Another great week!

The week sure does go by fast which probably has something to do with the great work we are involved in. When it comes to the end of the week, however, we welcome it. We find we really need the time to get ourselves renewed for the next week and the Sabbath Day is the most valuable. Today we attended the Edinburg chapel where the congregation was made up of several wards who were being told of changes in boundries due to the creation of a new spanish ward and eliminating an english speaking ward. President Wilson of this McAllen Stake told the members that this change was inspired and that the First Presidency approved it without hesitation. This will help the members who have limited means to be able to attend church closer to them. Edinburg has grown in its new converts and this will encourage even more growth.

It was a beautiful experience singing the hymns in this mixed congregation and I think there were more singing spanish than us who were singing english. I felt a lot of emotion when we started the opening hymn. Each of the Bishops spoke bearing testimony of the Savior and of their support in this change. Bishop Jorgenson seemed like one with quite a sense of humor as he encourage his people with a Charlie Brown and Lucy story. It seems that Charlie Brown was on a ship deck and had aked Lucy for her advice on a matter of concern for him and she proceeded to counsel him with observing the people on the ship deck. The people who had their deck chairs facing backwards were always looking to the past. The people who had their chairs sideways were only concerned about the present. The ones with their chairs forward were looking to the future. She asked Charlie which way his chair faced and he said he didn't know because he hadn't even unfolded it yet. The Bishop then asked his members to unfold their deck chairs and look forward, not backwards or even sideways. Good advice for all of us!

Elder Avery was going fishing on the gulf Friday with Elder Davidson( Office Missionary) and Brother Lyles until the wind started. Brother Lyles and his family live off the land and bottle or freeze what they catch or hunt. There should be many more opportunities to do this while we are here. By the way, the wind is still blowing but we won't complain as it helps cool the temperatures somewhat. I had asked Elder Avery to not bring back any shark or sting-ray and I hope he remembers that when they do go.

We have a meeting this afternoon with the ward employement specialists, which is our first. We have so much to share but there will be more opportunities as we hold these once a month. Then right after that we have a special meeting with the McAllen West Stake, conducted by Pres. Chandler. All of the leaders of those wards are invited to view the new training from the First Presidency on Welfare with employment being an important part of that. We are excited to be there and view this training and receive all the guidance that is available for us. I hope it will be well attended because we really want to involve the wards much more in the employment of their people and how Career Workshops can assist them.

If we are not careful, we might come away from this experience truly knowing some technology. We had Dr. Young (the dentist who pulled Elder Avery's tooth) show us how to run the projector for our PowerPoint on the Career Workshop and also the video camera for holding 'mock' interviews for this workshop. This will really enhance our workshops which we want to hold on a regular basis. We can't help but be excited about it all and pray it won't take(I look for positive words here because these good people don't move fast enough for me) too long to reach fruition.

Love,
Los Averys