the orphaned pastores

A few days ago, Presidente and I received the notice that Elder Evans would be visiting Buenos Aires this week. We were asked to attend several meetings with him. While we are always thrilled to have visitors from church headquarters and especially when that visitor is the head of the missionary department, we were also wondering how we would possibly manage transfer week and the visit. I have to say that it has been tricky.

Sooo…the Pastores were off with the assistants to see the city. It looks like they found an SUD truck. SUD is equivalent to LDS in Spanish…Santos de los Ultimos Dias. However, the SUD truck is actually part of an international shipping company.

I have the photographic evidence that they made it to all of our favorite places and it looks like they even saw an interesting stage set up in the Teatro Colon.

Presidente and I were finally able to join them when they got to Recoleta, and we spent the last couple of hours together.

meanwhile others were taught by elder evans

David F. Evans is the Executive Director of the missionary department. Missionaries from the Buenos Aires North and South missions joined with some of the missionaries from Gonzalez Catan, Marcos Paz and Ramos Mejia.

We met from 9 until 1:20. Elder Evans taught the entire time with the exception of 10 minutes when his wife told us a sweet story about two 8 year old boys in their ward in Utah who both have brothers serving in Argentina missions. One day when the two of them were together one asked how the other felt. He said that when he gets sad, he goes into his room and puts on his older brother’s sweatshirt and thinks about him for a little while. Then he takes it off and carries on with his day.

Elder Evans shook hands with all of the missionaries in attendance before the meeting started. Afterwards, Presidente chatted with the missionaries from our mission about some of the things that they had learned and how they can apply it in their work while we waited for their lunch to arrive.

the transfer meeting

We have the trainers and the reinforcements waiting for the meeting to start. All the rest of the missionaries are outside chatting with fellow missionaries and then gathering into their zones.

After the meeting two historical pictures had to be taken of papis, hijos y nietos!