February 21, 2010

Dear Family and Friends, February 21,2010

We hope everyone is well and happy. We had Zone conferences this week on Monday through Wednesday. We started in the mornings at 9am met with the missionaries for meetings where Mark and I spoke and then we broke into smaller groups to do practices. Our group worked on how to begin lessons. We also worked on how to teach about the Book of Mormon. It’s a good way to see how the missionaries actually teach when we break into small groups. Mark and I would be the investigators and let the missionaries teach us. It was quite insightful. We have some great teachers and also some who need some work. The assistants had also invited some new members and investigators to come so the missionaries could practice on them. It worked out well and then at the end of the practices we gave them some chocolates and sang Called to Serve to them. One sweet new member had tears in her eyes as she jumped up when we were done and bore her testimony to the group. It’s always fun to catch up with the missionaries every six weeks and see how they are doing.

We also had a bit of excitement the morning of the first conference. Mark received a phone call from the zone leaders of an area saying that a missionary was missing. After a bit of panic he resurfaced. The companionship had been having some problems and we were worried about both of the missionaries for different reasons. They were told to pack up and immediately come into the office. We both thought both of them were possibly on their way home. Mark told the assistants to invite them to attend the zone conference the next day and then he would talk to them. It was an amazing thing but after the day in conference and another 4 or 5 hours of interviews they were both ready to buckle down and work things out and keep going. Another Elder the same day also had a major attitude adjustment and after a visit with Mark he too was ready to recommit to working hard. After the last couple weeks when we saw two missionaries go home early it was nice to feel like we could see some progress with these elders. Probably one of the hardest things in this mission is the fact that at any given moment we have 189 possibilities of problems or concerns with the missionaries, but we also have 189 possibilities of wonderful examples of young men and women who are trying hard to be good missionaries. The life of a missionary is difficult and many young people have never done anything this hard before but the blessings are so great when they stay focused and do what the Lord needs them to do.

Mark taught about diligence at the conferences this week and it appears that it was what some of these missionaries needed to hear. He told of some examples from President Hinckley’s life that he learned from President Hinckley’s personal secretary that were quite tender. When the missionaries heard about President Hinckley’s final days at his advanced age in great pain and at his office two days before he died doing church business it made them, and all of us think about what diligence really is.

I decided to speak without a totally written out message this time since I had practice with that last week teaching Relief Society. It felt so much better to be able to just share my message more from notes and an outline. One of the missionaries said he and the missionaries sitting by him were talking about my progress. I was talking to another mission president’s wife the other day and she said we are in an interesting place as we try to learn our language for the mission. It’s like taking a class but having an audience watch our progress. I guess it’s a little added incentive to progress quickly.

Thursday we flew to Buenos Aires for a Mission President’s seminar. It was fun to be with the other 13 presidents and wives and the area presidency. We stayed in the Hotel Panamericano where we had the seminar. We had a dinner Thursday night and then meetings all day Friday and Saturday. We went to a restaurant Friday night and took a bus tour of the city driving by the Casa Rosada where Eva Peron would speak to her public back in the day and other buildings and sights. It was nice to see a bit of the city. We were given lots of good counsel and direction and came home with lots of notes to read and study. We also enjoyed time over dinners and lunches to catch up with the other mission presidents and wives. It helps to commiserate with others who have understanding and encouragement of the things we are experiencing. One thing that is interesting to us is that even the mission presidents and wives who will finish in July still feel like they haven’t really figured out how to do everything they should be doing . I guess part of this experience is learning how to keep moving forward and being positive even when you always feel like you are falling behind. We flew home Saturday night and got home at midnight. Today we went to a couple sacrament meetings and then had an office meeting and now Mark is back at the office dealing with a missionary who is having trouble. Tomorrow we leave at 7 for a week of travel to our other zone conferences in Encarnacion and Ciudad del Este. Our Assistants will travel with us this trip. We are trying to ship all the stuff we usually haul and take them with us instead. They are excited to ride with us. They just love to hear Mark talk and tell stories of his mission and other experiences he has had. They are great young men but I always look forward to our alone time on these drives so this will be a bit different ,but oh well it’s all part of our adventure in Paraguay!

We hope you all have a great week. Love, Mark and Sandy