Dear Family and Friends,
The
last two weeks zoomed by and I didn’t get a chance to write so I will
catch up with what happened the last two weeks. We have spent the
majority of the time during the last two weeks driving throughout the
whole mission inspecting all of the apartments in the mission. We will
see the only two we missed this weekend when we go to a district
conference in Pilar. We figure we drove 1000 miles and saw every
missionary in the 95 apartments in the mission. We
were so pleased and happy to find almost every one very clean and well
organized. We really saw only two that were very dirty and the rest were
in great shape. The apartments are basic and simple which really makes
them fairly easy to keep clean with a little work each preparation day.
It was so fun to see each companionship and see the way they are taking
pride in their apartments. We know they don’t always look this good but
it was good to see how happy they were to show us how hard they had
worked to get them ready for inspections. We really felt good about the
way they all responded to our invitation to have clean ,orderly
apartments. The mothers of all our missionaries should feel happy that
their children are doing a good job in taking care of their apartments.
Tuesday March 6th
we had a fun afternoon taking a tour of the beehive sewing factory here
in Paraguay. All the garments for South America and Africa are made
here. We met up with President and Sister Foster there who were with Elder
Marcus B. Nash and Richard E. Turley who were touring the area for the
church history department. The Nash’s are from Lynnwood ,Wa. but now
live in Centerville, Utah so it was fun to get to know them a bit and
chat about Washington and Centerville. We were able to see a
presentation about the history of the church here also that was
wonderful and we learned a lot. The Fosters had a few hours before they
flew back to Argentina so we got to spend the afternoon with then here
at the mission home. We love them so much and we enjoy any time we get
to spend with them.
March 10th and 11th
we spent in Encarnacion for the district conference there. We had a
nice weekend and enjoyed the conference. Sister Jara (wife of Mark’s
counselor) and I held a training for the women
while the mission presidency had their priesthood training on Saturday.
Sunday there was a nice choir and the final number was “I’ll Go Where
You Want Me to Go”. On the final verse all 18 missionaries stood and
joined in. The members really enjoyed seeing all the missionaries
scattered throughout the congregation rise and sing together. The
missionaries in Encarnacion are really doing a great job and seeing many
successes in helping people come to the Savior.
Monday we were up early visiting apartments along the way as we headed to Ciudad Del Este to finish the inspections. We
spent a few minutes in a museum in Hernandarias in between inspections
learning bit more of the history of Paraguay . We have wanted to visit
that museum for a while and realize that our time here is quickly
slipping away so we took a few minutes to check it out. After finishing
the inspections in Ciudad del Este on Monday and Tuesday we inspected
apartments in Coronel Oviedo and Caauazu Wednesday where
Mark also interviewed about 5 young people who are preparing for
missions. Any missionary who serves a mission from one of the five
districts receives his interviews from the mission president just as
those in a stake receive them from the stake president. When we are out
and about Mark tries to take advantage of the opportunities to interview
so everyone doesn’t have to travel to Asuncion for interviews.
We
returned to Asuncion Wednesday night and felt happy we had been able to
see all the missionaries and their apartments and found things in good
order. The country is just beautiful this time of year…actually it
usually is beautiful. Each time we make the rounds of our mission we are
grateful for the time we have here together living in a beautiful
country with kind and loving people and especially with our marvelous
missionaries that we love so much.
We
received great new this week also from two of our children. Matt and
Jessica will have their fourth baby in late September and Wendy and
Kevin found out that they will be having a boy the end of July. That
baby boy will bring our grandson count to an even dozen with only three
granddaughters in the mix! We’ll see what Matt and Jessi have in a few months. It appears the Callan missionary force is continuing to grow!!
We hope you all have a great week. Love, Mark and Sandy
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