Alex and Brittany!

Several weeks ago I was able to go to Utah for Alex and our daughter Brittany's wedding! They were married in the Draper Temple.  It has the largest sealing room of all the temples near our home in Utah. Since both Alex and Brittany have big families that was important to them!   It was a beautiful day and I was grateful to be able to share it with them. 

 

 

Alex and Brittany have known each other for a long time!  Here is a photo of them at High  School Graduation! 

They have both attended some college and have served missions and this seemed like the right next step in their lives!  We already love Alex and we are very excited for both of them!

 

I would love to share a few of the photos with you from the celebrations of their wedding!

 

Of course...Brittany was beautiful!

 

It was great to have all of our family together except for President Lovell who was in Argentina taking care of the things of the mission!

 

It was fun to see how much all of our grandchildren have grown!

 

Our seven wonderful son in laws...

 

...and our nine beautiful daughters!

 

We are grateful for the love and support they are to each other and to us while we are enjoying this wonderful experience in Argentina!

August Leadership Council

                                    

 

We love having some of the Hermanas that need to travel stay with us.  We had a quick early breakfast before going over to the Leadership Council.  Look at the cartons on the table.   It is liquid yogurt!  It is a favorite to use on cold cereal and granola. The missionaries tell me that it is many of the other Latin American countries.  The closest thing I can think of like it in the U.S. is Gogurt! 

 

The missionaries love to see each other as they arrive.  Many of them have served as companions before and are so excited to see each other!

 

There are things to set up.

 

 

Last minute plans with the assistants!

 

Introducing the new leaders

 

The opening

 

This Spanish speaking Elder did a great job on his talk about the Book of Mormon..shared in English!

 

A great talk about the importance of obedience

 

Report on the State of the Mission

 

 It was one of my favorite Leadership Councils!  We had a lot of variety in our presentations and lots of practices!  The assistants did a great job as did all those who were asked to participate.

 

These zone leaders did a great presentation on the goals of the mission and how to include them in our prayers.  Many of you tell us that you pray for the success of the missionaries and the mission.  We know that is one of the reasons we are seeing so many miracles.

 

Our financial Secretaries came and taught us some important things about handling the money of the mission.

 

We are always excited for lunch!

 

Then it was time to get back to work!

 

We decided to have some fun after lunch.  That is sometimes a time that is hard to stay focused and awake after a big lunch!  I organized two groups to teach us about the importance of short lessons.

                                                

 

Our missionaries (in the white shirts)  in our first group went in to teach a short lesson with a plan to have a 30 minute lesson but the family they were teaching had other plans!

 

They invited them to eat dinner but...dinner was not prepared yet!

So while they were waiting for dinner they started to look at photos on the computer and they decided to share a few of theirs with the family!  Then it went downhill from there!

Then while they were waiting for the food to cook the family started saying bad things about the leaders in the ward!  The missionaries even joined in a little!  Then they did have a delicious meal together.   Wow!  How fast the time can go!   Pretty soon it was 10:30 and the missionaries quickly left a short scripture and hurried home to their pension knowing they would have to call the president in the morning to explain why they were late!

 

It was easy to see how the spirit was not there and they didn't even get to their 30 minute lesson in all of that time!

 

Then we had our second set of missionaries.  This was to be the example to teach us how to do it!

 

They were very clear in how they were going to start the lesson and in exactly what they were going to teach.  Even though they encountered problems they were successful in having a short lesson where the investigators could feel the spirit.

Then they lead a discussion and had a lot of participation from the other leaders on how to be clear in what we plan to do and have a plan on how to do it and then to do it!

 

We all shared and learned many other wonderful things. President Lovell and I feel so blessed to be able to serve with these wonderful and dedicated missionaries.