprise for her family. We helped he put her gifts under the tree and see too finally went to sleep. Now that everyone was sleeping, Mika and I went ninja mode and started to quickly bring up all the gifts we had hiding in our room. We set up the stockings, put the gifts under the tree and high five each other after looking at the end result of the Santa's Helper mission. Mika and I was so excited to see their faces when they woke up in the morning. It's Christmas morning and it felt like no one wanted to get up cause to them there wasn't anything great to wake up too. But that changed soon after they woke up. Mika and I woke up before everyone else did so that we can see the surprise on their face. Soon Jenny woke up and she was shocked to see half of her living room full of presents. She than went back into her room woke up Kelo to see what Santa brought them. He came out still trying to wake up and was surprised to see so many gifts for the family. Wow! was the word he said as he sat down on the couch. Jenny went to the kids room and woke them all up to see what santa brought them. With joy in their eyes as they saw the piles of gifts surround their Christmas tree. We gave thanks to the Lord and one by one the kids opened their gift. Everyone was happy and we enjoyed the many gifts that was given to us from Mike. Mika and I received a gift which we weren't expecting. I got a laptop and Mika got a DVD player. I'm thankful for everything that has happened to Mika and I but also to the Tupuola family. It was a joy to bring happiness to a family. But also to be of service to another. Again thanks to Mika B. for this awesome and memorable Christmas!!
Love is an act of endless
forgiveness, a tender look
which becomes a habit.
Peter Ustinov, b. 1921
It's been an interesting and fun week seeing everyone of Mika's siblings and their family for his older brother Rudy's wedding. Since it's my birthday, I usually don't expect much since I don't care. But somehow it turned out nice. Woke up this morning and Jenny made pancakes...thanks jenny for the yummy pancakes! Mika and i went to the chapel where the wedding reception will be held, to help with set up. After that Mika took me ice skating which was a ton of fun. Continue the day with more shopping and decorating. Later in the evening I received a call from my mom wishing me happy birthday. Of course thats one of the best thing to receive is a beautiful serenade from my mommy on my birthday. I love her for that. We talked for hours, while everyone else finished up with the set up. To end the evening, Tony wanted to eat out somewhere near Jenny's house, so we stopped at Del Taco for some yummy Mexican food to wash away the drama that had happened earlier today. Well you can't have the best birthdays but you can always make the best of what you got. Celebrating a birthday as you get older seems like another day of the year. Well Happy Birthday to Me! :)
The cutest thing happened to me today. My niece Olimpia gave me a letter to give to my Dad, who is serving in the Military and is station in Iraq. She told me that her teacher wanted the class to write a letter to someone who is serving in the military and she thought about my dad, since I would always talk about him. Olimpia told me to mail it to my Dad and for me not to read it. Even though I told her that I won't, I did anyways. heheheh. Its so cute that I'm going to post it on my blog because its too funny and cute. Thanks Olimpia for the letter for my Dad he will greatly appreciate it.
Dear Sister Unga,
Here is a picture of Elder Elu at youth conference. He is sitting on the ground on the left side of the picture. In the picture are Pres. and Sister Ochoa and my husband and I. (My husband has white hair and I have blonde hair).
We are taking the Elders and Sisters to see a Mayan ruin tomorrow. Some people think that the Nephites used to live there. It should be fun.
I hope that you are feeling well. Don't worry about ELder Elu too much. He is doing fine. Today he bore a really sweet testimony in testimony meeting and tried to bring peace and harmony to the branch.
Aloha,
Sister Haynes
