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.