Christmas Eve Phone Call

On our Christmas Eve we got to talk to Brianne.  It was her Christmas morning. Talking to her was truly the best part of Christmas. She sounded so happy.  She is having amazing experiences on her mission and is really loving it.  On Christmas Eve, she spent time with the Branch President and his family.  The branch president has 4 children, so she was able to spend Christmas Eve with "family." They had a delicious meal and watched the movie about Christ's birth. She gave the family members some of the ties and headbands we sent her.  She said they loved them.  She told us about having showers with a bucket.  She told us of her experience with typhoon Ruby and how it didn't affect them much in Hinunangan.  We asked her what she ate and she said she ate a lot of hot dogs and rice. At a branch activity she said they cooked a whole pig.  She said it was delicious, but the skin was crunchy.  She tried to understand Jax when he spoke Cebuano to her. He said "I'm your favorite brother."  She couldn't understand what he was saying, but quickly rattled off the correct pronunciation. She described her area as very rural, even smaller than her last area, Hinunangan.  She told us her funny/scary experiences of riding the buses and the bikes bikes.   Forty minutes was definitely not along time to talk.  It went by quickly.  Before we ended the phone call, Brad offered a family prayer.  The spirit was super strong in the room.  I'm sure that Bri felt it many miles away as well.