Eating and Eating and Eating

We have had Zone Leaders Meeting and Zone Conference during this last week. We eat and eat and eat. That is one thing that the missionaries love to do!

Ryan and Jace playing soccer with a great group of missionaries

Rancho Big 8 Tournament Photos

Here are a few pictures from the last week. These pictures are taken at Ryan and Jace's school.

Their school is called the American School of Asuncion. It has been a great school.

Jace and Ry went to Sao Paulo, Brazil for a school tournament. They went up in the mountains to a resort and played in a tournament called The Big 8. Their soccer team came in second and their basketball team came in third. They also won the all around trophy for the best school. They had a great experience. There are teams that come from all over Brazil. This is the third year that Ryan has gone and the second year for Jace.

November in Paraguay

We had the General Relief Society President, Sister Beck, and the General Primary Counselor. Sister Matsumori, came to Paraguay for a training meeting with the Paraguayan Saints. We were able to drive them around and spend some great time with them. They are amazing women. They have been traveling all over the southern part of South America doing firesides and trainings. The Paraguayan sisters were soooo grateful to have them come here and speak.

The other pictures are of our office elders at a nice hotel in downtown Asuncion. Terry is standing in front of the River Paraguay and I am in front of the equivilent of the White House in Paraguay. The President doesn't live there but they do administrative things there.

Here we are with Jordan's companion from the MTC. His name is Elder Soto. He came to our mission on Tuesday. It was so great to meet him. It was awesome to know that he had just come from being with Jordan that morning. Pretty amazing huh? Elder Soto is an awesome young man. He told us all sorts of great things about Jorge.

This week we received 17 new missionaries. They are from Chile, Colombia, Argentina, El Salvador, Rexburg, Idaho, Mesquite, NV, Salt Lake, UT,

Mesa, Arizona, and two from the same ward in Pocatello, Idaho. We are waiting for one more missionary that got held up in the Provo MTC with the flu. He should arrive within the next few days. The boy guy will have to fly all alone from Salt Lake.

Here is Jordan at the MTC with his first companion, Elder Ellsworth from Arizona, and then with Elder Soto. Jordan is doing amazing. We are anxiously waiting for his first email after arriving in Uruguay.

Here we are at Iguazzu Falls. We went a while ago with Steve and Phyllis Snow. This place is definetly one of the seven wonders of the world.

October 5-11, 2009

This last week flew by. We have changes this week. We get 17 new missionaries and we have 5 missionaries go home. We will be opening seven new areas. So we have been buying new furniture, stoves, refrigerators, bedding, etc. We have an amazing Financial Missionary who has been working hard to get everything ready for this big change. There is so much work to do. We have an amazing office staff and they do so much work. It is amazing to see these young 19, 20 and 21 year old missionaries doing all of the important accounting, record keeping, tracking of passports, missionary travel arrangements, signing in and out of the country, paying landlords, tracking baptisms and so on. These responsibilities are just the beginning of the long list of duties that they have. They are amazing and wonderful young men. There is not way that we could even begin to run things without them.

ALL SIX!

Just had to add a picture of all the boys when they were here during the summer. We miss them being all together. Jordan is doing great in the MTC. He has one more week until he flies off to Uruguay. WE LOVE HIS LETTERS. They are so great.

A few sights from this last week.

Here is a parking lot. They just cram in the cars and when you come back and want to leave you have to wait while they move all the cars that are behind yours. Interesting...They make use of a car lot that is for sure.

Go Presidente Wade!

This picture is of a big tall chimney smoke stack. It is out in the middle of this wooded field. This tree is growing on the top of the stack. I don't know how in the world that it is growing like that but it is pretty amazing. It is one of those things that you see and then you look again and say what.....????

Ryan playing bball

Paraguay Crowd before the game and Crowd Control!

More Paraguay vs. Argentina Pictures

Soccer in Paraguay!

Ryan at the Paraguay vs. Argentina Soccer Game. The stadium was sold out.

Paraguayans love their soccer! Everyone in the whole country watches the games! Everyone wears their Paraguay soccer jersey on the day of the game.

I think 8 out of 10 people have the red,white and blue soccer jerseys on. It is pretty awesome.

Some of the great leaders in the Mission

Here is a picture of our Zone Leaders.
We had them at our home for a

Zone Leaders Meeting. We have 20 Zone

Leaders and 2 Assistants to the President.

They are an amazing group of missionaries.

They come from Canada, California, Chile,

Utah, New York, Arizona, Uruguay, Hawaii and El Salvador.

Paraguay White House

This is the place where the President of Paraguay used to live. It is a beautiful building in downtown Asuncion.

The Presidente standing out in front of the Mission Office.

It is a beautiful time of year here in Paraguay. The trees that are blooming right now are incredible. They have this rose colored flower and it is an amazing site to see.

The photo of Terry and I with the missionaries is taken in our backyard. The missionaries are Elder Catteno and Elder Williamson. They are two great Elders!

I have got to buy me a new camera. Jordan left mine in the good old USA. So Chris ended up with my camera. Lucky Chris.

The picture of the temple was taken during a storm.

Missionary Work

Hey, I am without a camera.

Last week when we were golfing we came to a small little pond on the course. Jace was just going to step over this little fence and look for golf balls. Just as he was getting ready to put his leg over the fence he noticed across the water a big fake looking alligator. He said he thought, that looks like a plastic replica of an alligator. They must just have it here for fun. Then he looked up around the pond and noticed about 8 other alligators. He couldn't believe it! They were all laying on the bank sunning themselves. He walked closer around the fence and they all took off in the water. They were soooo fast. It was eerie how fast they were. So then we got a shot of this one on the bank looking at Jordan. There were NO WARNING SIGNS or anything around the pond. Terry said he counted about 30 alligators in the water and around the pond.
This is what you call a hazard!!!

Are you Kidding Me?????

Elder Jordan Wade

Jordan is one great man! We will miss him but

are thankful he will be serving the Lord.

I realize over and over again what a miracle it

is for a young man to decide to give up his "life of comfort" to go out into the unknown and walk

forward with Faith. Terry said this about missionaries. "They work so hard and have so much faith. I don’t think there is greater faith in all the earth than you find in the young missionaries of the church. They are all about the ‘works’ part of the principle of faith. Once I was teaching them about the principle of faith. We were reading scriptures together and talking about how faith works, and it suddenly dawned on me that I was talking to a group of people that live the principle perhaps better than any other group of people on the earth. They have converted the word into deed. They took that great leap of faith to accept a mission call to a foreign land. Then, they struggle through a new language and deal from day to day w/ the difficulties of communicating in that language. They work longer hours and more days of the week than most, and yet, we are always asking them for more effort and greater discipline. They talk to people whom they don’t know and they accept rejection and abuse and just turn their cheek. They teach this message w/ the faith that it will bless and change the lives of people that are twice or three times their age. All this they do without the promise of worldly gain or recognition. Can there be greater faith on the earth than theirs? "

Asuncion Paraguay Airport

Waiting....

Asuncion Paraguay Airport

Here we are at 4:30 a.m.

Elder Jordan Wade

Well, the day has finally arrived. We took Jordan to the airport to fly out to Buenos Aires, Argentina for his mission to Uruguay!

Out of Gas....

Our golf cart

was barely running

the whole game.

This was just after

we finished on the 9th hole.

Jordan had to push the cart

to the clubhouse.

Golfing

Terry and Ryan

at the

course.

Saturday we went golfing at a course about 45 minutes from Asuncion. It was a little cool. We had a blast though. We are trying to get in some good family fun before Jordan leaves for his mission on Thursday. Jace and I before the golf game.

Terry, Jordan and Ryan are getting ready for a big game of golf.

T., Chris, Brett and Jordan arrived from the good old U.S.A. We took this picture in the parking lot of the airport. The boys are standing in front of our blue mission van. We use this van to pick up new missionaries when they arrive and leave the country. June 2009