Saturday, April 12-Friday, April 17

It seems like I send a letter every other day!  It goes by so quickly.
Saturday we went to Arevalo ten minutes early and no one was there.  In five minutes about twelve more men showed up for the rebroadcast of General Conference.  Finally, Ray texted the stake president; it was changed to Jalandoni, so we put 5 of us inside the truck and eight in the bed at the back and drove to Jalandoni.  We were about fifteen minutes late for the priesthood session.  While Ray was in priesthood, I called Raymond and Sarah.  Woohoo!
Then it was time for the Saturday a.m. Session and right after was the p.m. Session--no break.  When it was all over, we took the z.l.s and sisters to Mandurriao to work and we went through McDonald's and brought home Big & Tasty meals with extra pickles and sprite with no ice.  We aren't comfortable with the cleanliness of the ice.  And this is the only place to get dill pickles.  We took it home to eat and then tried to call Nathan and Amy but --no answer😥. The good news was they were at the temple😃.  Then we took a walk on the Esplanade.
Sunday ...another glorious day of Conference.  We picked up President Insignes' family and this time it was at Arevalo.  We prepared our conference pictionary to send to our kids.  One conference session followed immediately after the other.  My seat was very sore and I was fidgeting.  Then there was a PEF meeting and choir practice.  We got home around 5:00 p.m.  I know that is not late, but we started at 8:00...yes, we were very hungry and tired.  It was all good.  I had a spaghetti dinner all ready in seven minutes.  It felt good.
Monday we went to Arevalo to do English testing for the departing missionaries.  After we went to lunch with Cushings we dropped them off at the SM Mall and then we went to Brother Cozzens house.  He worked on our iPads so we could get his books.  He has written three books about his life that are very interesting.  He is from Wyoming but he has lived in Saudi Arabia and now here with his Filipino wife who teaches seminary.  They are really neat people.
Tuesday was district meeting.  Some of our district will be leaving us.  I don't really like when they change and leave😝😢ha, Charity, I'm a little bit like you.  We ate a quick snacky lunch and went to Jalandoni where we had an appointment to help some girls register for PEF.  Ten showed up.  Tomorrow is the deadline, so both of the Center computers were in use, plus our computer, plus both of our ipads😊.  It was crazy.  We came home at 7.
Wednesday we went grocery shopping.  It really is a lot of work because most of the time, the store won't have some items:  like sour cream or chips, or cheese, or the fish I want...regular kinds of things.  Also at the front door, there is a police scanner for men on the right, women on the left and then you can get back together again.  Nice they never scan us but they do everyone else.  And the parking lot is big and we always have to park quite a ways away. Not like any store in the U.S.  It is full.  After shopping, we took the groceries home, ate lunch, and went to the Center.  Some had scheduled to come in to do their PEF but they came in early to get the secretary to help because talking with us gives them "nosebleed".  That is what they call it when they don't speak fluently in English.  Anyway, we stayed until 6:00 and were invited to an A. C. E. Meeting.  Academy for Creative Enterprise.  Charity's first companion, Sister Barfusses dad was part of the beginnings of this.  It was formed, I understand, by returned missionaries who wanted to help the Filipino people.  Well, anyway, they want to invite all graduates of the business course to join so they can better continue to help each other succeed.  We gave a sister from Mandurriao Ward a ride home after the meeting.  We arrived home at 8:15, ate, read, and to bed....
Thursday we cut up pineapple, mango, watermelon and chicken breasts.  This helps for quick preparation later.  We froze 2/3s of the chicken and cooked the rest.  And put black beans in to soak.  We took a bucket of cut up watermelon to the group of office missionaries who were helping the sisters move into the new apartment above Sorilla's office.  It feels like Christmas.  It is a beautiful place for places around here.  They have been in a rat infested house and it was out of their area so they had to spend extra time and money traveling by jeepney to their area every day.  Now they will live in their area for proselyting.  Sorilla's are fixing up a place for us beneath the elders.  We will probably move in June.  We did the sisters' bedding wash and took it to their new apartment.  We had lunch at Sorilla's with the elders and sisters.  The elders from the office put together desks and beds and closets for the new apartment.  Then we went straight to Jalandoni and at night we watched Molo 1 and Molo 2 play basketball.  We stopped at McDonald's for  ice cream and apple pie, 8:30 goodnight.
Friday morning we had a service project directed by the pulis at 6:00a.m.  It was so much fun.  We were with Molo 1st Ward and we painted walls that had graffiti on them.  We walked with our bucket of paint and our 3" paint rollers up and down the Molo baranguy which was probably about two miles, stopping and painting where there was writing.  Funny thing, I started to put my roller up and the pulis said "not that one". . It was an actual sign they wanted.  Since we don't understand the writing on the walls, we don't know what is good or bad or art😊.  We spent three hours.  Then we went home to exercise, eat, and on to Jalandoni where we are now and a sister just left after asking questions about PEF.  I think she was actually trying to circumvent the program because she only went to the first class of "Education for Better Work" and she wanted to sign up for PEF but I told her it would ask if she had finished the classes and would not disperse a loan until she had.  Anyway, it is a great program.  The class will help her because she isn't even sure what she wants to study and the class has exercises and things for you to do to help you make those decisions.  She is 33.  Well, anyway, I love you all, Sister Robinson III😊, Mom, Grandma