The Darkness Dispersed from Off the Face of the Land

     Finally, a new blog. I have been thinking about all of you, just not blogging. I won’t leave you in the dark any longer.

     I remember with fondness the days of wonder in October. Wondering what we really should be doing, wondering what our job is here, wondering when a director would arrive. Ah, sweet memories. Now we have the answers, many, many answers. I will share some of them with you.

 

Wednesday, 13 Feb. 2013, 9:00 PM. Carlos, a member of the Boca Juniors barra brava (hooligans) took John on the back of his motorcycle to the “Bombonera” (Argentina´s most famous soccer stadium) to watch the Boca vs. Toluca (Mx) Copa Libertadores soccer match. The smell of bad cigarettes, good marijuana, and sweaty bodies permeated the air as 50,000 fans stood for almost two hours singing, chanting insults at the opposition, beating on drums, and waving their arms about. What a rush!

 

    

Our main activity was to plan and present the annual Public Affairs seminar for the Area Public Affairs Directors. Fortunately the attendees found me irresistible and successfully ignored my destruction of their beautiful language. They felt the love and I felt the love back again.

 

    The seminar itself was great. All of the participants knew each other from previous events and are friends. They are dedicated to the church and their work in public affairs. Several of them presented their activities of the last year and all contributed to the discussions. They were involved in the instruction and all of us were uplifted. We played silly games on Saturday night and sang and danced. You can all imagine John’s disappointment at needing to miss this activity time to complete participants' ground transportation to the airport that night and the next day. You know how he loves that sort of thing. He just might not put those arrangements on the guidelines for next year and let them fall at the last minute again.

 

 

     Saturday before last we went to Montevideo to show our support for the director there and to take materials for the seminar for her eighteen directors. Since all the materials were the same as for the seminar here, everything was ready. We just showed up, gave our support, did a small presentation, and enjoyed meeting that set of directors.     Another successful activity. We did the same thing last weekend in Paraguay.

 

 

     Our visit to Asunción had an added bonus. John has a classmate from Paraguay from his Amphibious Warfare Course here in 1974. He found him a month or so ago and we spent a couple of days with him and his wife in Asuncion after the seminar.
 

     Between seminars we presented the congregational training for Visitor Center in the Chapel in the Banfield neighborhood, a suburb of Buenos Aires. Their actual open house will be April 13^th. It will be our second. The first went wonderfully well. We enjoy getting out among the members.

 

 The Waters of Mormon

 

     Other events have been with the US Embassy Cultural Affairs Officer and with Jorge Cocco, who paints scenes from the Book of Mormon including this one.

 

     We also took in a Tango Show with Clark Hirschi, General Manager of Public Affairs from Salt Lake. Sadly there was no opportunity for us to dance (this time).

 

     Argentina went wild when the announcement of Pope Francisco occurred. The streets filled with celebrators who cheered and danced for hours. We attended an annual Judeo Christian Fellowship program at the B’Nai B’Rith center. The Jewish leaders invite representatives of Christian faiths to a commemoration of Passover.

     As you can see we are happily engaged in good causes. Right now I could use some sleep, since we had to get up at 2:30 this morning to catch our 5:30 flight back from Asunción. “Who scheduled that?” you ask. Let´s just say it wasn’t me. Someone felt way too dedicated to the work at that moment.

HE IS RISEN!

 

May you each feel the love of the gift of the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

 “And it came to pass that he stretched forth his hand and spake unto the people, saying: Behold, I am Jesus Christ whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.

                                                   3 Nephi 10:9, 17-19; 3 Nephi all of Chapter 11: especially 6-14