The Warnes in the Chile Rancagua Mission: Missionary meetings

The Spanish language has some great superlatives. The one I like for today is buenissimo! As in—last week in the Chile Rancagua mission was buenissimo (very good, excellent).

On Monday we said god-bye with thanks and good luck to eleven wonderful missionaries whom we will miss. We always enjoy with them the lunch of fajitas and then the testimony meeting which is the highlight of the day. But they were ready to return home, serve in their respective home areas and begin or resume schooling, work and (eventually) their own families.

Tuesday day we welcomed 10 new missionaries. They are always glad to finally be in the field, excited to meet their companion and a little nervous about beginning the work for which they have planned and worked toward for so long. As I have mentioned before, we do a little processing, do some training and orientation, serve a good lunch (hamburgers and cheesecake this time) and send them off. They will drop off their suitcases, buy groceries, visit the cyber or internet café to send a short message letting parents know of their safe arrival, then finally start working in their areas and preaching the gospel.

Friday we had the monthly mission leadership conference or consejo. We had four new zone leaders and four new coordinadoras or sister training leaders, which shows the kind of turnover we experience. Between now and August, 16 of the 22 zone leaders will leave as will ten or so of the 13 coordinadoras. You can see why we constantly teach and train, sometimes using concepts we taught only a few months ago.

The activities I’ve described are the reasons I said the week was so good. We got to interact with missionaries, get to know them better, and we realize every day that as President Warne likes to say: every day in the mission field is buenissimo!