July 10,2012
Dear Family and Friends,
One last letter to finish up the events of our mission! Our
last week in Paraguay began with a final staff meeting with our
wonderful office elders and assistants. We took the office elders to
lunch and finished preparations to receive the new president later that
week.
Tuesday
we received our last three missionaries from the MTC in Argentina.
Elder Chavez, Chavez and Richart arrived and were oriented and fed lunch
. Their trainers arrived to meet them and they were off to their areas. Later
that night we met one of our former hermanas who had returned to
Paraguay with her husband for an internship. We had a fun dinner with
Rachel Edwards Lewis and her husband Aaron.
Wednesday
we had a nice dinner with President Madariaga and his wife from the
north mission and Elder and Sister DiGiovanni our area seventy. They are
such good people and we will miss them. Thursday was spent in final
preparations of the house and office for President Agazzani and his family.
Friday
we checked over the office one more time and then checked into a hotel
where we would stay that night. At 4:30 pm we were at the airport to
greet President and Sister Agazanni and three of their children.
Santiago (15years) ,Julieta(12) and Tomas(7) were excited and anxious to
see where they would be living for the next three years. The older
daughters ,Mikaela (19) and Brenda(18) were to arrive in July after their school semester in Argentina ended. We
immediately went to the mission office to show them the facilities and
introduce them to the wonderful office elders. We then went to the
mission home where we showed them around and had a nice dinner prepared by our sweet Lidu and her husband. We
spent a couple hours with the Agazannis sharing information about the
mission and showing them the binders of information we had prepared for
them until around 9:30 pm when we said our goodbyes to everyone and went
to the hotel. They are such wonderful people and we truly felt the
mantel shift to President Agazanni when he arrived in Paraguay. After
one last sweet ,tearful hug between the former and new president ,the
elders came to take us to the hotel. We left without the cell phones we
had carried for three years and felt quite strange as we checked into
the hotel to spend one last night in Paraguay but without the
responsibility we had there for our sweet missionaries.
Saturday morning we
were taken to the airport where the Madariagas and DiGiovannis were
waiting to send us off with one more good bye. We took our turn taking
pictures at our usual place for departing missionaries in the airport
and we were off. A quick hour and a half later we were in Buenos Aires
,Argentina and quickly found that our flight from BA to Dallas had been
cancelled! We called church travel who informed
us that we had been reticketed for the same flight 24 hours later. We
were taken to a hotel for the night and to our joy found that our good
friends the Petersons who served as mission president in Neuquin,
Argentina would be on the same flight with us Sunday night. Sunday
morning we went to a sacrament meeting close to the hotel. After the
meeting we were leaving and a sister came up to Mark and said that she
was from Paraguay and that Mark had helped her when she had some
problems before she moved to Argentina. She said she had felt bad she
had not had the chance to thank him so was grateful to see him there in
the meeting. What a tender mercy for all of us and a reminder of the fact that the Lord is aware of each of his children and their needs and desires.
As
we were in Argentina waiting for our flight home we heard the sad news
that our dear family friend from Farmington , Martha Hess had passed
away. We were so sad to know that we would not get home in time to see
her again. Saturday, back in Farmington, we attended her funeral and
were taught so well by her wonderful family of the strength and comfort
available to those who put their trust in the Lord. The Hess family is
an amazing family who has blessed the lives of everyone who knows them.
Martha especially was a friend to everyone and always reaching out to
everyone. She was a true missionary and a great example to us always. We
will miss her terribly!
Monday morning July 2nd
we arrived home at the Salt Lake City airport greeted by four of our
children and their spouses and 11 of our grandchildren ,Mark’s parents
and brother. It was soo good to see everyone! The next week was spent celebrating the 4th of July with family and spending time seeing other friends and more family. Sunday July 8th
we spoke in Sacrament meeting and were in awe as we greeted 75 returned
missionaries and many family members and parents of currents
missionaries along with dear friends from Farmington. We were a bit
overwhelmed by the numbers but felt such love and caring from so many
that we know our adjustment here at home will go just fine! Life
after the mission will be good because we now have the blessing of
knowing our dear missionaries and can communicate with them in person or
through internet and facebook.
Our
lives have been changed forever because of our opportunity to serve
together in Paraguay. We are so grateful for the things we have learned .
Thank you for the love and support we have felt from all of you. The
church is true and we want to always do our part to serve the Lord! Love, Mark and Sandy
