December Highlights

 

We look forward to the first week of every month because the Zone Leaders from all over the mission come in for Zone Leader Council.  They have their meetings at the nearby church but then come to the Mission Home for lunch. It is great to just be around these wonderful missionaries!

This month is was also time for our wonderful office Secretary to return to the "field".  The Elders in the office do so much to help our mission run smoothly!

Our missionaries work very hard but this District did take time for a little Christmas fun.

Our family did some special things for us for Christmas.  They send us a package with all kinds of fun things to help us have a fun Christmas.  It was an especially big job for them this year because we also have three daughters serving missions right now!  They are serving in Spain, Chile and Italy.  Thank you to the rest of our family for getting packages to all of us missionaries to bring us Holiday cheer!

We were so excited to be able to Skype with our missionaries on Christmas. We have nine daughters all together.  Six are married and the other three are on their mission. Each of the missionaries was able to Skype with  their sisters that aren't on missions and then spend the rest of their Skype time talking to President and I. Those Families in the United States got up early this Christmas Morning to Skype with us in our earlier time zone!  What a treat to have everyone together for a few minutes!

Our missionary daughters in Spain and Italy were even able to talk to each other for a few minutes because they called one right after the other!  It is so fun for all of us to share this missionary experience together!

 

Earlier in the month we heard from our daughter Jessica.  She and her husband Tom have 3 beautiful daughters and they just found out they are going to have 2 little boys born in May!  That will make 22 grandchildren for us!  We had one grandson born two weeks before we arrived on the mission and one that was born two weeks after we got here.  We are so grateful for Skype so that we can talk to these grandchildren as they are growing up!

On Christmas Eve those in the office were willing to come to a little gathering here in the Mission Home.

 

Hermana Ehmke made some fun Christmas cookies for us to decorate.

 

As you can see...we enjoy being together!

 

A few days after Christmas our Mission Secretary helped me cook a special dinner for President's birthday.

 

I had not baked a birthday cake here yet so I was so grateful that it turned out!

 

President made a wish and  blew out all the candles!  Happy Birthday!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to each of you from all of us in the Argentina Neuquén Mission.

 Christmas is celebrated here very much like it is all over the world. 

We were able to attend our Ward Christmas party. We had a live Nativity!

The music was beautiful.

There was a power point presentation about the birth of the Savior.

 

A member of the ward had drawn a large mural of Bethlehem to help us remember that first Christmas.

 

There were even sheep in the fields!

It was a beautiful evening and a time to remember the birth of our Savior.

Our friend from the ward made a Christmas stocking for us to have for our first Christmas in Argentina.

On Sunday we finished the last interviews with the missionaries.  There were children at the Stake Center practicing for the program later that evening.

The program was in the square in downtown Neuquén.

The Children were trying hard to be patient while they waited for the program to get started.

What an amazing star!

The missionaries were there and were involved in many ways.

Some were talking with Ward members.

  

   Some went out to the street to invite people to come and join us.

President Lovell with our wonderful Stake President.

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The missionaries enjoyed being involved in the program and just being together.

Earlier in the week we had interviews at Trelew. This stable scene was all ready for the Ward Christmas party the next day and was a perfect place for a picture.

When we saw the Christmas Tree after interviews in Olivia Caleta everyone gathered for a picture to wish you a Merry Christmas.

It was so fun to see the Christmas Tree in the foyer of our church.  

 

It is even more wonderful to see it with this beautiful family in front of it.  This is the newest member of the ward!  This is what the gospel is all about…to bless ALL the families of the Earth.

Merry Christmas to you and your families!

Stake conferences in Trelew and Neuquén

Stake Conference in Trelew

Several weeks ago we were able to attend the Stake Conference in Trelew.  The Ehmkes were kind enough to make the eight hour drive with us.  Elder Garcia, from Chile, was the visiting authority.  He has so much energy and was very fun to listen to.  President Lovell also spoke and I bore my testimony...in Spanish!

 

The Young Adult Choir provided beautiful music!

 

 

It was great to be with President Barendelli, the President of the Trelew Sur Stake. The meetings were very inspiring. The Spirit is the same in English and in Spanish!

 

The Ehmkes always make friends wherever they go!

 

It is always great to be with the missionaries.  Right after the meeting they were all right there to help get everything put away.

 

 

 

Stake Conference in Neuquén

 

It was so nice to only drive a few minutes to attend the Neuquén Stake Conference the very next weekend.  We were able to go with President Paredes, President of the Neuquén Stake, to pick up Elder Fereira from his hotel. Elder Fereira is also from Chile.  When we arrived at the Stake Center Elder Fereira was so happy to greet the missionaries. He is very energetic and loves the gospel. It was a wonderful meeting.  I don't understand everything yet but I did understand when he talked about how we are all the same in the eyes of the Lord. That is something that I am learning to understand better since being here in Argentina.

 

This young boy's name is Gabriel and he speaks English very well!  He translated for me when we first arrived and now we are good friends.

 

 

The icing on the cake was to be able to be with the missionaries after the meeting!