September 19, 2009

September 19, 2009

We enjoyed a very busy week here in the mission. Sunday was spent attending another ward in one of our stakes where two sister missionaries and two zone leaders are serving. All of the meetings were well done. The young bishop is a former full-time missionary who served in Uruguay about 5 years ago. Many of our young Latin American missionaries will be serving very quickly in significant callings back home following their missions. This young bishop had a great spirit about him and was very polished and confident. I have really come to appreciate the many strong local leaders here, especially in the stakes. The districts over which I preside have many good leaders but much leadership development is needed before stake formations can occur. I would especially like to see Encarnacion become a stake. We are told it is the largest and oldest district in South America. The challenge is having an adequate number of active Melchizedek Priesthood holders in the units. I haven’t had the time yet to really analyze with my mission counselors and secretary each unit in the district and where we need to focus our efforts to prepare them to become a stake. Our Area President, Elder Bowen, will be coming to a district conference there in December and has invited me to attend. I’m sure he will want to review our plans for the district and our future vision of how we can help this district qualify to become a stake. I know with the efforts of all, this could happen during our time here in Paraguay. That certainly will be our primary focus as a mission presidency for the foreseeable future. During our Sunday meetings last week in Ñemby (pronounced N-yem-boo), I was visiting with a number of brethren between meetings and met a man who had served a mission in Uruguay and he asked me if I knew one of his former missionary companions who lived in Bountiful. His name was Kai Hintze and I told him he had lived in our Farmington ward for a while years ago. He was overjoyed that I knew him. After our church meetings we worked on a number of other things including preparations for the mission tour of Elder Aidukaitis of the Area Presidency. We spent Monday also in the office working on mission matters as well. The weather has been nice and spring-like. On Tuesday we picked up Elder Aidukaitis at the airport and brought him here to the mission home for lunch and some time to visit. We then went to the mission offices where he spent time with the office staff and prepared for the first of three multi-zone conferences. He really is a wonderful person and a powerful servant of the Lord. Our week with him will be remembered as one of the highlights of our training meetings here. We will also spend a few days each year in Buenos Aires meeting with one of the Twelve and that will be wonderful as well. But this week was incredible as we felt his love for us and his love for the missionaries and this sacred work. Elder Aidukaitis completed 3 years as a mission president in Brazil 1 ½ years ago so he was really aware with our assignment and needs. He was called to be a General Authority 3 months before the end of his service as mission president. He is from Brazil and speaks Spanish, English, and Portuguese. He was able to get to the heart of all of our questions and addressed many of our concerns. His personality makes him a great interactive teacher. He loves to teach and the missionaries really connected with him. Our conferences were held in Asuncion, Encarnacion, and Ciudad del Este. After each conference session we interviewed together a number of missionaries from each conference. He took the lead in all of the interviews and without knowing anything about the missionaries could discern each one of their individual circumstances and needs. His interviews lasted about 5 minutes each and he accomplished more in 5 minutes than most accomplish in 30. It was amazing to see. One missionary who has been having a hard time submitting to the rules of the mission come in for his interview. He sat down and Elder Aidukaitis asked him simply if he loved his companion. The young man hesitated in his answer. Young could see a bit of anger on the young man’s face. In his weekly letters to me, unknown to Elder Aidukaitis, he has complained about every companion he has had in during his time here never recognizing his own problem with disobedience. Elder Aidukaitis immediately stood, shook his hand, expressed his love for the missionary and quickly escorted him to the door, expressing sorrow that the young man had not learn to be loving and obedient. You should have seen the look on the young man’s face. He looked absolutely bewildered! The interview lasted about 2 minutes! We finished the interviews and went back to the hotel for the evening. The next evening I received a phone call from this missionary and in tears, begged me not to send him home! We hadn’t even spoken about sending him home! He told me hadn’t slept all night worrying that Elder Aidukaitis would have him sent home. It gave me a chance to really have a heart to heart with this young man and to commit him to things he would not have committed to if not for that interview. I learned much about conducting missionary interviews during this mission tour. During the 3-4 drives between cities we visited about the mission and he answered many of our questions and shared great insight into the vision we needed to have in order to take this mission to a new level of success. He was so supportive and kind and in spite of our many weaknesses, praised us for what has been accomplished during our few months here. It was sad to see him go at the end of the week. His visit will bless our mission for years to come. I was grateful to see that he will return in a month or so for a stake conference and has invited me to participate with him during two of the sessions. It will be great to see him. We sometimes forget the great work that our General Authorities accomplish around the world. Elder Aidukaitis is just 50 years of age and has a sweet wife and five children, three of which live at home in Buenos Aires. The youngest is just 6 years of age and is trying to learn Spanish along with the other children. Elder Aidukaitis travels three weeks each month, leaving his wife home with the young family. His calling will last at least for the next 20 years!

Today is our P-Day but we spent most of the day working on mission matters. We had a meeting with our office missionaries and assistants to discuss this week’s schedule. We receive 19 new missionaries this week and see 6 leave. “Change week”, as we call it, is always a busy week with many missionaries moving around the mission to new assignments. We are trying to streamline the process so that we can reduce teaching time lost by our missionaries. With a few changes to the schedule and by eliminating a few unnecessary meetings, we have added hundreds of hours each month of proselyting time. We are asking our missionaries to work harder than ever to find and baptized the prepared. It will take some time to tune them up but they will respond and when they do, amazing things will happen here.

Right now I am listening with Sandy to the BYU-Florida State football game on the internet. We are eating Pizza Hut Pizza and chicken wing that were delivered by a delivery man riding a motorcycle and drinking grape Gatorade. Are we really in Paraguay? Tomorrow I get up at 4:30am and drive with my counselors in the mission presidency to visit a branch 3 hours away and then on to a district priesthood meeting tomorrow night. We’ll drive home after the evening meeting and arrive home around midnight. Day of rest? It depends on your definition of “rest”. I am looking forward to meeting the leadership in those two cities and sharing a vision of the missionary and activation work needed there. Our monthly baptisms are slowing moving up and we are confident that trend will continue. We are really excited to be here and grateful for the missionaries and their hard work. We are becoming increasingly aware that especially in missionary work, when true faith is shown and stick obedience observed, the Lord pours out amazing blessings. We continue to see some missionaries struggling to put off the world and give their all to the work. For them their missions will always be lacking. We have other missionaries who are here with one purpose in mind and that is to give their all to bring souls into the Kingdom. I received a report of a companionship in Hernandarias who used a member’s bus to bring 43 investigators to church last week and plan to baptize 25 people next week. Their biggest concern is having enough white clothing for the candidates. They are planning on having clothes dryers ready in the neighborhood to dry clothing quickly in order to keep the process going! Miracles are happening in the lives of many of our missionaries.

Well, it’s halftime at Edwards Stadium and it looks like a miracle will be needed for BYU to win. Oh well….such is life. I better get some sleep. We love you all and pray for you each day. We are grateful for the connection the internet provides to our loved ones. It is hard to believe that we are so far away when we visit with own children using the video/audio capabilities the internet provides. Last week we chatted with Adam, our sweet grandson. We have seen the blue eyes of little Colin, our new grandson. We enjoyed visiting with Laura, Sara, Robert, Rachel, Wendy, and Jenny. We are grateful for your faith and example. We have our ups and downs in life but that is fine if we keep the gospel plan in mind. When Elder Aidukaitis was interviewing, a number of missionaries wanted to let him know how hard it was for them. He smiled and said the following, “You know what Elder? I am going to pray that it gets even harder for you! How can you ever expect to sit down at the same table in the Celestial Kingdom with Joseph Smith, Gordon B. Hinckley, Nephi, Brigham Young and the Savior if you don’t have hard times in your life? I am grateful the Lord is BLESSING you with challenges! I’ll pray he heaps even more on you!” Wow! That puts it into perspective. Thanks again for everything! Until next week….Mark and Sandy