July 24, 2016 - Mom

Dear Family,

How are you all doing?  I don't want to repeat what Dad said in his email only that it was a fun day.  We were not planning to stay for the whole day but it was in a different location than what we thought and there wasn't a bus route that would take us home so we were stuck.  It was best that we did stay though, so that Dad could help them with the races.  I have included some pictures of the event.  They really went all out.  Our ward was in purple.  The officials were in green T-shirts.  They gave one to Dad as well.  The picture with the man in the green shirt and is waving or something is Bro. Mores from our Bishopric.  He is the one who threw up all night.  Our bishop is on the right.  They are good men.  All of our ward leaders were there and two of the three Stake Presidency members were there.  The one absent is on vacation.

I saw three boys yesterday, wearing purple shirts, who I've never seen before at church.  Well today, they were all there and two of them were helping with the sacrament!  The other boy hasn't ever come to church but he was there today.  It was neat.  The "Smith Cup" activities are continuing all this week with basketball and volleyball and maybe other things as well.  

We are very frustrated with our Petrolina project.  We hope that we can salvage it and keep everybody happy.  It's no fun being caught in the middle.  We have about three other stakes (maybe 4) who now want to start projects and we are going to go forward with EXTREME caution!!  A group of men (a bishopric) came by the office a few days ago wanting help on their project of raising fish.  Well we (dad) couldn't give them much hope because for one thing, the church doesn't do fish projects and two the church isn't in the business of creating businesses for people.  That's what they wanted.  They have already dug their hole.  We just couldn't give them any encouragement.  We think of our own ancestors who started out in the Salt Lake Valley with absolutely nothing and there wasn't anyone there to give them anything.  Many of the people down here are very poor, but they still have more than our ancestors did.  I think that we are going to include those thoughts in our next presentations.

We we hope that you all have a great week.  We love you and miss you and think about each of you always.  We have already been back for 10 weeks and the time has really flown by.  We will soon be at our half-way mark.  The time we were at home still counts as our mission since we worked from home the whole time.

Love,

Mom/Paula