Celebrating our first month in Panama

These two pictures of of Thanksgiving dinner.
They had 18 people in their little apartment!!!!

These next three pictures are at the branch talent show/dance activity. Here Hermana and Elder Robison are learning to Salsa dance!

Hola family and friends, Yesterday was a month since we landed in Panama. We celebrated by have thanksgiving dinner in our apartment for all the missionaries in our zone. Some of them are a two hour bus ride away but they all came. We only have 2 missionaries from the states in our zone the rest are from various countries in Central America. Most of them had never eaten turkey before so we tried to have a traditional thanksgiving meal but could not find all we needed here in Santiago. Kola did a great job with what she had to work with here. We had interviews with our mission president last week and he called me to be a counselor to president gonzales. In order to teach him delegation, I am in charge of the meetings for Jan. I knew this was coming but hoped it would be after I have a bit better handle on the language. The lack of not being able to speak the language is a much greater stumbling block than we both thought it would be. We had a district conference in Chitre Sunday. It is quite a sacrifice for most members to go because of the cost of the bus ticket.. I think of all the stake conferences I’ve been to and never once even considered the cost in going. We are really blessed to live in a land of opportunity. I see so many people who want to better their conditions but the opportunity to do so is very very difficult. Kola continues to teach basic piano and we have a number of English classes scheduled for next week. Sister Zamora is going home today and we are really going to miss her. She has such a sweet spirit and tremendous faith. I hope all is well with all of you. Remember us in your prayers. We need a lot of help with the language. Love from, Hermana and Elder Robison

More pictures from our first month in Panama

One of Kola's Piano students


Typical Bus Stop

Sister Zamora's Birthday

Will teaching English

Greetings from Panama

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings from Panama

The MTC was a wonderful experience. We both firesides we attended had apostles for speakers. We heard Elder Holland and Elder Scott. Seniors get front row seating. Then to be in an auditorium with over 2500 Elders and Sisters singing the hymns was very inspiring. We left the MTC at 6 am on Oct 29^th and arrived in Panama City about 9 pm. Our mission president was not at the airport he thought we were coming in on the 30^th. One of our bags did not come in. Later found out it was sent to Panama City, Florida. So what an adventure we are at the airport missing luggage and no mission president to greet us. I try to call but can’t get the pay phones to work and all the directions are in Spanish. So we have 1 day left to use our cell and we used it to call Missionary Travel in SLC and they get a hold of the Mission President and He picked us up at about 11 pm. Spent a couple of days with the MP saw the canal and a lot of Panama City. It has more high rises than any city I’ve ever been in. We attended a stake conference with MP our first Sunday. On Monday we go to immigration with some Elders and they help us begin the process for becoming legal.

Then we are sent to Santiago about 3 1/2 hours away. We arrive to an enthusiastic welcome from 4 wonderful sister missionaries. One from Missouri who of course speaks English. She helped us survive the first week. The other 3 are from Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala . Our apartment was totally bear bones. No closets, no cupboards nothing but bare walls everywhere. So I’ve been busy putting up shelving and closets for hang clothes etc. It took a week to get electricity turn on and another 5 days to get lights put in.. So things are just now becoming livable. Surprisingly things are quite expensive here especially wood.. Processed foods are quite expensive. Fruit grown locally pineapple, bananas, mango etc are quite cheap. And the fruit is sooo good. Santiago is quite a large town about 80,000. Most people are very poor. The city is run down and is very trashy. Garbage all over. However the people are great. Very friendly and really go out of their way to be helpful. The church is quite nice. It is small but we only have 40- 50 attending. We bore our testimonies in Spanish the first week we were here 4 times. Good thing we work on that in the MTC. We spoke to the Young women on Wed afternoon. That was a very spiritual experience. The Young Women have very strong testimonies. All of the members walk or ride a bus to get to the church. Riding in one of these buses is an adventure in itself. They cram them with people fuller than you’d ever think possible. They stop for everyone even when there is not even any standing room left. They just squeeze you in a little tighter. Our inability to communicate is a great stumbling block for us at this point. I never realized how difficult it would be. We will be working hard on speaking the language. We are able to do some good though. Kola has taught some basic keyboarding lessons this past week. She has 5 students with more to come. I have been teaching daily English lessons to the 3 sister’s. The Church encourages the Spanish speaking missionaries to learn English during their mission. Also, for members and non members I am starting English classes at the church on Saturdays. Even though there have been some challenging times. The Lord has blessed us greatly with great health and 4 wonderful sisters next door whom we easily have fallen in love with. We love and miss all of you.

Elder and Hermana Robison

Mission President and his wife took us to dinner at the Panama Canal

Our first night in Santiago in front of our apt with Sister Brener on left (Costa Rica) Sister Usuno on right from Guetamala

Sister Kennedy from Missouri. Our big helper

Sister Zamora from Honduras.

Our second night we were there was Sister Brener's birthday. They spent all day scrubbing our apt for us but we celebrated at night.

pictures of parade for independence from Columbia.