VALINTINES

Talks in Spanish

Believe it or not we did not die!  That is the feeling we had when we drove to this mult-zone conference.  Kathy was supposed to talk for 10 minutes and Gary for 30  minutes.  Which is a very long time in English let alone Spanish.  So, the meeting had several activities and an the EXAM.  Every month our so the president gives an exam to the missioneries on the Preach My Gospel book.  It is real serious.  The missionaries have to spread out and Kathy and Gary patrol the area looking for cheaters.  After, their tests are graded and the missioneries that scored the top 10 highest, are recognized.   Well, the test went a little long.  So, when our talks were supposed to start, and the presidents wife was to talk for 30 minutes, the president tells Kathy to cut hers down to 5 minutes, Gary to 20, and his wife to 20.  His wife gave the first talk, she went on and on and she went right by the 20 minute mark, marched over 25, by now the president was getting a little fidgety.  Kathy noticed that he wrote a little not about "tiempo", time, that he was going to slip to his wife.  After she roared through 30, he just gave up.  She went To 45 minutos without hesitation and finished her complete talk!!   We feel the president was real wise in not saying anything!  Kathy got up, she did a great jobs, she painted pictures to go along with her story, and she took 10 minutes,   Gary's talk went real well and he took exactly 20 minutes.   He's always been a bit of a "brown noser".

Here is a shot of elder heiner, he was at the meeting with us,  a good friend and a very excellent missionary.

VALINTINES 

We were exhausted after our multi-zone meeting, the drive home is hard and we were emotionally drained.  However, the next day, we went working with the missionaries in a little branch that took a long dangerous drive to get to.   But, as we have said before, there is nothing like working with the missionaries.  They are amazing!  They talked to a little kid up on a hill (everything is a hill, there is not a flat spot anywhere.) and we followed him to his home, very very humble home.  The mom came out, and the missionaries started right in to teach her, she could not read, but, we entertained her with a hymn, they taught a brief lesson and ask if she would be baptized and attend church.  She said yes. (They always ask about baptism on the first meeting, this allows them to get quick info about their other religious commitments) we had a closing hymn and they had her say a prayer.  She did.  We had a hard ride home, almost stuck the car on the edge of a cliff, but made it.   Now we were really exhausted, and, had nightmares about falling off a cliff.   So, Thursday we attended the zone meetings, and handed out valentines hearts with a quote from elder cook about loving everyone written on them (Kathy made 40 of these the day before.)  then, we thought we might have Thursday afternoon and Friday to recuperate, but, we get a call from a district leader asking if we would have a valentines breakfast the next day for the zone, ( they said they would buy the food, as if that is going to happen, they have very little money) We spent the whole afternoon buying stuff and preparing for the next day.  Well, we had a great time with this party, we made tons of food and the elders ate it all, it took up most of the day.

Here is a shot of the missionaries in the mountains.

Here are some shots of valentines 

Little miracles 

We always have little very real miracles happen, usually after we suffer lots of buffeting from the other side,

Saturday we got a call from a zone that was preparing for a Book of Mormon activity.  They planned to show a movie and could not get a computer to work.  The program was to start at 4pm.  We ran over our computer and got the video going but no sound.  No matter what we did we could not get sound. We were out of ideas.  There was a plug that we used with no success.  An elder picked up another cable, that by all sense would not work.  Plugged it in, and there was the sound.

Sunday, we attended church at a branch way up in the mountains. To get there, we pass by another branch.  On the way back, we had no reason to stop, but Gary's was really hot and needed to remove his coat.  We stopped by this other branch, as Gary was taking his coat off, up came the branch president.   There was a lady that just got ready to attend the temple for the first time but needed an interview with Gary.  We got the interview done, and the lady was very happy.

A young man was being taught by the missionaries.  They were teaching him with some members present.  The boy could not commit no matter what the missionaries could do.  Finally, a member told the boy to open the book ok Mormon and point at a scripture.  If that scripture encouraged him to get baptized then would he commit.  He said yes.   He opened the book and pointed to a scripture, alma 32:16, the perfect answer.  He was baptized the next day.

Cookies

For Christmas, Kathy made chocolate chip cookes for the missioneries in all three zones.  We didn't here much about rather they liked the cookies or not.   Well, today, we got a call from a zone leader, elder tenney, who is being changed to another area this week.  He went on and on that he could not possibly leave without some of Kathy's cookies, he would pay for the ingridience, (sure), she made the cookies and we meet them in the next town and gave them the cookies.  Here are some shots