Robinson Alaska Mission

       It has been nice to hear from so many of you this week. While we miss being with family at Christmas, we have had wonderful Missionary Christmas experiences. It started with getting our first Christmas card of the season from President Nelson and the First Presidency. I appreciated that the message included wishing that our loved ones would also feel the love and peace of Jesus Christ during the Christmas season. Also the scripture referring to the Wise Men rejoicing with "exceeding great joy" reminds me that the birth of the Savior is a time of great happiness. Serving our mission has helped us to focus more on Christ which has brought a different and very satisfying happiness.       I feel bad we didn't get many pictures of what we did this week. Some of the highlights were the devotionals we had on December 23, Joseph Smith's birthday, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The devotionals are Zoom meetings so there isn't much to see but we enjoyed participati

       There has been a lot going on the past 2 weeks and I got a little behind on writing for the blog. I have tried to keep in touch though through texts, calls and Christmas cards. We were busy last weekend with a Mission Christmas Party and farewell to Elder and Sister Smith who have served here almost two years. They were able to return home a few weeks early so they could be with family at Christmastime. It has been great working in the office with them and sharing this missionary experience. We share a common love for the missionaries, the gospel and our families. They welcomed us from our first day here. We lived next door to each other the first few months. We often had dinner together and played Mexican Train on the weekend. They became very good friends. We will miss them.       Our Mission Party was with all of the senior missionaries in Anchorage. The senior couples in Fairbanks, Juneau and Craig were too far away to attend. For the party we had a steak and crab dinner tha

       We are excited now to also be able to serve in the Alaska Temple as ordinance workers one night a week while serving in the mission office during the day. It is a small temple and there are about 16 people that we work with on Thursday nights. We started last week. Elder Robinson has served as a temple worker for 12+ years and is a great asset. I have never served as a temple worker so I have a lot to learn. We are enjoying getting to know more people here in Alaska and it is always good to be able to spend time in the temple.       We had our ward Christmas Party last Saturday which was very nice. Our ward is small but there were about 70 people there. Everyone was very excited because with fewer activities with Covid this year they had enough money to have the dinner catered. They said they have never had a catered church dinner before. It was Hawaiian food, teriyaki beef and kalua pork,  from Hula Hands. When they announced it we thought it was Houlihans, like an Irish Pub. O