November 29, 2009

November 29, 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving ! I stayed home from the office Monday and Tuesday to make rolls and pies for Thanksgiving. It was so nice to be a homemaker for a couple of days again. We had our Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday because we had a missionary leaving on Thursday . We had 8 office elders, the two assistants, Lidu , our helper here at the home and her husband Luis who helps at the mission office all here for dinner. It was a pretty good copy of a normal Thanksgiving at home. I made the cornbread for the stuffing from scratch , had to chop the chocolate bar for chocolate chips for the pie, made the sauce for the green bean casserole (no cream of mushroom soup). But we did find the canned onion rings in one store. The missionaries were very happy and we all enjoyed the meal. The turkeys were from Brazil and they were very tasty. Anyway we lived through our first holiday away from home and things are going okay. Actually the hardest day was Monday and Tuesday when I was cooking and thinking about everyone getting ready to gather together but we were able to talk to everyone and have a good visit with the kids. Thursday we said goodbye to an elder going home to Woods Cross, Utah . I wanted to fly home with him , but I didn’t.

Friday we drove 4 hours to Encarnacion and Mark did interviews with missionaries. On Saturday morning we crossed the river and drove into Posadas, Argentina to pick up Elder Bowen,the area president who was coming to a district conference in Encarnacion. I spent the afternoon at the hotel while the men had Priesthood meeting . Mark picked me up in time for evening adult session of conference. Again the evening meeting is a bit sparse on attendance but Sunday the church was filled. It was amazing to watch busloads of people come from all around the area. They rent buses here for the branches so they can all come to the meetings. I bore my testimony Saturday night and Sunday morning and Mark helped with a question/answer session Saturday and Spoke on Sunday. I’m feeling more and more comfortable speaking and sharing testimonies and short messages without written notes. At first I felt pretty limited as to what I could bear testimony of but now the words are coming better so I feel like I can say more what is in my heart. Mark has always done very well with the language.

Today we drove home and now we are gearing up for zone conferences which begin tomorrow morning. We pick up the area medical advisor and his wife, Elder and Sister Petersen, who will be with us all week at our zone conferences. We are going to receive a medical presentation by them and they also make themselves available to all the missionaries who have medical questions. I have a list of my own questions ready to get some answers to help me better help the missionaries.We also will not see all the missionaries again before Christmas so this is our Christmas zone conference as well. We are excited to have a very Christ centered day with the zones this week that will hopefully set the tone for the whole Christmas season.

Today at conference I was speaking with a cute young mom and her 3 year old son. He had a paper name tag on his shirt that said “ Futuro Misionero” She said he has to wear his placard every week. She also said whenever he gets money he puts in a bank to save for his mission. He’s three years old!! What a sweet boy!

Well , December comes this week---amazing! We love you all. Love Mark and Sandy