24 October 2015

Hi:

It is Saturday afternoon and we have Sister Reeder visiting with us this afternoon.  She and Sister Hoopes are spending some time talking about health issues for each other and missionaries.  We always enjoy spending time with her as she is so positive and fun to be around.  We have been greatly blessed to be able to be with President and Sister Reeder frequently.

At Zone Conference on Thursday.

On Thursday we went to the Canaman Chapel for Zone Conference for the Naga and Canaman Zones.  This was the final conference  this period.  There is so much energy at these meetings as the missionaries just love to get together with each other and they love to be there and be taught by President and Sister Reeder.

Lunch this day was served by some members and was a "stand up" lunch with the rice, Adobo and some other stuff already on the table on banana leaves.  They were to eat it standing up with their hands.  (Plastic gloves were provided) Adobo, by the way, is usually pork pieces in a vinegar sauce.  Most of the missionaries really like it.

I, Sis Hoopes, nnocently started making cookies to take to district meetings and then it turned into zone conferences.   I had to have something so the Elders and Sisters wouldn't get tired of us coming.  But I created a monster,the Cookies Monster.  But, they love them so much I just can't stop.  So...............
Three pineapple cakes covered Zone conference this week.  The cakes are the lazy woman's way of providing treats.  I was going to keep track of the number of cookies I make but that was too much work and then making cookies got to be too much work, so now making cakes is.......OK.

It must have tasted pretty good - most all eaten.

Zone conference was really a treat in of itself this week.  Excerpts from the Leadership training sessions held before general conference April , 2015, was the basis for part of our sessions.  The Apostles and Prophets talked about what we can do to build and help people to keep their testimonies strong.  The strength to keeping or gaining a testimony comes from our committment to Keep the Sabbath day Holy.  The Sabbath has been a covenant day since the creation of the earth.  President Holland said , the Sacrament is an ordinance that we repeat every7 days for the rest of our lives. How important it must be, to be repeated every seven days throughout our lives!!! So with this thought in mind,  keeping the sabbath day means keeping a covenant.  The single most important thing we can do to keep our testimony going is to keep the sabbath day Holy.  Satan does not have a very hard time keeping people away from the Covenant of the Sacrament.  With people now working 7 days a week; stores and businesses open 7 days a week; factories and refineries open seven days a week; recreation facilities open seven days a week; we now have no time for the Sabbath. We are losing such a great blessing in our lives if we don't Sabbath!  There has been a lot of talk about the Shemitah year, or the Sabbath year, if it is important to keep a Sabbath year how much more important is it to keep a sabbath day each week? If we really want to learn to love God, if you have even the smallest desire to honor God, then let it begin and grow through your committment to honor the Sabbath Day.  Just try to approach the day as a day to honor God not just to go to church, but to go and renew an ordinance, that is so important that it is to be renewed, every seven days for life.
Ask yourself, what is the single most important thing I need to do to Honor my Sabbath observance, so I can Honor My God, then DO IT!

We buy Pineapples from this older woman several times a week.  She cuts the outside off and cuts around them to clean them up for our use.  They are all sweet and really good.

We enjoy seeing her daily.


This little shop is right next to the train track.

This is looking down the train track where we cross to go to the mall.  Lots of people live here.  We see them every day.




In every picture of these tracks, I can find a chicken.  Do you see him?

Another picture of the train tracks and 2 chickens.

Christmas is already here.  This is the ACE Hardware
Store in the Mall.  There is Christmas music now
playing throughout the mall.

Well, that is all for this week.  We stayed busy with English testing again; drove to Goa to pickup a Missionary Sister who had chopped her foot with a machete and get her back here for treatment; attended Zone Conference; worked with an insurance adjuster from Manila on the accident from last week....   It seems that we are always busy with something.... and then there is the BLOG to WRITE!
That is all for this week.  Take care all.