January 18-23

Saturday we drove to Antique in two hours.  We arrived at the church in San Jose just in time for a baptism of a twenty year-old young man.  After the baptism, he bore his testimony.  He sounded like a return missionary!  He will graduate from college this spring in accounting.  He has an internship at Boracay, which is a resort island close by but what was amazing is that he already knows that the church is two hours from where he will be working and he is planning to attend.
We ate a sack lunch I made in the truck and then set up for our meeting with the district presidency.  It was suppose to have branch presidencies and wives but none came.  We had the mls missionary couple there come and some sisters who could interpret for us but we did fine and it went well.  After we went with the couple, Elder and Sister Sessions to see their house.  We visited there.  It was a nice house, the bedroom is as big as our bungalow, plus they have a washer and dryer, a full living room, an office, and a dining room.  And it is mostly yellow.  It is a very happy place.  After we visited, we went to dinner and then they took us back to the Pinnacle Hotel where we stayed the night.
Sunday, President Aquino had suggested we attend Hamtec Branch.  It was great!  The four missionaries were at the front door to greet us and make us feel welcome and the branch presidency asked us to speak.  It was amazing.  You know the promise that He will give us at the very hour what we should say.  Well, that is how it was.  Ray spoke about Naaman and some great thing in the Old Testament.  I followed with President Monson's message in the Jan. Ensign about listening to the counsel of the modern day prophets and how if President Monson hadn't listened to his stake president, Harold B Lee, he would not be the Prophet today.  And I followed up with Joseph Smith having very little education and he translated the Book of Mormon because God called him to do it and he listened and how God can make more of us than we can make of ourselves.  The next speaker talked about following our leaders.  Wow, it was amazing how well it was orchestrated by The Lord.  The spirit there was amazing.  We attended Sunday School and then returned to Iloilo.  The ride is mountainous and beautiful.  We went straight to the San Miguel group church and gave the opening and closing prayers.  We went to our bungalow for a snack and then quickly to Jalandoni where we waited to meet with the stake self reliance committee.  The meeting was to start at 4:30 and it started at  5:30.  The committee is not complete yet; they still need a stake specialist. Ray talked to them about how the committee is suppose to function and showed them two videos about the committee.  They understand now, I think so hopefully there will soon be a specialist called.  We came home, ate popcorn and went to bed, tired.
Monday we went to Arevalo for English testing of the outgoing missionaries, there were eight to be tested.  Great news this am, President Amar from Antique texted and wants training before the month is up on Jan 31. We sent the My Path books with the Sessions who are here doing the testing also.  We are thrilled with their response!  It is better than Disneyland!  Praise to our Heavenly Father from whom all blessings flow.  He is blessing our efforts.
We tested until 2:00 and then Sessions and us went to the Atrium for lunch.  Elder Sessions said it was the best food he had eaten since he has been here.  They just have seven months left.  We all enjoyed it.
Tuesday we had district meeting.  We were all at the gate of the church but someone had borrowed the key and didn't return it so we took the six missionaries to our bungalow for the meeting.  It was an excellent meeting.  Elder Staples is a really good leader.  His subject was prayer and he gets everybody participating.  One of our zone leaders, Elder Cabatuando, told about his conversion.  He is the only member.  He is twenty-five.  He goes home next Tuesday.  He was on a jeepney and said to one of his classmates as they were passing a church house, "I would like to join that church".  His class mate referred him to the missionaries.  He just felt something from the building.  Anyway, the missionaries came, he read the Book of Mormon.   His mother was really mad that the missionaries came back.  Elder Cabatuando told how he prayed about it and he knew it was true.  When the missionaries asked him, if he had prayed about it, he said "Yes, it is true.  I will be baptized."  It was so neat to hear him tell it because this joy came into him as he was telling about his conversion.  After our meeting, we took the missionaries downtown and we went to Jalandoni to do some work.  We had a lady from Guimaras waiting for us for some books and training.  Her district president had texted us that am.  We will soon go to that island (20 minute boat ride) to follow up, I think it will be February 15 and we will speak in the Jordan Branch. Then Tiolas branch president texted us and he needs three more books so we hurried and sent them with the Tiolas missionaries who were here for their zone conference.  We did some quick shopping, had a lunch/dinner before leaving to Jalandoni for our next meeting with the Center people.  (A busy missionary is a happy missionary)
Wednesday we picked up the district and zone leaders and took them with us to our zone conference with the president.  I think my two favorite parts were when Sister Aquino asked the missionaries to report on miracles they had seen through the Spirit on their missions.  One of the office elders told about after he was baptized, he later had a feeling that he should tell his grandmother about the church, but he didn't feel urgent about it.  She was in good health and he didn't say anything and within a short time, she just died.  He had that same feeling again about a friend and he didn't do it and she died.  So the third time when he had that feeling again about his mom, he bore his testimony to her and she was baptized right away.  The other favorite part was when President Aquino talked about the scriptures being for our profit and learning.  He called different missionaries to pick out one scripture from our reading so far which was through page 140 in the Old Testament, one scripture and apply it to us as missionaries.  It was great!  He said it was not enough to be entertained by the stories in the scriptures unless those stories reach deep into our soul.  My scripture was in the beginning when God created the earth in six days and never complained, in fact He claimed it was good, He loved His work and He cursed the ground for Adam's sake.  So Adam would have to work by the sweat of his brow all the days of his life.  ...Remember, it was for his sake...a blessing. Gen 3:18.  Anyway, President Aquino also stated, "If we neglect to Feed The Spirit you will reap unhappiness.  Don't permit anything to detract you from this awareness." I got to tell the whole mission how our family is reading with us, children from 8-12.  Yes, a little bragging:)  but I told them that is how our family is supporting our mission by reading with us.  Anyway, we were fed and we took a bunch of pictures with the missionaries.  It was about 4:00 when we finished and we hurried to take missionaries home, pick up a computer at the bungalow and went to the Center to make a report to our boss on how many and where our books have gone.  When we finished we went to drop off books to Molo 1st ward.  They were so appreciative.  We got home around 7:30.
Thursday we had our usual routine, then the cleaning girl came and we finished cleaning around 10:30.  We went to Arevalo but it was all locked up.  So we went to Jalandoni.  President Insigne had put a tv in our room at the Center.  That is great.  Now we can use a big screen for our training videos instead of our small computer screen.  Anyway, so we listened to Elder Ballard's talk to CES in San Diego.  It was about technology "do's and don'ts," the evils and consequences of pornography and don't do it and if you are, stop, and marriage:  changes in civil law do not, indeed cannot change God's law.  We returned to the bungalow and brought in and folded dry laundry, had a snack, and Ray worked on his personal history and I wrote my journal email. Love to all of you, Sister Robinson III