Monday, September 7, 2009

Missionaries are miracles...

We love missionaries! We will be teaching "Missionary Health and Safety" at 6 zone conferences in the next 9 days for the Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission, along with Elder Petersen talking in private consultation with any who have health concerns. I will be keeping a record of everything, plus running the power point presentation, while Dr. Petersen teaches from it in Spanish.
This will be our 9th or 10th mission of the 14 we have been invited by the mission presidents to visit in our South America South Area of Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
These missionaries are from a different mission of the three missions within the city.
Elder-Dr. Petersen made a house call Sunday evening, a 30-minute drive each way from our apartment to the center of this 13-million people capital city of Argentina--Buenos Aires. People, people everywhere--walking, going down under the ground to take the subway, in taxis, riding buses, traveling via city trains, or driving cars!
We have a continual prayer for safety when we drive, and a continual prayer of thanks for the positive protection in the congested, fast-paced traffic. These young Elders appreciated the freshly cut pineapple and the banana bread we brought to them. I apologized that it wasn't the best banana bread I'd ever made, but they assured me that any food is welcomed by them.
Notice the picture of the Savior over the map of their area where they will search for His lost lambs. These are the posters they have on their walls in their apartments.
They may not always get their beds made, but they get the job done of doing the Lord's work--6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. day in and day out of preparing and going out into the world to find people to whom they bring the eternal blessings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His temple ordinances.
On preparation day--usually on Monday from 6:30a.m. to 5:00 p.m, they exercise, study, maybe join in a friendly game of soccer or basketball with other missionaries in their district, wash and iron their clothes, clean their apartment, grocery shop, e-mail a letter to their Mom & Dad, maybe write a few letters to brothers and sisters, and a close friend, or a missionary buddy in another country, before putting that white shirt and tie back on to go back out finding and teaching at 5:00 p.m.
Occasionally--they even put their white shirt and tie on earlier on P-Day and go with their zone on an outing to a cultural site in their area of the world, or if they have a temple close enough, do a temple session. (P.S. This is not the bed of the two missionaries pictured...there were two beds in the "living room" for the other two Elders who live in the 1-br apt. Dr. Petersen said their beds were neatly made when he went in to check on the surgery site.)

2 comments:

Jogusboy said...

what would we do without full-time missionaries. is your back feeling better?

Nat said...

i'm sure they were so grateful for your banana bread, pineapple and house call. you are doing such a great job taking care of these missionaries.