2nd Conference for Christmas

Today we had the zones of Capiata, Luque Sur, and Asuncion Norte.  We still continue to work on our bags of blocks, enjoy wonderful talent, laugh at white elephant gifts, eat too much, learn, grow and feel the spirit together.  Christmas!  What a wonderful time of the year!

We love to see these missionaries working together!

Talents!!!

White Elephants and Missionaries

Sometimes is takes a minute to get things together

Love those smiles!

1st Christmas Zone Conferences

We are having a lot of fun together at our Christmas zone conference this year.  We will have just three and they are very long!  We are learning more about the sacrament and the gift of the atonement, preparing to "pass the baton" to other companionships and plan for success further than 6 weeks.  We have been preparing bags of wooden blocks to give to a child who may not receive much else for Christmas.  There is a lot of sanding and painting involved. (Most of the paint is staying on the boxes and paper that we are trying to use to keep things covered.)  A fantastic lunch and a fun game of "white elephants". 
These are a few pictures from our first conference with the zones of Luque, Limpio A and Limpio B.

Talents... not necessarily traditional

White Elephant Exchange

What a group!

We have hit a new part in our mission

Hermana O`Campo left a to be with her family that are serving a mission in Bolivia just a few weeks early.  

In this group that we send home this change were some of the Hermanas that came in our very first group!!  It is so weird to send home missionaries that we saw come to the mission!!  From here on out we will send missionaries home every change that we brought into the mission and we will not see our Elders that we bring in go home.  I don´t know what I think about that other that these missionaries sure have a way of wiggling into your heart and it is hard to think that we may not see them again in this life.  We sure to love them and they have helped us learn so much!!

 Our traditional dinner at Paulistas
left to right- Hermana Robles de Argentina, the Evans, Hermana Cardenas de Columbia, Hermana Brunelle de Californina, Elder Silva de Peru, Hermana Alexander de California, Elder Torres de Peru, Hermana Vergara de Alabama, Elder Barretto de Brasil, Hermana Thomas de Utah, Elder Perez de Argentina, Elder Romero de Peru, Elder Benavides de Colombia.  

Elder Barretto was the first to leave

Elder Torres, Elder Romero, Elder Silva, Elder Perez, Presidente, Hermana Evans, Hermana Robles

Hermana Alexander, Hermana Brunelle, Hermana Vergara, and Hermana Thomas

Hermana Zambrano left us a few weeks earlier to be with her mother that passed away last week.

Can you a few of these Hermanas 18 months earlier? So much has changed!  You can see it in their smiles!

Great to have you here!

Now that we have been here for a little while you would think that we would have things down to a science. I think we would if all the MTC`s would just do the same thing every time but we have nothing that is the same.  This group comes to us from 3 different MTC`s and some had been flying for 24 hours before we saw them.  The whole group had not had much sleep but I don´t think that we have ever had a group that has been so tired!  We feel so bad for them when we tell them okay we are going to have you sit and listen to some training, go some places, meet your companion and get your area and then several of you will sit on the bus for several hours to get to your new area.  And remember everything because you are about to hit a new world.  Bienvenido!  

Left to right after us.  Elder Paniagua our visa waiter going to Brazil, Hermana Crapo from Idaho, Hermana Gaona from Paraguay, Hermana Gutierrez from Bolivia, Hermana Almost the whole group in front of our temple which is now closed.  Let`s hope that they can see this temple open before they leave!  Maybe they will be able to take a family, or individual  there  as one of the last things that they do.  Wouldn´t that be great?! 

A little later than the rest of the group Elder Bodily.  Maybe lucky for him that he didn´t have to sit through the training :)  

Paraguay is growing!!

An awesome event took place in our mission today.  We had a new stake created!! We now have the Limpio Stake which makes 10 stakes and 9 districts in all of Paraguay!! As a part of the meeting we had the Luque Stake which is now a little smaller but ready to grow again.   We are so excited to see the excitement and growth of the area.  Not only that but in the meeting a choir of returned missionaries sang.  An entire choir made up of returned missionaries!  Beautiful and wonderful!
We were grateful to have the first missionary in all of Paraguay there who`s father served as the first Branch president of Luque.  He told me that at the first meeting there were 4 people!!  Today there were approximately1,500 gathered in the same building.  What a wonder to see the work roll out. 

Elder Texiera is our Area Authority

Choir of returned missionaries with some help from a few instumentalists

Tons of members together

Elder Bragg pictured with Elder Godoy and Elder Roche presided at the meeting

The first missionary of Paraguay meeting with Elder Bragg

Planning to Iluminar El Mundo

As part of the training this zone conference we got to have the opportunity to be trained on the Church Christmas initiative Illiminar El Mundo.  We are so excited to try and Light the World with acts of service as a mission!!  Our Assistants Elder Villacreses and Elder Murphy have issued the challege to Light the World in the same manner as the ice bucket challenge and watch the acts of service go viral here in Paraguay!  Plans are already in motion in may wards and stakes to work together with the missionaries.   

We got a few group pictures that represent our last round of zone conferences but it seems like there is something else always filling my mind other than pictures.  We sure do have awesome missionaries though!

Elder Schmidt and Elder Grey 

Zones for Capitia & Luque Sur

Zone of Concepcion

Incredible special musical number with Elder Hunt and Elder Siebert singing and Elder Vasquez on the Ecuadorean flute. Beautiful!