September 25, 2011

Dear Family and Friends,                                                               September 25,2011

     Monday and Tuesday of this week we spent time helping some sisters from two of our districts prepare for their missions. There is a real push to help the young people here prepare to serve missions. There have been quite a few who have already received calls and  one of these sisters needed help with some medical tests and the other already had her call and stayed with us the night before she flew out to Brazil to serve her mission there. It was really fun talking to her as she told me about her desire to be a missionary. She said she understands Portuguese so was excited to learn to speak it now for her mission.  She taught me a lot about the culture and history of Paraguay also as we visited together the night before she left. We were in Encarnacion this week also for District conference where her family lives. It was fun to visit with them also and see their excitement at having a missionary.

   District conference was great with perfect weather which meant many people came. There actually were not enough chairs for all the people during the Sunday session. That is a wonderful problem to have! We saw sixteen of our missionaries there which was an added bonus.  Saturday’s meetings were also fairly well attended. It is so nice to see progress!

   We stayed in a new hotel that is on the river in Encarnacion this trip. They have been working to make the water front a nice place for walking and it is really starting to look good.  Across the river is the city of Posadas in Argentina. It is a much more developed city!  I think they are trying to make Encarnacion more comparable to Posadas .Argentina is much farther along in many ways when compared to Paraguay. I kept hearing loud birds outside of the hotel during the evening but I couldn’t see them so the next morning we went looking for them and found them in a cage on the property as we left the hotel. They were two large red and blue parrots or macaws.

   One night this week we heard something hitting the roof of our house and we went out and found hail the size of large marbles or pecans all over. Lidu , our helper says that never happens here. The weather has been wonderful this week though in the mid 70’s which is perfect missionary weather!

  I got my copy of Daughters in My Kingdom the history of Relief Society this week and I was reading it and feeling so grateful for the experience we are having here as we see the worldwide circle of women that we belong to from a personal perspective. The sisters here won’t receive their Spanish version until November. The church is still growing and progressing here and there is much to do but with time we know we will see great things happen. With our missionary force working hard we can accomplish much. We will have Zone leaders’ council tomorrow and then specialized training meetings Tuesday and Wednesday so we will see 110 or so of our missionaries this week, including all of the new missionaries we have received in the last two changes. It will be a great week!

   We are so anxious for General Conference!                          Love, Mark and Sandy