Saturday, March 21-Friday, March 27, 2015

Saturday a.m. we took Elder and Sister Streng with us (we are showing them what we do, so they have more to do😀).  Roxas is a four hour drive from Iloilo, so it will be helpful as they want more to do.  We handed out bank loan PIN numbers to those who finished their schooling under the PEF/ER initiative.  These brothers and sisters will buy tool kits so they can start businesses, tool kits like a baking oven, for those who took baking; a sewing machine for those who took dress-making, etc.  It went from 9:00-3:30 in Kalibo.  We left Strengs about 11:00 to finish and we drove two hours to Roxas to do the same thing there.  We finished in Roxas about 5:00 p.m. And started our drive back to Iloilo. 15 minutes into our drive, I realized I was missing our calendar which has everything in it, our scheduling.  When we went back, it was gone, but we did leave the missionary Mail with the Bishop and headed home again.  As we were driving, I tracked down the calendar and after we drove into Jalandoni on Monday, President Ortega knew Jojo who would be coming from Roxas to Iloilo on Tuesday, so he made arrangements for our calendar to be returned Tuesday night.  Whew!  We picked up two Apple pies from McDonald's at 8:30 when we drove into Iloilo; we got home, ate our pies and went to bed.  We have been gone two full days.  We were blessed not to need to pay for a hotel by the goodly care of the Strengs.
Sunday, we picked up, Darlene at 7:40 at the Phoenix gas station on the way to Pototan Branch.  As everyone here, they greet us as general authorities; they are grateful to have us come and speak and visit their unit.  Never have I been treated so well.  Two young women, twelve and thirteen, sat by me during the devotional and gave me a hug.  So we spoke in sacrament meeting and conducted "My Path" devotional.  We returned with five adults in the back seat to Jalandoni Institute graduation.  Then there was choir practice for stake conference to be held the week after general conference.  We got home at 8:00, hungry and tired and hot.
Monday we went grocery shopping and I had a fish foot spa.  I put my feet in a tank with small fish, then with medium fish, then with bigger fish.  It was such an interesting sensation.  The big ones kept tugging and pulling at the mole on the inside of my left foot.  It kind of tore after a while so I turned my foot with the inside out of the water so they couldn't reach the mole.  We came back home and had a salsa flavored fish, potatoes and squash.  I felt my feet and they are very soft and smooth now except the mole😝.  I will do that again, maybe in six months.  Then we went to the Center to send our emails.  The Internet is not good today but it did send.  Tonight at 6:00 we purchased hot fudge sundaes at McDonald's, put almonds and salt on top and watched number 2 in the Foundations and Principals and Habits from the self-reliance initiative.  We heard from Raymond that Amy is in the hospital with a blood clot.  We tried to call but to no avail.  We are praying like crazy, begging Heavenly Father to take care of her and the baby.  Then we found masses of teeny ants in our bedroom.  Ray is doing what he can to get rid of them.
Tuesday...I cried all night.  We could not live without Amy.  When we went to district meeting, no one had a key to the church so we took all the missionaries and went to our bungalow for district meeting.  We dropped the missionaries off at various locations and went to the mission office for information.  We stopped by the weavers place and picked up the table runner we ordered.  Then we met the zone of missionaries at an all-you-can-eat place for pasta and pizza.  Those missionaries can really stash that food away.  I ordered a lettuce salad.  It was great with a vinaigrette dressing.  I prepared food for our trip to Antique tomorrow.  We have PEF/ER work there tomorrow and then apartment checks the next day.  We went to Jalandoni for the self-reliance meeting, much was accomplished.  Home at 8:30.
Wednesday we left at 7:00 am to go to a facilitator/specialist Antique district training meeting at 9:00 a.m.  It was an amazing meeting--well organized and well executed.  President Amar showed videos and after each one, he would ask what they got from the video.  They served us lunch, it was a heart shaped rice ball, vegetables, and a slice of chicken cor don bleu.  After lunch people came for distribution of PIN numbers like in Kalibo and Roxas.  We finished around 4:00 p.m.  President Amar helped us find the couples' house who went home early.  It is such a spacious house, about 3xs the size of our bungalow and the chair and couch covers are yellow with gold and blue...so happy and clean and fun!
Thursday I slept from 6:30 p.m. Until the next a.m. at 5:30.  I was so tired.  We had muffins I made and brought and cut up mangoes that I prepared so we didn't need to make a mess in the house.  I guess it's an mmm...day.  We met the zone leaders at Guisanos(grocery store/mall) at 8:00 for apartment checks.  We went south to Hamtic after we checked the four sisters and the zone leaders in San Jose, then to Dao, turned north back through San Jose and stopped at the Cafe the elders recommended and bought our lunch and theirs, an everything hamburger and a shake.  Of course I had mango, they had strawberry banana, then to Sibalom, to Bugasong, to Tibao, and two apartments in Culosi--it took all day.  We returned to San Jose and dropped off the elders and they went to work.  We walked around the mall and store, purchased a few snacks, met a couple of members and had a Greenwich pizza.
Friday, oh I will back up...there is a leak where the water comes into the house and it has a fast leak under the sink and overflowed onto the kitchen floor.  We did what we could and turned off the water until we returned from apartment checks.  We turned it on to use the c.r. and wash our hands, then turned it back off.  This a.m. we turned the water on so we could shower and wash our clothes.  We only brought one extra pair of clothes.  We didn't know we would be staying until Saturday night.  About 9:15 the owner came and it turned out, it only needed to be screwed tighter.  Whew!  We took the zls stuff to their apartment and then we went for a ride, looking for a place to walk on the beach.  We finally found a place.  The water was very warm, like bath water at home.  We took a picture of someone's rich house.  Unusual for this island.  We came back to the house and watched some Old Testament missionary movies.  Boiser will be here tonight.  I'll use his hotel and code to send my email.  Halong,  Sister Robinson III