We had another busy week here in the mission. It seems like these weeks fly by. It continues to be hard keeping track of time but we are adjusting. We started off the week welcoming a new missionary into the office to replace Elder Olson as my secretary. Elder Olson will be hard to replace. He has such a wonderfully kind and pure spirit. I would love him to date one of our daughters but that discussion would be for another time. He will be a BYU study in about a year. We brought Elder Wilkes into the office to begin training for the assignment and he will be great. He is a very humble, hard working Elder who was surprised by the new assignment. We are excited to get to know him better. Elder Ho from Hawaii and Elder Vreeken, also from Hawaii will also be leaving this week for home. They have been serving in the office as well. Elder Ho’s replacement, Elder Vance has been here training for a number of weeks and is doing just fine. Elder Vreeken has been serving as one of my assistants and I will be assigning a missionary from Uruguay to replace him. This new assistant will has a very powerful, focused spirit and is highly respected by the other missionaries. He is older (27) and had to receive special permission to serve a mission at that age and he has made the most of it. He has baptized in every area he has served in and has developed into a wonderful teaching. He doesn’t know about his new assignment yet. I will call him tomorrow with the assignment. Sandy and I went over last night to the home of one of this elder’s recent convert families. They have a little boy of 10 years who had a high fever when younger which induced a seizure. It left the boy quite hyperactive and the bishop wanted me to interview the boy to see if he needed baptism or if he was not accountable because of the neurological damage caused by the seizure. We were met at the home by the mother of the boy. She greeted us warmly and thanked us for coming over to interview her son. We visited in the living room for a few minutes with the whole family. As we visited the 5 year old daughter brought little gifts to each one of us that she had found around the house. She brought Sandy a little paper flower and to me she gave a little pamphlet with different types of motorcycles that could be ordered. It was really sweet. The children here are just adorable. There little smiling faces just warm our hearts. It is hard to describe it but we can see them, as it were, through the Savior’s eyes and feel how He must have felt when he called the children to Him to bless them. We are especially grateful to know that the children of our members will have the gospel in their lives as they grow and develop. We regularly see the children of the streets, very poor and oft times alone, begging for money or selling something. The streets are so busy with cars and trucks and yet when traffic stops for a moment, these little ones weave their way through the cars tapping on windows seeking a response from the car’s occupants. We feel to give them all we have. We are left with such an empty, sad feeling for these little innocent children as we drive away. The challenge of poverty is very real here. It makes you long for the speedy return of the Lord to put an end to this. In the meantime we do what we can in spreading the hope of the gospel. As I had mentioned, we went to this home to interview the young boy for baptism. Sometimes I need to interview baptismal candidates because of special circumstances. This little boy represented one of these special circumstances. After a few minutes of visiting, the family, Sister Callan, and the missionaries left Jose and me alone for the interview. The mother brought some pictures of gospel subjects (First Vision, the Savior’s baptism, etc) that she thought could help me during the interview. As we began to visit, this hyperactive little boy sat down in a chair across from me quietly responded to my questions. I asked about the Prophet Joseph and after telling me that they shared the same name, he told me of the First Vision and that Joseph had seen the Father and the Son and that someday little Jose hoped to see them as well and live with them forever. I showed him the picture the Savior’s baptism and asked Jose what this picture meant to him. He said it represented the baptism of the Savior and then asked if he could be baptized like Jesus. He said he wanted to be clean like Jesus. Did tears come? You bet they did! My thought was only how much I hope that one day I can be as pure as little Jose was at that moment. I asked a few more questions and was satisfied. I told Jose that he would be baptized and be blessed with the Holy Ghost and asked him if he had any other questions. He only had one. “Will I get to eat cake after my baptism?” Wow! Jose and I then rejoined the family and I told his mother that I felt that the baptism of Jose would go forward. His mother was happy and excited. Her recently baptized husband, Jose’s father, would have the privilege of provided the ordinance for his son. Isn’t the gospel great! We left happy and edified.
We arose early Tuesday morning (3:00am) to get out to the airport for a flight to Buenos Aires for our new president’s seminar with the Area Presidency. We had a nice flight. We use a Brazilian Airlines company can TAM. Their planes are very modern and the service is very attentive. We were served a nice breakfast of eggs and sausage. We arrived on time in Buenos Aires, passed through immigrations and customs easily, and were picked up by a driver who took us to the temple in Buenos Aires. We left our bags in an office of the temple and prepared to attend the 9am session. As I got dressed before the session, I noticed a temple worker whose face seemed familiar. As I got closer I could read his nametag: Ronaldo Walter. This was the same Elder Walker who had served with me years ago in the Rosario Argentina Mission. I walked up to him and reintroduced myself to him and we embraced and shared a few minutes of sweet reminiscing about shared companions, cities we served in, and life since the mission. He was pleased to see that I had returned to South America as a mission president. The “Walker” name is a familiar name to members of the Church in Buenos Aires. They are Argentine members of English decent. The English were involved in the building of railroads many years ago in Argentina and many stayed in the country. The Walker family was one of them. I felt so blessed that we had been brought together again for a few minutes and thought about how Alma and the Sons of Mosiah must have felt upon seeing one another again. We were still strong in the faith and doing what we could to establish the Church wherever called to serve. Sandy and I completed the session and spent a few minutes in the Celestial Room. It is nice to have some quiet time and the temple sure provides that. After the session, we got word through Brother Walker that President Wilson (2nd cousin) and his wife were waiting to see us at the MTC located across the street from the temple. We got our luggage and headed across the street. We were met at the door by two fine looking brethren who worked with the Wilsons at the MTC. They took our luggage and escorted us to where Gordon and Emolyn were. It was so nice to see them and to exchange hugs and greetings. They took us to the cafeteria area where we had a delicious lunch prepared by a wonderful staff in the kitchen area. We visited for a few minutes as the other new presidents and their wives arrived one by one from the airport. While Gordon taught a class, Emolyn took us on a tour of the MTC. We met many of the fine young Elders and Sisters in training there. We especially enjoyed meeting 5 missionaries in training who will be coming to our mission next week. The Wilsons sure work hard. The Spirit in the MTC is powerful. The facility is housed in one building. Many of the windows offer a beautiful view of the temple and grounds. After Gordon’s class we walked around the grounds of the temple and learned that it would be closed for several years for a major renovation beginning in November. We then visited in Gordon’s office and as Emolyn and Sandy visited, they learned that Emolyn’s family also had roots in Baker Oregon like Sandy’s. In fact, after visiting with Sandy’s mother upon our return to Asuncion, we learned that Sandy’s Grandfather Glen and Emolyn’s grandfather had hunted and fished together years ago in the canyons around Baker. Sandy and Emolyn were so happy to make that connection. After pictures and goodbyes, wour group of 4 new presidents and wives were picked up and off we went to downtown Buenos Aires to check into the Hilton Hotel where the training seminar would be held. That night we were met by the Area Presidency of the South America South Area and treated to a lovely dinner and conversation. These great leaders and their wives are truly impressive people. All of the presidency are members of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy. President Shane Bowen (Idaho Falls) is the president of the Area with Elder Claudio Zivic (Argentina), 1st Counselor, and Marcos A. Aidukaitis(Brazil) as 2nd Counselor. Wednesday was filled with great training by these Brethren and their wives. Our questions were answered as they helped us recognize the importance of the missionary effort and the responsibility we have to nurture and train the missionaries. We finished the afternoon session excited about getting back to our missions to implement the insights and impressions received. We had a few hours before having to head back to the airport so we all went for a walk around a beautiful waterfront area in a new section of Downtown Buenos Aires. It was sunny and just the right temperature. Many new buildings are being built in this area that has undergone a modernization project over that last few years. Many old waterfront buildings have been renovated and turned into shops and restaurants and condos. It was really quite impressive. I will send some pictures to Sara for the blog. During our walk we passed by a building that brought back great memories for me personally. It is the downtown auditorium called “Luna Park” which is like the Marriot Center on BYU campus. This was the site many years ago of a 4 country conference for the Church which I attended with Elder Carpenter and two investigator families. It was during that conference that President Kimball who was presiding, announced that the Church would build a temple in Brazil, the first in South America. It was a powerful experience that I will never forget. As I shared that experience with the other mission presidents and their wives, the wife of President Detlefson, from Argentina, reported that she had also been at that conference as a 14 year girl singing the choir! Small world! We returned to the hotel to await our rides to the airport and said our goodbyes until our November training meetings. Elder Bednar is coming to that meeting which will probably be in Uruguay because the temple in Argentina will be closed. We flew out of Buenos Aires late that night and arrived back in Asuncion at about 11pm. The Assistants met us and took us home. The next day we were back at the office conducting the business of the mission with interviews, making plans for upcoming training meetings, and working on transfers. We receive 20 new missionaries this week and send 6 back home. Today is official P-Day but I had a couple of interviews this morning of a young man for the temple and a branch president. The young man begins his mission this week at the MTC in Buenos Aires and I will set him apart on Wednesday. His name is Elder Zorrilla from a small branch, Ayolas, in the southern part of Paraguay. He came with his father to the mission office early this morning after an all night bus ride. He will go to the temple to receive his endowment this afternoon. I told him to tell President Wilson that he knows me. Today was the first time I have met the young man and he seemed quite excited and a little nervous about everything. We spent some time together visiting about the mission and the temple and then I conducted the interview. He will be going to Uruguay to serve his mission. I then met with a branch president who had a few questions about a welfare matter. Sandy and I then did our weekly grocery shopping and came back home to do a few personal things like writing this weekly letter. I spoke this week with the temple president, President Udall from Meza Arizona, about scheduling missionary temple visits and he was so kind and helpful. He likes the missionaries to come for 4 hours and he arranges for them to experience the ordinances of the temple and he speaks to them about missionary work and the temple. He is a former mission president in Buenos Aires and has been serving here for a year or so as the temple president. He and his wife are really sweet people. Well this week will be a busy one. Tomorrow we will be trying to meet another stake president and begin to establish a good relationship. Working with the members of the Church in missionary effort is really the key to lasting success so I really feeling a need to get to know all of the wonderful leaders and their wives here in the mission and offer our support. As I mentioned, we are gearing up to receive the new missionaries as we enter a phase of growing the size of the mission over the next few months. The work is progressing along but there is much to do to improve. We sense that there is a need to return to the fundamentals of missionary work as described in Preach My Gospel and that is what we are going to do here in the mission. We are in the process of updating a very outdated manual that the new missionaries have been receiving when they arrive here that predates Preach My Gospel and therefore doesn’t even refer to Preach My Gospel. To standardize the missionary materials we are eliminating much of what is contained in this mission manual and only retaining health and other materials relating specifically to this mission(currency, legal documents, culture, etc). All that the missionaries really need they have in the Missionary Handbook, the scriptures, the missionary gospel library, and Preach My Gospel.
Well, I’ll finish off this weekly letter and, as always, we send our love to the best group of family and friends on earth. We feel so blessed to be here. We feel your support and thank you for all you do. Until next week……President and Sister Callan
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