Oct 25, 2009

October 24, 2009

It is late Saturday night and we are exhausted. I just finish writing our weekly mission bulletin and reading our weekly letters from each missionary. We are halfway through our two weeks of zone conferences and I better get this letter written or we won’t get one out this week. I am listening on the internet to the last part of the BYU loss to TCU. We have met with three zones through the week and conducted interviews of all of the missionaries in Asuncion, around 90 missionaries. Monday we will head out for three more conferences in Encarnacion, Cuidad del Este, and Coronel Olviedo involving around 80 missionaries. We have also been gearing up for the arrival of our new missionaries in 10 days. Our mission is very young now and many of our younger missionaries will need to be ready to take on more responsibility as senor companions and trainers. We have been blessed with many wonderful missionaries who are accomplishing great things. They have such faith and diligence. We are very proud of them and feel a very deep love for them. As we entered the chapel for each zone conference and greeted the each missionary personally, I was surprised by the rush of emotion I felt just to be with them again. They come to the conferences ready to learn and you feel such a responsibility to be lead by the Spirit in planning the teaching that occurs during the various parts of the conference. Our focus this cycle has been on the wise use of our time (Chapter 8 of PMG), teaching by the Spirit, and in the afternoon we held two hours of practices that included contacting people on the street and also helping parents to pray at the conclusion of lessons. I conducted interviews while assistants and zone leaders oversaw the practices. Sandy spoke in each zone conference and really gave great messages about the Holy Ghost. I’m forgetting now that she is speaking in Spanish. She is doing great with the language. After our zone conferences next week we will be involved in a district conference in Paraguari on the weekend. I have been asked by the visiting authority to speak in two sessions and to train the priesthood leaders in another session.

A number of our missionaries struggle with a variety of challenges in their lives. I have had a number of special interviews this week also to assist missionaries with these challenges. I was giving a blessing today to a missionary in my office and it was really raining hard outside while I was giving the blessing and as I blessed him to recognize the power of the Lord in his life a bolt of lightning hit our metal gate outside my office window. Our ears were ringing as I concluded the blessing and the missionary had quite a surprised look on his face as he stood up to shake my hand. I don’t think we will forget the experience. Last week I listened to a weekly teleconference involving the Area Presidency and the other mission presidents in the Area. I feel so inadequate at times in this calling especially when I consider all of the work that in needed. It can get quite overwhelming but the Lord is kind and loving. Two of our sisters were out finding families the other day and they came upon a single woman and her children who invited them in spite of the fact that she was just leaving for work. She listened to a lesson and received a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet and set another time for a visit. Her husband passed away a few years ago and the sisters shared a message that really lifted her spirits. When the sisters returned for the next lesson they were received warmly by woman who shared with them something remarkable. The week before the sisters first came by, this woman and her fiancé had gone to the Catholic Church in search of inspiration and direction in their lives. They wanted to become active in a faith after their marriage. They didn’t get much out of the service they attended and then prayed that they could find something more. After the first visit from the sisters, the woman called her fiancé to tell him about the visit and message. She told her fiancé that even though she was late for work, she felt she needed to listen to the sisters, feeling that perhaps the Lord had answered her pray in sending the missionaries. She told her fiancé about the materials she had been given by the sisters and he asked for a description of them. He then said he had been given the same materials by two missionaries in another part of town where he lives. It seems he had been contacted about the same time as she had been by another companionship. We see things like this happen regularly. We feel the Lord’s hand in the work. We are so grateful to be here. We thank our family for their support. Thank you for your prayers. We heard that our grandson Adam told his family that Heavenly Father lives in heaven over Paraguay. We thank our Heavenly Father everyday for our wonderful family. Thank you for the pictures. Everyone is growing up and changing. We are strengthened by your testimonies and faith. Until next week….Love, Mark and Sandy