Senior Couples

We wish we could write much more about the blessings of senior couples in the mission.  WE WANT SOME!!  We have 3 senior couples that are assigned to our mission but really work in the temple and and the church offices.  They are awesome!!!  Even though they have responsibilities with the temple they give their time after to help with our Capilla Abierta (Church open houses) and come to the office just to see what they can do to help!!  We always have plenty for them!  Soon our temple will be closing and we won't have any.  It was great to have them in our home and hear how much they enjoy serving together.  I think that the exact words were, " if others could see all the fun we are having they would want to come too".   Our newest couple related to us how when they recieved their call to come, the church asked them if they were still okay to serve here.  They are incredible and said of course.  We sure could use some senior missionaries here in this mission.  If you know anyone that is ready for this adventure please send them our way!

The Schultz's, Prestguards, and Hansens.....THANK YOU!!!

Planning and Birthdays

This month for concilio some of our Hermanas arrived so early in the morning to the house without my knowing to decorate for my birthday.  Our other Hermanas went to the great effort of getting all the missionaries to write little notes that they put in a jar with a blue (my favorite color) heart (my favorite shape).  It was a great way to start a birthday!  We have the greatest missionaries here and right now we have some incredibly awesome leaders.
Much training was given on our to make our baptismal services more spiritual and working with our missionaries to help our converts get into Family Search right after their baptism.  We have been training on Preach My Gospel, chapter 5 on how we can do better on finding people.  We see blessings coming to our mission as our missionaries are applying the principals of this book.

Missionaries training future missionaries

Our missionaries in the Aratiri ward have been working hard with the youth.  They in conjunction with their ward leaders prepared an Missionary Training event that lasted the whole day.  We got to visit these kids at the end of they day and they were so excited about their day and becoming a missionary some day.

Great job Hermana Vergara, Hermana González, and Hermana Vasconez

We know you really did work hard today Elder Schmidt and Elder Hielo 

Chau

This last change we did sadly loose some great missionaries again.  With that wwe lost our last two missionaries that welcomed us the very first day we were here.

Elder Brody Zaugg

Elder Gerson Frank Cerron

Elder Jacob Parada and Elder Samuel Cottam

Who also took our son Travis with them to visit his brother and sister for his winter break of school.

Elder Luis Tapia 

This was also the famous chocolate pudding face off for President and Elder Parada.  This event has been talked about for 6 months but in the end we all witnessed that no one can eat chocolate quite like President. 

Totally Hermanas!

We have just welcomed in four cute Hermanas to our mission today coming to us from the Buenos Aires CCMA.  We are so glad to have you!

Hermana Christensen, Hermana Nūez, Hermana De Leon, Hermana Totocayo Bienvenedes!!

A new spot to work

It seems that we are constantly finding new little groups of faithful members that continue to meet even without the support of Missionaries.  This little group is in the area outside Pedro Juan in a place called Romero Cué. At this time we don't have housing suffient for the Missionaries to live in so starting tomorrow we will have a set of Missionaries assigned to this area who will walk in every day about 30-40 minutes to help build this group up.  We can't wait to see what Elder Behrens and Elder Reatigui can do!

Elder Passos and Elder Ollero are the Elders who introduced us to this group who have built their own chapel on ground owned by this member.  Beautiful!  He tells us that two years ago there were no houses here.  This little community is growing very rapidly.

Pizarons ....Whiteboards

We just finish zone conferences where we studied the talk " A Concecrated Missionary" and the Abrahamic Covenant.  Also as a part of this conference we worked on Chapter 11 of Preach my Gospel, How to help people make and keep covenants.  We also have distributed a small whiteboard for every missionary to use as they teach.
The day was full and I wish I had remembered to take more pictures as we went through the zones. It is usually the very last thing that I think about if it gets thought about at all.  Last but not least was the opportunity for every missionary to receive a flu shot.  The church pays for this for each missionary and probably 3/4's of the mission choose to have one.