Monday
began with zone leaders’ council, a meeting that is held every month
with all of the zone leaders. The purpose is to teach and strengthen the
zone leaders and help them better understand their responsibilities.
Part of the time is discussion, part instructional and part deciding as a
group along with President’s input as to what the mission should strive
to achieve in the next year. It is a great learning process and
experience for these young men who will soon be home serving in wards
and branches in leadership capacities. We had a large group of zone
leaders finish their time serving as zone leaders or finish their
missions with the last change so there are quite a large number of new
zones leaders needing to learn quickly! The mission is all about
teaching, teaching, teaching and more teaching! Someone
explained it to us as a lake with a river feeding in and out of it. The
mission is like the lake and the constant flow of missionaries in and
out is represented by the rivers. No matter how often and thoroughly we
talk about and teach things there are always new missionaries to teach
(and old ones who still haven’t learned some things!) Oh well we just
keep teaching and re teaching!
Tuesday
we went to a nice district meeting with Elder Falepapalangi and his
district from Fernando de la Mora stake. It was a well organized meeting
and the eight missionaries there are in good hands. Elder Falepapalangi
focused on some things we talked about in the recent zone conference
which is exactly what they are suppose to do. It is nice to go out and
see missionaries trying hard to keep the work moving forward in a good
way!
Thursday
Mark spoke in a combined 3 stake gathering for future missionaries. Our
missionaries were there to take groups of youth out to speak with
people and gather references. They probably received about 150 names and
phone numbers of people who were interested in having the missionaries
come back and teach them. It was fun for the youth to get an idea of
what missionary work is like. Anytime we can help the youth know better
what a mission is all about it helps them prepare better for their own
future experience.
We
met the parents of two missionaries this week who had come to pick up
their sons. It is nice to see the joy in the faces of parents when they
see who their children have become during their missions. Elder Rockwood
and Swenson have both been great influences here in the mission.
Mark
and I have a standing joke when we are on the road early in the morning
when I ask if we could just drive through McDonalds for a breakfast
burrito. (There are some McDonalds in certain cities here but they
didn’t have breakfast.) The other day we saw a sign at McDonalds that
said they were now serving breakfast. On the way home from an early
meeting the other day Mark sweetly stopped to check on the menu and
found that the menu included pan queso(cheese bread), chipa (Paraguayan cheese bagel/roll) and an inside out hamburger bun with ham and melted cheese that they called a tostada! We laughed and will continue to wait for that breakfast burrito in the future!!
We
see the signs of Christmas everywhere now. We were in a mall the other
day and there was life sized nativity that was beautiful .The airport
also has a nice nativity. Paraguay doesn’t have a problem with including
Christ in Christmas like many in the world seem to these days.
We
are enjoying our third Christmas here and especially the blessing of
being focused on sharing the gospel full time. Since being here we have
been able to eliminate the running around part of Christmas that
sometimes gets out of hand. We are trying to help our missionaries also
stay focused on the work and not on the things they might be missing at
home. Families can help a lot by encouraging their missionaries to throw
themselves into the work especially now. What a wonderful time to be
here sharing the gospel! We got a message from a missionary who is now
at home and he said as he was thinking of the upcoming Christmas that
his best and most spiritual Christmases were here in the mission. We
love our missionaries and the things we are learning from them as they
grow and recognize the important lessons of the mission and life. We hope you all have a wonderful week!
Love, Mark and Sandy
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