June 20, 2010

Dear Family and Friends, June 20, 2010

This week began with a drive home from Encarnacion early in the morning. We stopped at the fruit market and brought home a couple bags of grapefruits. Mark loves to drink the juice and I love to eat them for breakfast. We arrived home and unpacked and settled in after the trip. Tuesday we had a staff meeting and Mark had interviews. It is amazing that with 190 missionaries interviewed every 6 weeks there are often extra interviews that need to happen even in the middle of the cycle. Our office elders make great music when we sing in our meetings. They harmonize well in music and in the work they do in the office! Wednesday was more interviews in the office and an elder came in to get his foot xrayed at the doctor and found a little crack in his big toe. Elder Ganga will have to heal in the office for a bit. His soccer game on preparation day had an unfortunate result. Thursday we went into the office so Mark could set apart Elder Zorilla from Ayolas who is going to serve a mission in Chile. It’s always nice when missionaries from Paraguay are prepared and able to serve missions.

Thursday Elder Guenther who served as the administrador was ready to go back into the field after training Elder Dance. He made such a difference in our office with his organizational skills and happy countenance. We will miss him but know he is anxious to get out teaching full time. The missionaries have been challenged by Elder Bowen to increase the number of lessons they teach each week. Some of the zone leaders immediately took the challenge to set a goal of 40 per week and met the goal. One set reached 57 lessons last week. Their zones are following their lead. Our office elders also have been working to reach the goal. They spend their days until 4 pm in the office and they still met the goal of 40 this week. We have many other elders who are catching the spirit of using our time better here in the mission and it shows in their happy faces.

Friday Mark met with a stake president for his monthly meeting with him. We have placed pictures of all the stake and district presidents on the wall of our office and he was happy to see his smiling face on the wall. During the next couple days we spent preparing for upcoming meetings and I was able to finish reading and marking the Book of Mormon in Spanish. Now I get to start again! Saturday we took a preparation day and spent a little more time than usual exercising. Mark got in the pool which was very cold. We will turn the heat back on before the girls get here next month for their visit. We found out this week that Jenny our oldest daughter will come for a visit also during the time Laura and Sara will be here. Do you think she can sneak Will and Adam in her suitcase?

Sunday we went to the Asuncion Stake for stake conference. President Damiano was being released after serving in the presidency for 20 years,10 years as councilor and 10 years as president. When we met President Damiano almost a year ago he and Mark connected quickly. They had both been at a conference held in Buenos Aires, Argentina when President Kimball announced a temple was coming to South America. He is a wonderful stalwart church member here and has a wonderful family. I was excited to get to just attend a meeting for once. Elder Aidukitis was presiding so we were excited to go and support President Damiano and the new president. We sat in the audience and then Elder Aidukitis invited us to join them on the stand. The sound system was not the best because it was held in a sports building. We actually couldn’t hear what was being said in the beginning of the meeting. After the old and new presidents and councilors all spoke Elder Aidukitis looked at Mark like he was supposed to speak. He got up and spoke and then Elder Aidukitis looked at me and let me know I was supposed to speak also! So I did! We apologized that we hadn’t heard our names and he just laughed. Oh well another day in our great adventure here in Paraguay.

Today is Father’s Day and Mark has spoken to most of the children and the day is still young. We are grateful for the wonderful fathers that Mark and I have. We have been blessed with good fathers who have taught us well and been good examples to us throughout our lives. I am grateful for a wonderful man who is such a great father to our children. We are not perfect as parents but we try our best. The gospel helps us so much to become who we need to become through keeping our covenants and helping us to improve. We are grateful for the good fathers our sons and sons in law are. They are each striving to fulfill their roles as protectors and providers for their sweet families. We are especially grateful for our Heavenly Father and for the great love we feel from Him. We hope you all have a good week. Love, Mark and Sandy