How is it that another week, another month has passed? Saturday, April 26, 2015

Saturday we purchased a few groceries at Iloilo Market(it is about the size of our store in Jerome but not as clean or as nice); it is close and easier to get to when it is not busy, in the morning.  We went home and then to Arevalo.  This church is bigger than Jalandoni and is also the mission office, so stake conference is held there. Ray sang at the priesthood leadership conference and I went to another room and visited with Amy and Nathan on the phone.  It was delightful and felt so good to hear their voices.  Then we had the Saturday afternoon adult session where we both sang in the choir.  We had a visiting authority, Elder and Sister Meim of the seventy.
Sunday was another conference and the choir, which included us again sang two more songs.  The theme was families.  It was told that President Insignes son always texted him when he returned home from school or whatever saying, "I am home". He said his son loved to be home.  He is on his mission now but will be home sometime this summer.  I thought it was so sweet.  We were told to make home a heaven.  Don't just talk about it.  "Walk the talk"☺️. Sister Meim talked about reverence and said that Reverence invites Revelation.  It is a sacred principle and covenant that we take in sacrament meeting.  And too many of us are violating the covenant in the very meeting we are making it( by texting, messaging etc). Elder Meim talked also about Gethsemane and how the Savior asked His disciples to wait with Him one hour?  And he related that one hour to the sacrament meeting hour.  Can we not wait (be reverent and remember Him, ponder) one hour and ten minutes in His sacrament meeting?
Monday we had off.  We did two loads of wash and other p-day stuff and then spent some time at the Center reviewing and practicing our plan for the hour we have to present self-reliance for the Young Single Adult Conference.
Tuesday was zone meeting.  Which now I understand happens after every transfer.  It is all new missionaries again, well not all but mostly.  Elder Kei from American Samoa is a new zone leader.  He's great!  Elder Watkins is still with us as the other zone leader.  The leader sisters, Sister Daroy and her companion and the zone leaders did training on "welcoming each day with joy, how we have been called of God to serve, and He knows we Can Do It.  A testimony was also given of the Book of Mormon.  We ate lunch, just Ray and I, at the Promenade--I had fish and chips.  We went back to Jalandoni for an appointment we had with a family from Oton.  Then we went to Arevalo to take some flyers we had to the A.P.s to be given to the Cushing couple for the Guimeras units about a "Job Fair".  We also visited with President Aquino about our car payments which the Church has changed a month ago but we just received notice and we have already paid two months in advance.  Well, I know that is nonsense to anyone but us.  And we discussed our move in June to an apartment underneath the zone leaders apartment.  It is smaller than where we are now but there is room for the vehicle behind high gates which is more desirable than on the street.
Wednesday I cut Rays hair and we went to the mall for the second time to try a Filipino hair cut.  It looks better.  We also paid the phone bill, got gas in the truck, picked up cash from the BDO(an ATM machine outside the bank.  The bank will not do the transaction inside).  We picked up a few groceries, made lunch and a casserole (gluten-free😃) and took to the neighbor whose mother just died on Saturday.  The father died in December.  Alvin and his brother are older but have never married or left home.  This is very hard on them.  Anyway after taking  the carbonara with sausage casserole over to the boys, we went to Jalandoni to practice our presentation for tomorrow.  It looks like 45 minutes.  Ray is going to redo his part.  We went home, had a snack and I prepared some breakfast sandwiches for us to take since we are to be at Jalandoni by 5:00 am.
Thursday we met the buses at the appointed time and an hour later, the kids were there ready to go.  We caravan end with three big buses, Insignes and Hernaezs in their van with their three children between them and us in the pickup behind.  It was a four hour trip to get to the Merimert Resort which could accommodate 500 plus young single adults for a mission-wide conference.  It started at 10:00 am with orientation, lunch at 11:00, 12:10 was a presentation on family history by the Streng couple assigned in Kalibo member/leadership support.  She ended with a family history story of her father who died last year.  She had not known him, maybe saw him 3-4 times in her whole life, her parents divorced while she was very young.   She is a convert to the Church.  Anyway, when he died, she did his work over here with her husband at the Cebu Temple and she heard him say, "thank you, Baby Girl". She feels like she knows him better in death than she did in life.  It was very touching.  Our presentation on self-reliance was next from 1:10-2:00.

I used the second half of Corner of the Sky to begin the second half of our one hour presentation to the single adults conference.  There were 500 plus in attendance.  Our topic was, of course, self reliance.  But what the Spirit wanted them to know about self reliance was that eagles are born to fly and we are born to become like our Father in Heaven.  He is not poor; he created the heaven and the earth and all things therein are His.  He has prepared Mansions for us.  He is rich.
How do we become like Him?  This is life eternal that we might know Him, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.  We must read His words every day, every day, every day. Seek Him in prayer...constant "may my heart be turned to pray, pray in secret day by day, that this boon (help, assistance) to mortals given may unite my soul with heaven."
D&C 59:3 those who obey the gospel, receive the good things of the earth....
Sacrifice what you are for what you want to become.
Who do you want to become?  Fix it.  Keep moving forward.
You have everything you need to become like God.  Jesus Christ made it possible for all of us.
We told the scripture story of Nephi building a boat.  Also of the Jaredites building 8 barges and the different ways the Lord answered their inquiries.  As in given complete instructions, waiting for them to ask; letting them figure out and do things and taking their ideas or stones to the Lord and asking Him to touch the stones.  The Lord honored their requests after they put forth their best efforts.
Because of faith, The brother of Jared saw Jesus Christ before He was born in the flesh.  Because of our faith, we can also see the hand of the Lord in our lives.
We put our own lives on the path of success or failure.
1-we must know God, read His words every day, every day, every day
2-unite your soul with heaven through constant prayer
3-return missionaries find a temple worthy partner
4-make a plan and go to work, inquiring of the Lord at every point
You were born to become like your Father in Heaven.  You can do it.
Of course, this was an hour presentation, so these are the highlights.
Dad told about "paying his tithing" and how that gave him power to go to the Lord for a job when he got let go when we were in our first year of marriage and how the Lord honored him in helping him get a job within less than 24 hours.  There is power in obeying the Lord's commandments.

It was a fun experience even though we're petrified of the large group and also concerned about our ability to keep the attention for that long.  We also had no idea if our technical video clips would work, having never been to the facility before but two worked, one didn't and dad just told the story which I thought it turned about more engaging than the clip.

They had a room for us at the resort but I wanted to go home.  There were teeny spiders crawling on me every time I sat on the bed.  I set my water bottle down and when I picked it up, I killed 5 plus spiders from the bottom of it and some went crawling up my arms.  They were teeny and fast.  I just couldn't sleep there.  So we let some who were short of accommodations have our room and we took a young man who needed to get back to his school(he was texted by his teacher that he was to give a report next morning), Syril is his name.  We took him back with us and he kept us enjoying the whole trip.  It went by very fast.  He was great in English, in conversation, in just enjoyment.  There are nine siblings in this family.  They live in Lapaz.  Super neat family!  We dropped him off at a jeepney stop, traveled on to McDonalds and picked up Big and Tasty and went home.  The conference gave us a bamboo/palm and coconut tree/Nepa hut picture with an easel as a "thank you".  It was very nice.  Here is the funny thing.  I had seen one that the Cushing couple had and they told me where to get one because we both really liked theirs.  And now we were given our own.  We were thrilled.  We were sorry to miss the dinner that night and dancing and the testimonies the next morning but we were glad to be in our own bed😊.
Friday we had the car washed, shopped while it was being done, and went to the Center to write and send emails.  We had to unlock the gate, the outside doors and the inside.  Everyone is still at the Resort.  Make each day joyful, love Sister Robinson III, Mom, Grandma

P.S. Elder Gustillo was baptized one year before he left on his mission in February.  He spoke in sacrament meeting and he sounded like a rm already.  He had a girl he liked in the ward and she left for a mission in Canada after he left by two weeks.
He is golden.  His parents and family are Catholic and they are not writing him so I'm next best.