Week #10 in Argentina

 This week was full of our second round of zone meetings which we love attending as we get to see all the missionaries in a few short days to be trained and hear from missionaries that will be leaving in a few weeks.   We have learned that missions involve 6 week cycles where new missionaries arrive, finishing missionaries leave, transfers occur, zone meetings are held, missionaries are interviewed, leadership meetings are held and then the cycle starts all over again.  Its a bit of a groundhog day effect but we love meeting new missionaries and are sad with missionaries leaving, in particular those we have gotten to know so well in the areas in which we serve.    Below is a picture of all the hermanas attending the zone conferences from the Capital Zones (Those zones that are part of the metro Buenos Aires area).  Including Hermana Richardson to the far right.


Our Ward had a temple trip on Saturday in which a number of newly baptized members and families were able to attend the temple for the first time to perform baptisms.   I love going to the temple with people for the first time as it makes me consider exactly what we are doing and why and wondering what they are thinking.   These members often come from very humble circumstances in their homes and the temples are so beautiful it was wonderful to see their reverence and dawning understanding of what they are able to do by taking their ancestors names to the temple.   This is a picture of us with one of the best families we have gotten to know who were baptized about a month ago.  They are so excited to serve and engage in the gospel, we are truly inspired by their love of the Gospel.   Also a picture of us with Elders Luke and Morgan who we were able to take to the temple with us to attend with this family they baptized.   


 One thing we are able to do in the Pilar Ward is to take pictures at each baptism and then print them off to put on the bulletin board in the chapel.  We love doing it and we like seeing the new members and existing members look at the bulletin board to find their picture or to get to know the new members of the Ward.   You will note it is a pretty full bulletin board in this Ward.   We have yet to attend a week without any baptisms.  These missionaries are great at getting new members to talk to their extended families about their excitement at being baptized leading to more teaching and more baptisms of extended family members.   


We went out with President and Sister Jackson and the other senior missionary couple in the mission later in the week to look at the Camp Helaman which the Church camp where many youth in Argentina attend for the FSY programs each summer.   We are holding two missionwide P Days here next week which all are looking forward to.   It's a beautiful camp and will be fun to get all the missionaries out of the "city" which is mostly tall buildings and little grass.   Will be fun to spend some time with them there.

Hard to believe we have been here 10 weeks and time seems to slip by as we stay busy doing a variety of things every day.   We usually are very tired by the end of the day but love doing what we have been called to do.

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