Dec 21-Dec 27

First thing in the morning we went to the mission office for internet service so we could get a map to find Leganes where we are speaking in sacrament meeting.  From there, Darlyn met us and went with us to Passi for a My Path devotional.  There were 44 there.  It was great!  My Path is a small booklet put out by the church to assist members with their budgeting, finding their talents and strengths and experiences to see what they could do better and to raise their income.  We arrived at our bungalow around 7:30.  We are exhausted but it was a great day!  The ward was so inviting and inclusive.  They want us to come to their Christmas party on Christmas Day.
Monday, after exercises and scripture study we went to Arevalo to send emails, then to the Atrium (grocery store and small mall) and finished shopping for a few ingredients plus poisons for ants, cockroaches and mosquitoes.  We saw a red striped dress and bought it, P750 which is around $18.  My clothes are not fitting well because there is no dryer and gravity while they hang to dry makes the clothes grow longer.  We also bought some 3M tape to hang posters in the Center.  We also went to Diversion 21 Hotel to order a chocolate Ferrero for Christmas.  Each piece cost P190 which is about$4.50 a slice.  Onto Mandurriao ward church to practice our missionary skit for the ward party.  Each companionship represented a house where people were too busy to let us (the couple) in...excuses: making cookies, playing video games, having a party...and Elder Kimball just said No.  Then he sang "I am a Man Forgotten" from Michael McClean's Forgotten Christmas Carols, another book I wish I had.  All the missionaries joined in on Let Him in...  Ray and I dressed up as Mary and Joseph going to each house and then went to a corner, rejected and had a baby white towel.  Anyway, it turned out well and gave an appropriate message for missionaries.  After practice, we came home, ate nachos, typed up the words to the song for the missionaries, read our advent candle, worked on our costumes and to bed.
Tuesday was district meeting, Elder Staples from Utah is our new leader.  After district meeting, we practiced our skit again.  The party is tonight at 5:30.  I got a note from Sister Walton, who has gone home to Texas now but will be going to BYU-Idaho soon.
Received the best letter of my life from my missionary son. So grateful The Lord looked upon us with special favor to have all eight children.  We stopped at the store for carrots, onions, and mangoes.  Fixed us lunch and made potato casserole for Christmas dinner, took a nap, squeezed calamari fruit for juice and went to the ward party.  Our skit went well and Roland summarizes it all for everyone:  let Jesus into our hearts every day, not just Christmas.  There was food and dancing.  Sister Hernaez gave us a gift of three large papaya and Geraldine gave me a key chain and a sweet note.  She is a recent convert, less than a month.  We took all the missionaries home.
Wednesday, I mixed flour and water and covered it with clothing, set it out for 24 hours to get a natural yeast.  It worked and I made sour dough rolls.  We picked up our half cake from Diversion 21 and received a mail drop call:  Eve Irene Robinson was born on her Grandma Wilson's birthday December 23rd!  It is over and it is just begun.  So nice to have Susan there to organize and take care of every needful thing except for what Mama Julie has to do herself.  Congratulations!  Next we went to the stake family Christmas party, stayed there until noon then came home, ate, made a cheese ball and crackers to take to President and Sister Aquinos' home for a Christmas Eve family home evening with 30 other missionaries.  At the stake party, Julie, one of the business group facilitators reported that her group is on lesson 5 and are doing better in their finances at home and in their business.  I was so excited!  That is the reason we are here.  So it was great news that it is working and people are doing well. They can see improvement.  We will attend her class on Saturday and make arrangements to visit their businesses to see what service we can be better at.  We went to Sorillas house first for a dinner party.  They have a beautiful home with a huge chandelier, long queen dining table.  It was amazing!  It would rate next to any American expensive home.  Then we took Elder Rios and the sisters with us to the Presidents home for fhe.  We played "beebo " at fhe and losers did a talent:). It was fun! We also did a reading of St Luke with narration in between by the President and also singing.  We ate.  They loved (presidents family) my cheese ball and crackers so they kept it in the kitchen:). Yes, it made me feel great!  Their son just returned a month ago from his mission and he will be leaving to attend BYU.  We took the four sisters home and came home.
Thursday, December 25, we received many Merry Christmas messages on the phone from Filipino people.  They are so nice to us. We went to LaPaz by 8 am for a "white Christmas".  Twenty eight people in North stake were baptized, there were two whole families.  It was incredible.  I sat by a sister who was just baptized three months ago.
She said we had the same surname (Robinson).  She was married to a man from England, he managed a hotel there but was killed in a car crash seven years ago.  Their baby is seven plus.  He was five months old when his father died.  Anyway, she asked my first name, I told her it was Teresa.  She said, "Are you sure?"  It was very funny but that was her name also.  Anyway, back to her story.  Before her husband was killed they would talk every night on the phone.  Sometimes she would hear noise in the background and she would ask who was there.  Always he would say it was the Mormon missionaries.  She never thought much about it.  He was going to tell her when he came back home. But he was killed.  He was baptized just before he was killed.  She didn't know until after she was baptized and someone looked up her husband and found out he was baptized and when.  Anyway, she feels his presence and they will be sealed as a family in a year or less.  Isn't that a great true story.  At twelve we had to leave the baptisms and pick up Elders to feed them an American Christmas dinner: potato casserole, carrots, and ham, plus chocolate cake and rolls.  Ray and Elders played Farkle while I cleaned up because we were to take the elders to their next appointment and we were going to Leganes Christmas Day Christmas party.  It was fun and we got home around 9 pm.  But we also talked with Nathan and Amy and they will have a brother for Nathan Rockwell in May 2015!
Friday Dec 26, the security guard let us in so we were on google hang outs with our missionaries!  It was a feast for my eyes!  Now it is 11 and we went home and did laundry, checked out another apartment, had lunch, and wrote this before we head to another party.  The party, dinner party was delicious, and of course, who goes first through the food line?  Us, the missionary couple.  It was a delightful party.  This couple with their little boy were just sealed last month in the Cebu Temple. The father is a seaman and a fairly new convert.  Janice, his wife is an obstetrician, but she quit her practice to raise their little boy.  She is amazing and her husband is so proud of his wife and their son.  He just glows since they were sealed in the temple.  To be working towards eternal families is a blessing.  It is work but the most noble kind of work.
Saturday we will go to Arevalo where I can send this long letter off and also, we will attend one of the business classes of self reliance.  Love to all, Mom, Sister Robinson
Catch the New Year challenge.  It will be there this new week for New Years resolution!