February 27, 2010

Dear Family and Friends, February 27, 2010

We had a good week on the road finishing up zone conferences and interviews. We left Monday morning after picking up the assistants at the office. We were on the road by 8am and headed to Encarnacion. It’s interesting but I think it has rained every time we go to Encarnacion. We went straight to the church where Mark began his interviews. There is a sweet man named Brother Orbot, who is the secretary to the district president who always greets us when we get there. He told the missionaries he always changes his schedule when he knows President Callan will be at the church. He opens the gate of the church and runs out to carry Mark’s briefcase. He’s been a member for 4 years and is a stalwart already. He’s a wonderful man who is patiently waiting for his wife to be ready to be sealed to him in the temple one day. In the evening a few other people came for interviews and then we went to the hotel. Tuesday morning we were back at the church for zone conference and the afternoon was full of more interviews.

Wednsday we drove to Ciudad del Este and spent the afternoon at the church where Mark interviewed. The weather was much cooler in Encarnacion and Ciudad del Este which was nice. Wednesday night Mark met with a Stake President. Thursday was our final zone conference of the cycle. I always love to watch the progression of the zone conference weeks. We start with basically the same message for each group but each group of missionaries has its own needs and personality. The spirit is wonderful the way it directs exactly what each group of missionaries needs. We’ve been trying see what condition the apartments are in for the missionaries. We’ve visited about 20 of them but we are asking them all to send in inventories of what is actually in their apartments so we can make any necessary changes. We also told them that this next cycle we will be coming to all 95 apartments so we can check the apartments and also hopefully to encourage some deep cleaning before we come. We are going to have to plan well and use our time well to get them all visited.

We enjoyed having the assistants along for the ride and they said it was much better than riding the colectivos (bus). All the supplies that we usually haul were shipped to the zones and that seemed to work out okay too. Mark kept the assistants entertained with stories and answering questions that they had. It was nice to be able to analyze the zone conferences with them as we drove also. Elder Pitcher and Lytle are both good young men who are serving their missions well. Sometimes it felt like we had Matt and Robert in the back seat with us. It did seem to make the driving time go by more quickly. Friday we drove home stopping at Ca’aguazu’ and Coronel Olviedo for the rest of the interviews. We arrived home around 8:30 pm. Saturday Mark was awakened by a phone call from the temple from some people who arrived from Pilar that needed interviews before they could enter. He zoomed up there and two hours later returned. We spent the day preparing for the next week and Mark also met with a stake president here in Asuncion. Mark finished reading his letters just in time to receive the new batch coming on Monday. The week flew by and I am tired but we are happy and enjoying watching the missionaries growing and learning how to be better missionaries. We did a lot of practices at all the zone conferences and the missionaries really seem to like them. Some teach really well but they all need to constantly be practicing so they can share the message better with more people. We hope you all have a wonderful week! Love, Mark and Sandy