Multi country conference in the Chaco

We had the opportunity to view the multi country conference for South America in the Chaco.  New technology was used that for the first time ever we used a camera to watch the conference in Abundancia but it was sent from there to Mistolar.  This alieveates the very long trip for them to attend the conference.  All worked perfectly!  I wish I had taken a picture of the whole set up but I did get some pictures of those good Elders and the cute kids.

They love the ipad!  But we were able to work on some matching games and teach a little bit of double digit math.  It was great!

Taking a hit

Special changes this last week to send three awesome missionaries home to go to school.  Not enough words can be said about the great things that they have done here in the mission.

Elder Tveten, Elder Fairbanks and Elder Behrens Thank you!!!!  You have blessed our lives so much and the lives of many others!  

We know that you will accomplish many great things.

Musical zone conferences

When I look at some of these pictures it makes me think about our last round of zone conferences and it they were productive or boring.  I see a lot of faces that look a little bored!  These missionaries continue doing amazing things despite a few of those faces that don't look as engaged.  

We also had the opportunity to hear some of the musical talent of there good missionaries. Wonderful!!

Finding new spots

We have been here for over a year now and are still discovering new things.  This little group in Taquati is one of those little faithful groups that we had the opportunity of meeting this month.  What a great thing that so many of them were wanting temple recommend interviews so they could be sealed before the temple closes.  

We currently don't have missionaries here but President is very close to putting some there.  What a great group of saints and it is always so incredibly wonderful to see primary functioning and well planned talks for sacrament meeting. 

Concilio

 We ended July with Concilio.  What a great bunch of leaders we have right now.  All of them work hard and we are so greatful for all they do.  We got one quick picture before lunch.  Next Concilio we will add new faces and some of these will be on to their future.  

More pictures

We have a lot of pictures, I am just going to share a few of the best.  How do you ever get this many people looking at the camera at the same time?

Now a few pictures of all those that made it happen...

Our Chaco Missionaries  

Elders Hermansen, Singer, Hill, Castenada, Whipple, and Brower

Our great Senior Temple Missionaries

The Hansens and Schultzs with Elder Hermanasen and Singer.  

Last but not least I wanted to share a picture of the cute RS president who came and thanked me for the wonderful experience and opportunity.  She gave me this necklace which I will treasure.

More of the Nivacle trip

Sadly I don't have pictures of all the families that were sealed but we tried to get some in front of the temple and then capture others after but we are still missing some. 

This was a feat to get a picture of everyone.  We had to have our son Travis climb up a ladder to be able to get the whole group.

Trying to get everyone in one place for the picture

Some final products

Temple Blessings

In January when we visited the communities of the Nivacle, President Evans issued a challenge for the families of Mistolar, Camp Am'pu, Neuland, and Abundancia to prepare to attend the temple.  For the youth this may mean to do baptisms, for families it may mean to be sealed and for those that had been endowed before to return and remember the covenants made.  Missionaries have been working constantly to help these people prepare to enter.  Each person not only had to be prepared to recieve a temple recommend but they all needed to pay something for the trip as well.  This is huge challenge in and of itself.
I can not adequately describe the amount of effort that has gone into this.  First we have had Elder Singer and Elder Hermansen literally camping with the saints in Mistolar and Campo Am'pu for 2-3 weeks at a time every change since January.  They have been instrumental in getting couples legally married and spending endless hours tracking down records of ordinations and entering it into the computer.  Elder Hill and Elder Casteñeda have worked in Neuland teaching and preparing and Elder Whipple and Elder Brower in Abundancia. Hours and hours spent by these excellent missionaries.
We have been blessed to have two senior couples assigned to the temple that the Lord put into place exactly for this event.  Elder and Sister Hansen upon hearing about this immediately contacted their famiy and friends for donations for food and for garments for this saints.  They recieved an amazing response that paid for all garments and food for 5 meals. Not only that, they bought balls for the children to play with while they were waiting which was as big of hit as the food.  The Schultz's organized this experience in precision detail so that in the end everything went off incredibly smoothly. It is no small task to have 175 attend the temple along with the other normal patrons.  Add to that the problem that most had never been to the temple and those that had been before had maybe only been once. You can top it off with a language barrier for many of the women, one more thing to note is that this temple is really only qualified to have 40 in a session.  They did not even have enough clothing to accomadate all those of the Nivacle.  Again a donation was given of 30 packets of clothing that made all possible.
All this paid off on July 28.  The 175 that had prepared sufficiently to attend started 4 days in advance from Mistolar riding on the back of a flatbed trailer pulled by a tractor.  This trip takes 18 hours.  They arrive in Abundancia where we have 4 colectivos waiting for them.  One breaks down on the way so one bus has to divide to two others.  Finally they arrive and we are so happy and ready to recieve them and prepared!
In the end 20 families were sealed  21 were able to be a part of baptisms and 56 were able to attend a session.  I will try and capture some of the wonderful moments but the feeling can not be captured.  Our Elders were expressing their gratitude for the things they had learned and felt has they had been a part of this. The blessings of the gospel always go two ways.

Arriving

Feeding this many is no simple task and then there is the down time when you are not in the temple.

The children loved playing with the balls in the parking lot of the Hostel.  This is where all the women and children stayed.  The men slept of the floor of the cultural hall in Campo Grande Capilla

Little but very mighty

This group was one of our smallest groups to leave but they have left their entire heart and soul here. We can credit this missionaries with many great things.  Perseverance, smiles, desire, and dedication and bringing others to the eternal covenants of the gospel.

Hermana Pachus Peru

Elder Hunter Utah

Elder Keltner California 

Hermana Roncallo New Jersey

Working together

The past few changes, we have tried to include a service project as part of the things that we introduce our new missionaries too.  They have the opportunity to work side by side with our missionaries that will be leaving the next day. Very close to the office we have a place UNICEF that allows to come in and help.  Most of the time is is cleaning windows.  This time they took our new Elders and their trainers to help in another area so sadly I didn't get any pictures.  They were still working hard!