August 2, 2009
The week has flown by with many exciting and challenging experiences. Last Sunday we arose early (all of the meetings here begin at 8:30am) and drove down to Ita for another branch conference. I am getting to know the names and faces of the District leadership in the Paraguari district and that is nice. We arrived and were greeted by many wonderful Saints. In fact, the chapel for sacrament meeting was full including about 15 investigators. The missionaries are working hard there and should have a number of baptisms soon. One of the elders is from Fruit Heights and went to Davis High School. His name is elder Pitcher. The other is Elder Barney from Mesa Arizona. The Gospel Essentials class was taught by a young man who has received a call to serve in California as a full-time missionary. He did a great job of answering questions and teaching about faith. The week before I had been asked by the wife of a counselor in the district presidency to visit with their inactive daughter who left the church a number of months ago because of something a branch leader had said. After the meetings the mother had managed to get her to come to the church and I visited with her for a few minutes about the circumstances surrounding her leaving the church and then bore strong testimony as to the importance of looking beyond the weaknesses of the members and seeing how we all need to improve. I think I helped her to recognize that she was just hurting herself and her family because of her decision. It must have helped because as I escorted her out of the office she saw her mother waiting and they embraced and both started to cry. The daughter asked for her mother’s forgiveness for her actions. I think she will return. Sunday evening we had our regular staff meeting and dinner at the mission home. We planned the week and discussed mission operations and schedule. We are also dealing with the news that because of budget cutbacks, we will be reduced from 4 mission vehicles to 2. The office missionaries are struggling with this but I hope in the long run it will help streamline mission operations. We will just have to plan better our use of the vehicles. We will take one of the trucks to the PBO (Presiding Bishopric’s Office) tomorrow and I think the other vehicle will be taken in a few weeks. Sandy and I will be in Buenos Aires this week for 2 days and it will give us a chance to discuss this change with the Area Presidency. Our only concern is when large numbers of missionaries fly in and out of Asuncion as part of our 6 week cycle. We will have to rent transportation vehicles to transport the missionaries and their luggage to and from the airport. We also bring missionaries into Asuncion periodically to renew visas and those groups can be quite large so we will have to use public transportation as well. We’ll have to see it this will actually save the Church money in the long run but we are trying to teach the office missionaries to accept the direction of the Brethren and to not complain. It will also mean that Sandy and I will be traveling with our assistants in the car with us so we will lose a bit of our private time but it will work out. I have spoken with the Asuncion North Mission president and we were wondering if the PBO could maintain a truck or two that could be used occasionally by our missions at times when it is very busy. The north president has a family and his wife needs transportation as she takes the children around and he also has to occasionally visit an isolated branch that requires 10 hours of travel one way over almost road-less terrain and that requires two vehicles for safety. We talked about coordinating our schedules to make use of the 4 cars we have between us. Anyway, it is just an added item to worry about during our first few weeks here.
Monday morning left Asuncion early and drove 3 hours south to San Ignacio to interview the district of elders there. They meet in a small rented house for church services. I also met the branch president and his wife who asked to impromptu interviews during which they discussed their own marital problems. The president has been a member for a short time and his wife has been a member for 9 years. He feels she bosses him around and tries to run the branch through him. They haven’t received much support from the district leadership in that they are a bit isolated. I promised them that I would call them from time to time by phone and visit them when I was in town. Membership in the Church here means going to work right away in callings that require much faith and determination. Later that day we drove into Encarnacion to begin interviewing the missionaries there and the members requiring temple recommends. We were met by many members waiting for us and an equal number of missionaries. It was a bit overwhelming trying to stay on schedule with the missionaries and also tend to the needs of the members. Right in the middle of the busiest time my phone rang and it was a mission president in Argentina informing me that one of his sister missionaries had confessed to pre-mission transgressions with an elder currently serving in our mission. They were from the same stake in a South American country and it was serious. Because we were out on the road and needed to respond immediately to the matter, I had the Assistants call the missionary and his companion and have them travel to where we were so I could interview him. I then completed my interviews with the missionaries and members scheduled for that night and went back to the hotel for a bit of a sleepless night. The next morning we continued interviews and then I met with the missionary to discuss his life before the mission. After a period of time he finally opened up and shared a belated confession. I had him wait while I interacted with the missionary department, conducted further missionary interviews, visited with the Area Presidency in Buenos Aires, called the home stake president, visited several times with the other Mission President, and met with a number of drop in district leaders who had heard I was in town and wanted to bend my ear about a variety of matters. I had the missionary visit on the phone with his stake president and tell him what had happened and then sent the missionary back with his companion to their city to wait. Late that night word came to me from the Missionary Department that the elder would be returned home. I called the missionary and informed him and asked him to pack and that we would drive back to take him to Asuncion for a next day flight home. I called my mission secretary and had him make flight arrangements. Because we had planned on driving on to the next city in our tour we hadn’t made reservations for a 2nd night in Encarnacion so we had to find another place to stay. We found a hotel down by the river and checked in for a 5 hour stay. There was literally no one at the place. It was a bit creepy so we locked ourselves in the room and made sure the sheets didn’t have any bugs on them and tried to sleep. We got up a 3am to drive back to the office, picking up the missionary and his companion along the way. We got into Asuncion at about 8am, took a shower at the mission home and ran to the airport to see the missionary off. We then got in the car and drove to the city that was next on our travel schedule. We had planned a rest day in the middle of the tour and we are glad we did because we used it to deal with this missionary matter. On our way to Ciudad del Este we stopped in Ca’aguasu to interview missionaries to save time coming home. We got into Cuidad del Este that night and checked into a nice place called Las Ventanas and had a wonderful night’s rest. We interviewed all day in Cuidad del Este and then stayed the night again at Las Ventanas. Sandy and I went down to the restaurant in the hotel and had probably one of the most pleasant dinners we have ever had. We were about the only ones there and were waited by a very attentive waiter. We had delicious soup and several varieties of fresh bread. Sandy had chicken crepes and I had sirloin “medallions” which were really two large steaks as delicious as I have ever had. We had flan with dulce de leche and strawberries for desert. The best part is that it was quiet and I was with my sweetheart and we could discuss the busy week. The next day found us interviewing again in Cuidad del Este, Herrandarias, Coronel Olviedo, and finally back to Ca’aguasu for interviews and an open house at the chapel. We had planned to go to Brazil for stamp our passports for future visits but didn’t have time. The open house at the chapel was amazing. We were met by the district president and given a tour of all of the teaching areas where visitors to the chapel were introduced to the various organizations of the church. President Duarte is a wonderful man who reminds us or our dear friend and brother, Gary Smith. He was so kind and attentive. He had everything well organized as we visited the chapel. Each teaching station was manned by wonderful members filled with the Spirit and excited to share. The full-time missionaries were at the baptismal font where they discussed this sacred ordinance. We must admit that when we were visiting the primary room and saw the little pictures that the children had drawn for the open house and heard the presentation by the sweet sisters about the church’s love for the children we couldn’t hold back the tears as we thought about our sweet children and grandchildren. Sandy and I visited with a number of the visitors before we left for the long drive home. In all, over 300 people not of our faith came to the open house! It was a great event and the missionaries are now following up with those who came. We will try to stage similar events across the mission in the months ahead. We got home late after our 1200 mile week and fell into bed. Today is Sunday and we decided to attend a ward in one of the stakes of our mission. We have sisters serving as missionaries there and it was nice to see them. There were several investigator families there and we enjoyed attending classes with them and discussing the gospel. By the way, we met a young man earlier in the week who had just opened up a restaurant in San Ignacio. He had lived in New York for a number of years and had brought home a few recipes that were on the menu. Anyway, I invited him to learn more about the church and he said he would like to meet the missionaries. Hope it goes well. The meetings went well today. Sandy and I bore our testimonies as part of the sacrament meeting. We continue to be impressed with the faith of our members. The first to share his testimony was a young man who was born with no feet and deformed hands and arms. We struggled up to the pulpit and quietly shared a strong testimony of the gospel. He left the stand and had to sit down to go down the stairs to return to his seat. The bishop of the ward was an impressive man whose testimony was powerful. We also learned of the sudden passing of a stake president in Asuncion after participating in a sporting event with the youth. His funeral was yesterday.
We learned yesterday that Elder Aidukaitis of the Area Presidency will tour our mission in September for a week. That will be wonderful. This week we are off to Buenos Aires for two days then home for leadership training with the zone leaders and preparations for receiving 20 new missionaries soon. Anyway, we love you all and feel your love and support. Take care and write when you can. We love the work and feel blessed to be here. Love, Mark and Sandy
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