Merry Christmas

Dear Family and Friends,

Just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas from Panama. We have been very busy this month. Last month we traveled to Bisira by land and water to go to a H.S. graduation of one of my former English students who will be baptized in January. Bisiria is a community of Nove Indians who live on this river and the only way to get there is to take a boat. And that was quite an experience which I will tell you about next time. We are busy today getting ready for Christmas dinner and expect to have 20+ people here for that. Last Sunday I was released from the branch presidency, which is really good because I was replaced with a really good man. He is a member of just over a year. We taught his family the temple lessons and went to the temple with them in August. He will do a great job. We have seem the work of Heavenly Fathers hand in this little branch here in Santiago. We have seen many positive changes here. Wednesday we drove to Chorrera with our 4 sisters in the back seat of our little car to attend a mission Christmas Party. It is fun to see all of the missionaries get together they have such a great time. Our mission has been a great blessing in our lives. We have made many more eternal friends. We thank all of you for your prayers and support. May you all have a joyous Christmas as we remember and celebrate the birth of our Savior. It is a priviliage to be his representative here in Panama. With Love, Elder and Sister Robison

November 13, 2011

November 13, 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

My daughter Danette reminded me last week it had been awhile since we had posted a blog. We have been caught up in a lot of different activities. We continue to teach English and piano classes. Since last blog we have had two more families go to the temple, which is very rewarding. For general conference we set up a TV in the hall way of our apartment. We are the only ones with wireless internet here. It saves the people having to ride a bus for 3 hours to watch conference. We had 46 people come and we fed them between sessions. It was great to give that opprotunity to that many people. Kola went home for a week in October for a new grandson (Jace) born to Jaynette and Jackson. She of course enjoyed her time there but I was very glad to have her back. We celebrated our 43 aniversary by going to Anton Valley. It is the only town in the world built in the crater of a volcano. It was simply breathtaking. We went on a zip line and that was quite an experience. Then we went to Panama to go through the temple with a family we've had the opprotunity to teach. It was a wonderful week. Our schedule is full for the next two months. We have 3 more trips to the temple scheduled with people we are preparing. Next month we are going to Bocos to go to a graduation of one of my former English students. We will have to taxi 3 hours by boat to get to his community. He will be getting baptized in January when he moves to David to go to the university there. We are looking forward to that. The language is still very much a frustration. Not sure why we not picking it up faster like the younger missionaries but somehow we manage to communicate our needs. However, there is so much more we could do if we were more fluent. Anyway the gospel is true and it greatly blesses the lives of those who fully embrace it. Thank you all for your support and prayers. We love you. Elder and Hermana Robison

Family and Friends

Salinas Family sealed and endowed August 6, 2011

Went to Arrejan to celebrate Hermana Ponce's Birthday

This gentleman was showing me how to husk a coconut

These kids walk for 3 hours a day to attend school

Jose Uquizas Reactivated and attended the temple for first time after 15 years

Ortero Family baptized July 23, 2011 (Lady on the end is Sister Ward Mission presidents wife)

Dear Family and Friends,

This has been a eventful and rewarding month. We have seen two fine young men baptized and a complete family of six. (A super family) They will be a great addition to this branch. We completed teaching two temple classes this month and went to the temple with one family and a single man. It was a great day. We got to see some of the hermanas who have served with un in Santiago. Last week one of our nonmember friends took us out to the country side to meet some of his family. It was quite an experience to see how they live very primitive. No electricity or water. Cook on a open fire. No bathroom. Dirt floor in home. All of the living area and eating area is outside with just a roof covering. Dogs, cats and chickens under foot all the time. We enjoyed the visits but came in contact with jiggers and so now we have bites all over our bodies and they really itch bad. We still struggle greatly with the language but somehow we seem to get by. Heavenly Father always seem to put someone in our way who meets our needs. Still teaching English and piano classes but have slowed down some with that and we are doing more visits to people not attending church. It seems to help. I am helping a couple of young men from here with their mission papers. So that is exciting. I know this is the Lord's work and we are being blessed. I see his hand directing this work every day. I feel the work here is really going to go forward in a big way in the future. Hope all is well with all of you. Thanks so much for your prayers and support.

With Love,

Elder and Hermana Robison

July 4th

Dear Family and Friends,

Today is July 4th and of course no festivities here. How blessed we are to live in the USA. This month I'm in charge of the Sacrament meetings so has been a bit stressful. We are teaching the temple prep class and have 8 people attending and hope to get them to the temple in the next month or two. Most will have been members a year by then. It is rewarding to see their excitement to attend the temple. Attending the temple is a huge sacrifice for most here. One family in particular has a monthly income of 500 dollars a month and most things here except housing is as expensive as in the US. So you can imagine the difficulty of having the money to travel there, purchase garments and temple clothing is a major expense for them. Anyway our classes are very interesting with our struggle of the language the hermanas help us some. I have to keep reminding myself that I am not the teacher. The Spirit is the real teacher. Last week was transfers and we lost my favorite hermana ever, she worked so hard at helping learn espanol and never gave up. It was very difficult to see her go. We now have a brand new hermana from Guatemala. We lost several English student the last couple of week so we've decided to not replace them and spend the time visiting inactives which is what I wanted to do in the first place. So we'll see how that goes for the next month or so. We have 6 baptisms coming up this month which is very exciting. 4 of them will be a complete family. We've been blessed to meet some very special people on our mission, which we will have an eternal friendship with for which we are truly greatful. Hope all is well with all of you. Thanks so much for your support and prayers.
With Love from Elder and Hermana Robison

Typical Sunday dinner in our apartment.

Break in front of a Chino.

Branch activity of visiting inactives.

Temple.

The San Blas Islands

Dear Family and Friends,

Its been a while since I've posted. We are still here. Still teaching a lot of English. Several of my students we we're able to turn into investigators but so far the missionaries have not been able to get anyone past the first 2 lessons. The people here are very devout Catholics so it has been difficult to get past that. We have one man who we are still working with who reads the Book of Mormon and says he knows it is true " but I'm a Catholic" he says. Anyway, we keep plugging along. We just had a great weekend. The mission president called us on Thursday and invited us to go the San Blas Islands with him on Sunday. So we left Santiago on Saturday and stayed in the Mission home that night and got up at 5 am and drove for over 2 hours on a very bumpy curvy road through the Jungle, then we took a boat to one of the San Blas islands. Went to church there and walked around the island and then went home. It was a very interesting trip. This is where the Kuna Indians live in very humble circumstances. There are 7 islands that have churches on them only 2 have electricity and they have no water on the island so they paddle their canoes to shore and then up a river for a ways and fill up a bunch of plastic containers for water every day during the dry season. The Islands are small we walked around the entire island in about 10 minutes. They had 83 people out to church. Most of the people on the island are members. We have the only church on the island. And Jim to answer your question they really do have their bathroom over the ocean. See attached pictures. Even the church has it's bathrooms over the ocean. You can look down through the hole and see fish swimming around waiting for you to do your thing. Surprisingly the water is crystal clear. We really enjoyed the trip. President Ward told us we needed a break and I think he is right because we do feel more energized. We really enjoy the people here. We have made many good friends. The mission is very challenging but we have been very blessed. We have realized many of the blessings we were given at our setting apart which has been a real support. Thanks to all for your support and prayers we really appreciate all of you.

With Love

Hermana and Elder Robison

On the boat to San Blas

The small huts are outhouses over the ocean.

3 brothers that met us at the dock

The Church

The Chapel

Church outhouses over the ocean

Greetings from the Panama mission field

Dear Family and Friends, Greetings from the Panama mission field. We really enjoyed conference this weekend. It was very inspiring. Today we had 18 people in our apartment to watch it. Six of them were nonmenbers and an inactive family. So we were excited about that. We served them all a potatoe bar for lunch in between sessions. Missionary work has been like a roller coaster, a very high week followed by a low week. We have been having success turning English students into investigators but their progress has been pretty slow. We enjoy working with the young missionaries (all sisters in our area) I am simply amazed at their ability to teach and bear testimony of the restored gospel. Our language is coming but very slowly, I conducted my first sacrament meeting in espanol last Sunday and performed a baptism in espanol yesterday. The weather here is blistering hot as it has been for the last 3 months. We are looking forward to the rainy season which should start the end of this month. We attended an international fair in David with an investigator two weeks ago it was quite interesting, kinda like our fairs at home. They show case a lot of the different types of plants that grow in this area, so I enjoyed learning about that. I hope this letter finds everyone healthy and happy.Love from

Elder and Hermana Robison


Enjoying a meal at outside restaurant in David


Our sisters entertaining us in our apartment


Girls we took to primary activity day.

They are taking English classes from us and one of the girls mother is taking the missionary lessons now.


Wilfredo Antonio Perez

Dear Family and Friends

Dear Family and Friends,

We continue to study the language a lot. Still progress is quite slow. Our cousins Brian and Laura and Mark and Heather stop to see us on Thursday on their way to Coiba Island on a snorkeling trip. It was exciting to see them and to visit with them for awhile. They also brought Kola a brace for her wrist, which we could not find here. We feel they were heaven sent. We have two of the people we help with English turn into investigators. They had their first lesson this past week. So we're very excited about that. Two weeks ago we taught 26 English classes in one week. There is a great desire here to learn English as it gives them a greater opportunities for better jobs. We have all new Sisters next door now, 2 from Utah and one from Guatemala and one from Costa Rica. All are excellent missionaries. This week has been what they call carnival. Some kind of celebration to do with lent. But a lot of drinking and parting and loud music until 5 in the morning. The mission president pulled all of the missionaries from the Chitre district out and put them in other areas for this and next week. So it's very quite around here without our sisters. President Ward invited us to stay with him during carnival but we have opted to stay and ride it out. We have met many many good people here. We have a number of people that we are working with. We have not had to work to find people. The Lord has put them in our path and in some cases they have come to us. We hope all of you are doing well. We really appreciate you prayers and support. Thank you so much. The Robisons



Hermana Brenes bought Matching bracelets for companion and Kola

An elderly woman who we went to sing to with the Watsons

Seminary breakfast in our apartment


Typical bus in Panama City

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings from Panama! Time really flies in the mission field. We are very very busy. There is so much to do. The language is coming but very slowly. Our time to study has become very limited. As of this week we are now teaching 21 English classes a week. The majority of our students are nonmembers, so we take the opportunity to teach using church materials like the Liahona, The Book of Mormon and other books and pamphlets. This is not really the direction we wanted to go but it seem to be where the Lord is taking us because these classes have literally come from no where. Some of our students are taking the missionary lessons. Kola has also increased the number of piano students. She broke her wrist a week ago. We were at the bus terminal and she tripped on a concrete ramp that comes out of no where. The sidewalks are unbelievably uneven here, so you really have to watch your step. She has a lime green cast on, which is very miserable for her partly due to the heat. It is summer here and February is the hottest month of the year. We are meeting a lot of very nice people here, so this should be a very fruitful place. We have a number of baptisms here but the retention has been very low over the years. I feel this is partly because of no home teaching or visiting teaching has ever been established here. That is one of our goals is to see these programs are working effectively here. We have some very strong members here so we have some good people to work with. They just don't understand church administration, so when we get the language down better we hope to be able to do a lot of training.

I hope all of you are having a wonderful year.

With Love,

Will and Kola Robison


Sister Robison with Sister Watson born the same day,

the same year and in the same hospital

and they meet again after 61 years serving together in Panama

Elder Robison with Richardo a man we help get surgery on his foot

Sister Robison with her #1 piano student Ana

Elder Robison: with my number 1 English Student David He will be tri-lingual when he learns English


Sister Robison with Y.W. President Lacey Morales. Check out the lime green cast!!

Happy New Year!

Mission Christmas Party in Panama City

Christmas Morning

Christmas Dinner

Christmas at the rest home Elder Cordba (peru) Sister
Brenes (costa rica)

Happy New Year,

We just spent our tenth Sunday here in Santiago and I still can't
understand what is going on in the meetings. I am picking up a few
words but not enough to get any meaning. Being in the branch
presidency has proven to be quite a challenge, especially with my
inability to freely communicate with the branch president. I've
learned I can't take anything for granite. Today he released and
sustained a number of people with out notifying or calling them first.
I knew something was wrong buy their reaction when their name was
read. We have a lot of opportunity to teach English but not a lot of
time to do it. The Lord has put a number of people in our paths that
speak some English so we've been busy working with them. We had a
great Christmas. We fed 18 hungry missionaries that day and then went
and sang carols at a rest home and helped out with dinner there. Kola
tipped over in a chair last Monday and got a huge bruise on her hip.
The floors here are hard being cement with tile. Kola played the
piano for sacrament meeting today and did a great job. We are finding
so many opportunities to serve others here, members but mostly
nonmembers. We work 3 or 4 times a week with four young men from the
university. They help us with Espanol and we help them with English.
They even helped me write my first talk for church. Very good young
men. We hope to spark some interest in the church with them. I hope
all of you have a prosperous and healthy 2011

Love from,

Elder and Hermana Robison