April 14, 2011

Dear Family and Friends, April 14, 2011

This has been a good week full of good things. Sunday I had an interesting experience in Relief Society that I wanted to share. Our Relief Society meetings ( actually many meetings) seem to have a slow star as people don’t arrive on time. The meeting began with me and a sister missionary, a senior missionary who works with the perpetual education fund and a new member of our ward whose husband works for the US Embassy. All of us were native English speakers. The teacher hadn’t arrived so the President who is from Uruguay began to teach the lesson. She was trying her best to use as much English as she could because the other three didn’t understand Spanish. Eventually about 20 more sisters arrived so she could teach in Spanish for the majority who were there. It was just interesting to be here but in a meeting where the majority ,at least for a while were English speakers. The family who works for the embassy have three children who are 10,7 and 1 years old. None of the family speaks Spanish although they had a 14 week course through the embassy. What an adventure for them!

Monday and Tuesday leadership council and capacitation were held. It’s good to get the leaders together and make sure they are being trained in their responsibilities so they can help the rest of the missionaries. Elder Bradley Foster from the Area Presidency attended the Tuesday meeting and gave some great training on working with the members so we can be more effective in the work.

Tuesday we also said good bye at the airport to Elders Beramendi and Aris who were two of our zone leaders. They were heading home after completing their missions. Both were good missionaries who have great things ahead of them in their futures. We also got a nice letter from Elder Moreno from Panama who went home a month ago. He learned English well while here in the mission and was anxious to tell us that he had accepted a job with City Bank and because of his English skills he will be paid three times the normal salary. We really try to encourage the English language program with the latin missionaries and his letter was a great example of what can happen when they work hard and learn during the mission from their English speaking companions.

Tuesday night was a special night for us as we received a phone call from our daughter Sara telling us that she was officially engaged to Daniel Lord. We had a fun Skype conversation with Daniel last Sunday night when he asked permission and our blessing to ask her. It is an interesting place we are in to get to know our future son in law by skype, after receiving the invitation to skype with him by facebook. We are grateful for the technologies that allow us to be able to get to know him a bit even through the distances. He’s a wonderful young man and they both seem very happy. Now on to long distance wedding planning! What a blessing for us!

Today is our daughter in law Rachel’s birthday. We are so grateful for her and the wonderful wife she is to Robert. They are raising a cute family with their sweet little Jack and Rose. They are good to skype us occasionally so we can keep connected to them and the grandbabies! We are grateful for the temple covenants that bind us to our family!

We head off tomorrow for interviews and apartment inspections in one outlying town and then on to Encarnacion for District conference this weekend followed by interviews for all the rest of the missionaries there and then in Ciudad Del Este. We love to be with each of the missionaries as we go out to interview. We are happy to be here serving and we are grateful for the protection we feel as we travel around. The Lord is blessing us and the missionaries, this we know. We hope you all have a wonderful week! Love, Mark and Sandy