12 Days of Christmas

This is the stack of little gifts I bought for Nathan's 12 days of Christmas.  I did not get elaborate by any means!  Some of the gifts include a bacon flavored chapstick found HERE.  Maybe I'll get crazy and send him a 'bacon package' one of these months! hehe
Another gift (to be opened on New Year's) is the bamboo calendar that was free at the Chinese store. 
Other things included a tie, a toy (to be opened the day after Christmas, since that is his "P" day, and a pair of gloves.  Anyway, I ended up with 12 gifts. I wrapped in (mostly) coordinating fabric and put tags on them.
(I apologize, but once I closed the page where I downloaded the tags, I was NOT able to find it again!!: If I do, I will post it).
I packaged these up and put in the mail today.  If Nathan doesn't cheat, he will have a little gift to open each of the 12 days of Christmas starting Christmas Eve.

Because of upcoming transfers, all Christmas packages and cards for Nathan should be sent to the Mission Office:

Elder Nathan Cockrum

Washington Tacoma Mission

4007 Bridgeport Way W Ste D

University Place, WA 98466-4330

All the gifts will be distributed to the missionaries at a party they are having.  Please write 'For Christmas' on the package if it is for Christmas. Otherwise it will be given to him as a regular package.   

When in the service of others...

Nathan is keeping busy doing all kinds of service.  This member sent pictures of Nathan working on their fence.  I love it when I get random texts from people that Nathan is around.  I need to remember to do the same for the missionaries serving here.

Getting ready for Baptism

This is Nathan and his companion giving a baptismal lesson to a young member.  The boy's parents texted the photo to me. It made my day!

The 6 months burning of the Tie

Apparently it is the tradition in the Washington-Tacoma mission to have the missionaries burn a tie when they have reached their 6 month mark. 

I am not sure if he should still have actually been WEARING the tie when he burned it.

And apparently, he realized the folly of his ways and took the tie off.  I wish I could have seen THAT -- I bet it was quite a feat to get a burning tie from around his neck.















Is this the face of someone doing something ornery?  I thought it looked as though he may have burned his face a bit?? Or maybe that is just sunburn from working on the fence earlier.

I am glad he is having fun!

Stationary Care Package

 I decided to make it easy for Nathan to write letters home. I bought him an address book and added addresses of friends and family. He can also collect addresses of new friends from his mission.

I bought a box of envelops and printed His name and this blog address with lines for him to write his current mission address in the return address section. I added a cute bicycle missionary with the lines for the 'To' section of the envelop, and across the bottom I added the scripture from Mark 16:15 "Go ye unto the world and preach my gospel unto every creature."

I also added the bicycle missionary and the scripture to the lined sides of index cards. I printed 4 different designs on the backs of them so he has a variety of post cards to mail.

I bought a pad of writing paper. I tried to personalize it, but it was too thin for my printer and kept jamming, so he just got a tablet of plain writing paper. If I come across some thicker writing tablet paper, I might try again to personalize some.

To this I added a book of post card stamps and a book of regular mail stamps and hope he gets the right postage on the right mail!

4th of July treats

I wanted to send something fun for Nathan to have for the 4th of July . I had planned on sending a bunch of sparklers, but when I checked with the post office, I found they could not be mailed.

So, I did the next best thing: I made stars and stripes cookies!  I frosted the star shaped cookies with blue and the heart shaped cookies with white and then painted red stripes on them with frosting that had been thinned enough to 'paint' with.

I got the idea and recipe from "Friendship Gifts of Good Taste", a Leisure Arts book. I have NO IDEA how they got their frosting such a beautiful dark blue.  My blue stayed a very light color. I will have to see if I can find a darker blue food color paste.. maybe that will help.

Honey-Almond Cookies:

Cream 1 cup softened butter, 1/3 cup butter flavored shortening, 1/3 cup oil, and 2  cups sugar until fluffy.  Add 2 eggs, 1/3 cup honey, and 1 teaspoon almond extract and beat until smooth.  Add 1 cup quick rolled oats and 4 cups flour.  knead until a soft dough forms, then refrigerate for an hour. Roll to 1/4 in thickness, cut into heart and star shapes and bake at 350* for 10-12 minutes.  Cool on a rack.

Icing:
Combine 7 cups powdered sugar and 1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons + 2 teaspoons milk in a large bowl and beat until smooth.  Tint 3/4 cup blue.  Mix 1/2 cup with water, stirring until smooth, and tint red.  Ice the hearts with the remaining white icing and allow it to harden while you ice the stars with the blue icing.  Then sue a small clean round paintbrush and paint the stripes on the heart cookies.  Store in an airtight container. Makes about 7 dozen, depending on the size of your cutters.

I layerd the cookies in an oatmeal box (round tube shape) with waxed paper, sealed it up and mailed to Nathan in time to get a few days before the 4th.

NEW ADDRESS: June 2011

Nathan said the missionary work there is 'going along wonderfully.' He also said he has been blessed with another wonderful companion.

Nathan's new address is:

Elder Nathan Cockrum
18922 77th ave. East   
Puyallup  WA 98375  

Missionary Pizza

Sent Nathan another missionary pizza!  The first was made with rice krispy treats and can be seen here.
This one is more of a candy than a cookie.  The recipe came from the "Taste of Home 2010 Quick Cooking Annual Recipes" book that my mother gave Natalie for her birthday.
Take: 1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips and 1 cup butterscotch chips and melt in the microwave (3 minutes on medium or 50% power).  The chips still look like chips, but are shiny when they are ready. Stir until smooth and mix in 3/4 cup mini marshmallows, 3/4 cup crushed potato chips, and 3/4 cup chopped peanuts.  Pour out onto waxed paper (with an 11 inch heart drawn on it -- you can see part of my line at the lower left of the heart in the photo.  Sprinkle on 2 tablespoons coconut, 1/4 cup milk chocolate m&ms and 7 maraschino cherries (halved) -- I left these off the one I sent to Nathan because I wasn't sure if they'd hold up in the shipping, but had them on the one I sent to the fundraiser dessert auction and the one I made for the family. :)
Then in a small container, melt 2 tablespoons white chips and 1/2 tsp shortening (took about 2 minutes on 50% medium power).. I stirred and drizzled over the top of the 'pizza'.
I bought a plain pizza box from Mudduck's pizza to mail this in. (it was wrapped all in cellophane)..  I sent a pizza cutter with the first one we made, so hopefully he still has that! LOL
I picked up a free pizza box from Dominoes for the one I donated to the auction. :) 
Nathan has requested chocolate chip cookies or no bake cookies, so that is next on the agenda!

Package for my GREENIE

I have heard that new missionaries are called 'Greenies', and I read somewhere that it is fun to send a greenie box to new missionaries. So, I spent some time gathering up green things to put in a box for Nathan.

One of the green suggestions I read about was a picture of Kermit the Frog. Well, I found two.
 On this one, I added the words to "I hope they call me on a mission.."
Notice that I changed it to .."have grown a foot or SIX.." hehe

I guess that "It ain't easy being green" is a Kermit motto, so I added it to this photo. I LOVE playing around with pictures, so I couldn't resist adding a Book of Mormon and an Elder Nathan Cockrum name tag!!

Other things I added were candies in green wrappers, a green lip balm, a green laundry stick, a green giant bubble want, green Kool-Aid packs, green play-dough, green notebook, pens and pencils and a green pencil sharpener. I stuffed it all in a box with green packing. I hope Nathan enjoys it as much as I enjoyed putting it all together.

NATHAN'S FIRST APARTMENT ADDRESS

Here is the address of Nathan's first apartment on his mission. He will be here for about 5 weeks, so probably after 4 weeks, send mail to the main mission address or wait until I have his new address posted. But for now send letters here:

Elder Nathan Cockrum

4625 45th ave SE  Apt. M1

Lacey WA. 98503

Nathan with his Mission President and his wife (the Bowens)

     Here is Nathan with the Washington-Tacoma Mission Presidents, President and Sister Bowen. They sent this with a nice letter saying that Nathan has been assigned to two Trainers/Companions: Elders Cook and Draper, who will work with Nathan for a couple months.  They also stated they were impressed with his enthusiasm and said they know he will make an outstanding contribution to the missionary cause in this area.
     President H. Kent Bowen is a professor at Harvard University, and himself served as a missionary in the Central German mission, as well as having had several church callings including the following: stake president, sealer, bishop and counselor, high councilor, and co-chair of open house and dedication committee for the Boston Massachusetts Temple.
     Sister Kathleen Jones Bowen has also had many church callings including both stake and ward Relief Society President and counselor, both stake and ward Young Women president, and camp director, and ward primary teacher.
     Both Brother and Sister Bowen were born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and now live in the Belmont, Massachusetts area. They have five children. And now they have several young missionaries under their care in Washington, including Nathan.  They seem like wonderful people and I am very glad they are taking the time from their busy lives to serve a mission watching over our young missionaries!  I was very grateful that they took the time to send me this photo and a letter.

Nathan's Mission Address

Nathan in now in Washington.  You can send letters and care packages to:

Elder Nathan Clark Cockrum

Washington Tacoma Mission

4007 Bridgeport Way W Ste D

University Place, WA 98466-4330

You can ALWAYS send things to this address, especially if you are unsure of his newest apartment address. This is the main mission address.

UPDATE on NATHAN'S ADDRESS

Elder Nathan Cockrum

MTC Box 201
WA-TAC 0509
2005 North 900 East
Provo, UT 84604-1793

This is the official complete address (the other was missing his actual box number, although it will get there).

You can also get onto this site.  This site is where you can write a letter, and it will be typed and delivered that day!  Remember, he is only allowed internet access 1/2 hour once a week, and only allowed to email family and bishop, so the best communication would be to write an actual letter or drop him a post card!  (or use the www.dearelder.com site)

Email from Nathan

Got an email from Nathan. He is safe and sound at the MTC and loving it there!  He received his name tag and is looking forward to serving his mission. He is allowed only 30 minutes a week to read and respond to emails, and is only allowed to email replies to family and the Bishop.  Just wanted you to know he cannot reply to all emails, so would probably be better to write!

Nathan's EMAIL

Nathan will be able to check emails eventually. He may not have time to answer all of them, but he will eventually be able to read them (if he remembers his new access code! hehe)
For those of you who want to send a quick message, the email is:

nathan.cockrum@myldsmail.net

Since he will have extremely limited access to a computer, it would probably be better to send a letter or card via snail mail.

Nathan's MTC Address

Elder Nathan Clark Cockrum
Washington Tacoma Mission
Provo Missionary Training Center
2005 N 900 E
Provo, Utah 84604

He should be at the MTC until around May 10.

Called to Serve

Nathan has been called to serve in the Washington-Tacoma Mission. He reports to the MTC on April 20, 2011. He will serve a two year mission and 'Return with Honor' in 2013.