Merry Christmas to All

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     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 participating with the other missionaries and hearing some of their comments. The Devotional on Joseph Smith's birthday was by a BYU professor, Steven Harper. On Christmas Eve we watched a portion of the story of Handel's Messiah (BYUTV-2014) being written and performed in 1741 to release prisoners from debtor's prison. It is a wonderful story. You can find the movie on YouTube (about 1hr 18 min). We watched at about 55 min starting with Pres Nelson's comment "Jesus paid a debt he didn't owe because we owed a debt we could not pay". It is a good FHE lesson. 

     On Christmas day we had the four missionaries serving in our ward come for dinner. They would have been alone for Christmas dinner so we were glad to have them come here. We made steak and shrimp, mashed potatoes, green beans, cheesy broccoli, Caesar salad, rolls and Costco cake. We sent all of the leftovers home with them. They gave us a Christmas message about the Light the World service calendar and they came later caroling with their district. They sang Away in a Manger and Joy to the World. We were so glad to hear them sing those carols on Christmas night. We were well paid for dinner!

     Christmas night we had one last devotional. We had a video of musical numbers by the missionaries and pictures of them performing service during the month. They are so good! We enjoyed visiting in smaller groups on Zoom about Christmas memories with families. They all ask about our family at home. Many of them have happy family memories but a few don't have the support of their family for serving a mission. It was nice to be a part of the missionary family this Christmas to share in our love of the gospel and for each other. 

     I started with more spiritual thoughts because of having more spiritual experiences with Christmas this week. But there were other things happening this week too. We had the Winter Solstice this week which is the shortest day of the year. On Tuesday, Dec 21, sunrise was 10:18 a.m. and sunset was 3:41 p.m. It will slowly get lighter every day, but not much this week.





We had a Solstice dinner with Sister Rueckert and Sister Garner who are senior MLS missionaries (they work with members and give community service). Elder and Sister Anderson, who work with Seminary and Young Adults, were also there. We had dinner and played Cover you Assets card game. Sister Rueckert also loves to do jigsaw puzzles and gave us the idea for the puzzles we gave for gifts this year. We are excited to play with family when we get home. 


     There was also a 5.9 earthquake in Anchorage on Tuesday, Dec 21. We were driving home from Wasilla and didn't notice anything but everyone in the office felt the earthquake. No worries though. While driving home we were heading south for about 1.5 hours and had the sun in our eyes the whole time. I have noticed how low in the horizon the sun is. There is hardly any arc in the horizon and it moves from lower left to lower right but does not track overhead at all. I do not want to drive south on a sunny day during daylight. Fortunately clouds will occasionally give relief.



     We also are getting some scary icicles. One building had a warning sign to Beware of Ice Overhead. There is also frost on the sides of the buildings. It does make it sparkle and shine in the winter. It is very pretty.


     We wanted to include some pictures of family. Most of these are from Christmas. We are so glad to have our children get together as much as they can. LeAnn's family was in Idaho and Collynn's family had gone home when they remembered to take the picture of brothers and sisters (I always forget to take a picture when everyone is there). But we were glad Kate and Jed and family came to Utah for a visit. We were also glad to get this picture of Grandma Robinson. She will be turning 92 in the next few weeks. 


      We look forward to seeing you all in the next few months. It is hard to think of leaving. There is still a lot to do. I think of how often Elder Robinson would say "I just have one more apartment and then I'll be done". He actually has one more to start working on in Soldotna over the next month. We won't know what to do when we get home.  We love you all and thank you so much for your kind remembrances at Christmas. It was a really great Christmastime!

Love,

Elder and Sister Robinson















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