Christmas IS Coming

 Last Saturday we went to Panama City for the temple sealing.  I forgot my camera, but the sister at the temple e-mailed these.  We had them printed, bought a frame, and were very pleased to give them to the family.

 My hair is great.  My feet were, too, with my black socks, but we cut them out.  In order to get the view with the whole temple I was lying on the ground.

This is the wife of the sealed couple.  There is something in the faces of these lovely native women that I love.  I feel some kind of serenity or something that draws me to them.

Someone gave us a "Gift to Jesus" of enough money to rent a bus for the whole branch to go to the temple.  We have 3, maybe 4 couples who are preparing and we want to take our new converts and our youth.  We need to set a date, but WOW!!! what a gift.  Our talented Elder Cobba made a card and the branch president opened it in church.  It was fun.  It's now hanging on the wall in the church.

 

After our Monday district meeting last week we returned with the Elders.  They wanted to check on a family they are working with.  We drove by, and there they were, outside their home, because they don't have light, reading the Book of Mormon.  It was a sight to warm a missionary heart!

 We take the elders with us to Chitre each week to our district meeting.  We just finished the monkeys and we were having an English lesson for Elder Cobba while we traveled.  I just asked Rod, "How can this be sooo much fun?"  It really is most of the time.

 We found a way to make cinnamon rolls without making our house hot.  We went to a student's home and taught her how.  We actually ended up with enough time to bake them, but her oven bakes hot and we burned the wreath.  The cinnamon rolls were disappointing because she had actually gotten fresh raw milk to skim the cream for the frosting and then forgot powdered sugar!  Oh well, it was fun.
 

Diana plans to make them again for Christmas.  She was just practicing.

We actually figured out a way to carol.  This one is at an English and piano class lesson, but we were challenged to sing on the buses so that all Panama would know Mormons believe in Christ.  I agreed to do 3 buses, but Rod got cold feet.  He suggested doing the bus STOPS where people were just waiting anyway.  We copied the words to Silent Night, Feliz Navidad and We Wish You a Merry Christmas.  We actually did sing to one bus that was FULL!!  They wait (for the places which are a long ways out) until every seat is full and children are on laps.  We took the guitar and had a great time.  I want to go again, of course. Rod and the Elders are not so sure.

 Outside the house there was pink glory on the ground.  The huge tree had dropped these pieces of its flowers.  It made me want to play house.

Rod agreed to pose.  It reminded me of the pink plum glory in Corvallis.

 If you look closely, there are four large clusters of papayas in this tree.  Did we tell you that papayas are the zucchini of  Panama?  I actually took one over to our friend Jaime (peeling the orange later) before I knew it.  When he showed me his tree filled with them yesterday we had a good laugh.

 This is a starfruit.  Jaime gave me a bag.  I tried the ripest one and it had little flavor so I gave them away to Elder Cobba who said they would be his breakfast for the week.  Today at church people were saying that they make good fruit punch with water, sugar and milk added.  What doesn't here?

Is this a perfect peeling job or what?  Jaime sat down and shared his oranges.  They are the closest thing to sweet we have had here, and there are lots more on the tree.  We go there every Saturday night.  He has more types of fruit in his yard, I think, than I had in my Corvallis yard.  It was wonderful just to walk through it all with him.

 The Smith family all study with us.  We left a keyboard (that had quit working) with them a week ago and a son-in-law fixed it.  Now they can practice, and Lizardo has played his 3 pieces in church so that we can apply for a keyboard for them.  He is excited. The mother of this baby, Lignily, has a number almost prepared.
 

 

We love this family.  The baby is new and isn't thriving.  We hope all will go well.

Rod and Lizardo were practicing "This is the way the Ladies go" for English class.  We love how much practice this gives with that difficult "th" sound.   We do it with dolls if we don't have a baby.  Rod tried it in one house with an overweight 9 year old.  He gave up before the astronauts.

Jose was baptized this morning.  The Elders asked us to help.  We understood that he would be baptized tonight at 7:30 which we didn't think was such a good idea, but hey, what do we know.  Yesterday when we visited a family they told us it was this morning.  The Elders came by and confirmed.  Rod wasn't really pleased and was less so when they asked us to take the baptism papers out to have his mom sign.  We were half an hour late getting back to the church after the process, but he was indeed baptized.  I took breakfast for him, knowing I didn't want him to be hungry all through church and doubting he'd think of that. His baptism ended at 9:00 and church started about 9:05.  Likely there were more in attendance, so who can say if it was a good idea or not. We resolved that we won't be responsible to fill out papers again unless a baptism is more than a week away. 

Yesterday we ended up with a cancellation.  I suggested to Rod that we go visit.  We filled it with a family we've been concerned about.  She is the R.S. president and hadn't been to church since we arrived.  We sang with them, gave a piano lesson to a young child, and just visited.  Today the family was in church.  Hopefully it was just a nudge needed.  They have been faithful for a long time.

A young man who we've been teaching piano was alone for his lesson yesterday.  Usually his active sisters are there.  I broached the subject of what had happened to allow him to quit coming.  He immediately said something like "It's my fault, I'm just not responsible."  What mother could accept that?  I talked to him about how much the Lord treasures him and wants him to have the blessings of the gospel, that He doesn't want judgment, just blessings for him.  You can imagine how pleased we were to see him come today.  I keep reminding myself to try to teach them to rely on the Lord, certainly not to rely on us who will leave in a short time.