January 28, 2012

 January 28,2012

Dear Family and Friends,

              Another week has flown by! We drove to Encarnacion Sunday for general District Priesthood meeting . Mark spent the day in interviews and meetings and was able to get a lot of district business done. Monday we stopped on the way home in San Miguel to see where they make hammocks and wool and cotton blankets and also in Quindy where soccer balls are made. As we drive through those town we always call them Hammockville  and Soccerball City. We went into  one of the buildings where the looms and weaving machines were set up and watched the men work the foot pedals to power the looms that weave the fabric. Many methods have not changed for years in the production of some of the products there.

            We spent another day in San Bernadino at EFY on Tuesday. This week the group had more than 450 young people in it. We had four teaching stations instead of eight like we had the week before so the classes were much larger. Each of the four classes we taught had over 100 youths in them. The classes went well and the young people again seemed very well behaved and anxious to listen and learn.  We had the fun surprise of seeing one our missionaries who had completed his mission about 9 months ago. He is from Argentina and was at EFY as a counselor. It was so good to see Elder Romero and see him there leading the youth as a counselor.

     Wednesday we were in Asuncion with interviews for Mark with a zone from Asuncion and on Thursday we drove out to Ca’auazu and Coronel Oviedo for interviews there.    We love being with the missionaries and hearing of their successes and also hearing of the things they are learning here in the mission. Some of the zones are excited as they see many people being prepared for baptism.   We had a good week seeing the blessings and the evidence of the Lord helping us here in the mission. We see missionaries learning how to work through struggles and become stronger in their resolve to work harder. We see missionaries who have learned that the harder they work the happier they feel.  We love hearing our missionaries share experiences they are having as they bring the gospel to people who are prepared and ready to make the commitment to be baptized.

     We are grateful for the parents of our wonderful missionaries. Many of them have been so good to reach out to our family as we are away from them. One parent took warm cinnamon rolls to our daughter and her family during the Christmas holidays and another family invited another daughter and her husband to come to dinner. We appreciate and recognize the goodness of people and their  kindness to our family.

        We are grateful for the help we have received this week in the mission and in our lives . We know this work  here is important and feel blessed to be a part of it along with our wonderful missionaries.

                                                                                                Love, Mark and Sandy