En la Fuerza del Senor...........

"En la Fuerza del Senor Podemos Hacer Todas las Cosas"  -  AAA Annual Conference

Hola!
"In the strength of the Lord, we can do all things."  This was the theme Michael and I set for the conference several months ago.  It was a talk given by Elder David Bednar in October 2004 when he was called to be an apostle.  All of the AAA's were given the talk about six weeks ago and were asked to read it and study it.  At the conference Elder Zeballos, (our audit committee chair, and lst counselor in the area presidency) conducted a great discussion of this talk with the entire group.

 All of the AAAA's (Assistant Area Auditors) came to Buenos Aires for a two day Conference.  They came from Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina.  This is the entire group and we had great fun taking this photograph.... there was much laughter and joking...... The couple next to me is Jeanine Perry and her husband, Elder Perry. They help with the Chile AAA's and they live in Santiago.  Dale and Michael have talked on the phone and emailed frequently but this was our first meeting!   Dale and Jeanine are in their late 70's and are serving an18 month mission.  Jeanine has been very sick for several months, but has now recovered and is doing well.  We enjoyed them very much.

We have been working on the conference since we arrived here in Buenos Aires.  President Arnold wanted this conference to take place in mid December so the date was set and everyone informed about it around September 9!  Michael and I have discussed the conference almost constantly for these three and a half months... even on our travels!  It took a lot of planning and preparation.  Michael had to prepare all of the materials in Spanish including power point presentations which I did help with.  It was a great learning experience for him in particular.... I was in charge of feeding everyone!!  This I totally enjoyed as those who know me would understand!

Our travel person at the area office, Alejandro, was wonderful as he had to arrange flights from four different countries, arrange everyone's lodging and a remise to be at the airport when each group arrived.   He has also been working on this for a couple of months.  We had to put together a complete list of arrival times and preferences of each AAA .... so that was a huge task in and of itself!

In the front:  Jose Vidal, Michael.... in the back Jose Grau, and Carlos Beraud

On Friday, we had several of the AAA's come in early and talk over issues and existing problems with some of their areas.  One meeting in particular we had was with our great group of "three" from Paraguay;  Carlos Beruad, Jose Grau, and Jose Vidal..  We were so happy to see them again and we had a really great meeting with them!

Before they arrived we finished putting the room together for the arrival of everyone!

Elder Zeballos delivering his message... Elder Zeballos is originally from Chile.

Rodrigo Fernandez - Chile Concepcion Sur

Chile was just added to the South America South Area in August of this year, so this was the first time that all four countries had joined together for this yearly conference.... they all seemed to enjoy meeting
one another and enjoyed some fun during the break!

Elder Perry chatting with Romulo Cabrera from Montevideo, Uruguay
Daniel Aranda on the side - Resistencia, Argentina