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.