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| Building in the central plaza in Salta at night |
I had been working with the Area Presidency in planning an
Area Council for August 10-11– my first one.
This is a quarterly meeting where the Area Presidency, who are all from
the first quorum of seventy, train the 17 area seventy that cover these 4 countries. Getting them together with the presidency means
we have 20 general authorities. This one
was going to be held in Salta because Pres. Gonzalez wanted to include one of
the local bishops that was having considerable success in activating families
and getting his youth out on missions. It
is a half or full day of training, two of which are are planned right after general
conference so the Presidency can pass along the training they receive at
general conference. This was a little
unique because Pres Gonzalez asked those that could stay until Sunday afternoon
to each be assigned to visit a different ward.
That meant that most of the wards had a visiting general authority, and
the two stakes there were very excited.
Elder Vinas was a hot commodity since he had also been a mission
president there and was asked to speak at two wards.
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| sliding a plate of empenandas into the wood burning brick oven |
Friday the 9th I was busy getting all the materials ready
for the flight and flying to Salta. I
got there with Terry Spallino the DTA. Bill
Wingo was already there and took us to dinner at a little “traditional Salta”
restaurant where the waiters dressed as gauchos and the house specialty was really
good oven baked empenadas. I guess the
best way to describe them is little half-moon shaped meat pies. I would have to say they fill the place of
the hamburger in the US. They precook
the meat (beef, chicken or ham and cheese) and mix it with some of these other items such as
onions, hardboiled egg, or potatoes, and olives for salty and raisins for sweet all depending on where they are made. These were some of the best I have had.
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| some asado on the grill, He was actually a member and knew of all the GAs coming and wanted to know if we were some of them |
Saturday I got up early and had breakfast
with Terry about 7am. I oversaw the
arrangement of the conference room and many other items. The 70 that were there had lunch together in
the hotel.
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| Early morning picture of Salt from the Hotel window |
The meeting went well with
Elder Costa in China and Elder Barros at home with a sick wife but both connected
on by video conference. We had more
than enough material to have gone a couple hours longer. It was a great experience and I really
enjoyed the bishop. He said he had quite
a few priests and decided to get them all active and on missions. He called each one in and challenged them to
prepare and go on a mission. He gave
them their mission papers to start filing out and set up individually
interviews for them each month to see how they were doing. He then challenged each of their parents to
be temple worth and be endowed to be able to go with their sons when they would
go to the temple before their missions.
He set up temple classes and planned temple excursions (about 16 hour
bus rides). And it worked.
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| hotel breakfast |
Sunday Aug 11 I got up early, studied, worked on the book I am writing and
went down about 7:30 and had a nice breakfast in the restaurant. It was a nice somewhat leisure morning. I got checked out and ready to go to Church at 10. All the seventy were going to different
wards. I went with Elder Wilhelm since
he did not have a partner. He is from
Chile where he runs a cattle ranch and a car company. He was a mission president before. He was going to this ward because he knew the
bishop who had been a missionary of his when he was a mission president. The Bishop had been called when he was about 26
and he was now about 27. He had been
married a year and a half and had a baby.
We arrived in time for Sunday School. I saw a class of young people and just went
in and surprised her. The teacher was doing a wonderful
job and it was a lot of fun; besides they treated you like some very special
visitor. She asked me to give an experience relating to family history and the
temple. I told the class it is like detective work and you will find some good
and some bad ancestors but all with interesting stories. I mentioned Charles Boyle and Boyle’s law and
how it was fun to know you are related to people. I told them how special they all were and
genealogy work is to tie them back to the family of God. If the world would be more interested in
knowing how we are all related rather than creating strife and war how much
nicer it would be. I ended with Joan’s
story of meeting Chris and Ann on her mission, their baptism, her death from
cancer and meeting Chris in Vallejo Calif at a navy sub yard ; about how Joan got to be proxy for Ann so she
could be sealed to Chris in the temple: and that is the purpose of temples and
sealing families and that is the blessing of the restoration of all things.
In sacrament meeting, I was shaking hands with people in the
back and Elder Wilhelm invited me up to the stand and asked me to speak for ten
to fifteen minutes before he spoke. I
started using Paul’s beginning in 1 Cor 2-6 but put in Salta in place of
Corinthians; I then talked about Bishop Orellana and doing sealings
in the temple and what it felt like with one of your baptisms from 43 yrs ago. I talked about how
important families are to be sealed and we are the only ones that understand
that order of heaven or have the sealing authority, priesthood, and temples to
create eternal family relationships. I
mentioned that traveling a lot in my career taught me how lonely eternity would
be living it alone. I ended by
challenging them to fill their hearts with love and let their light shine to
fill the building and so influence the community. I don't know if they understood half of what I said but I was thankful that I could talk for 15 minutes in Spanish in front of a ward.
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| Elder Wilhelm and the young and the daughter of our High council guide in the church parking lot- it was a cold day |
We had different
members of the stakes high councils getting us to our wards and back to the
airport. After the meeting they had
prepared a little lunch for us. While
Elder Wilhelm talked with the bishop I spoke with the brother that took us. He said his wife just had a baby and that is why she
did not come with him but his daughter really wanted to meet us (really the 70
general authority) I told him to go get
her and she could ride with us to the airport.
He went and got his whole family.
He brought his wife, daughter of about 14 one another of 11 and a new
son. We had a wonderful discussion with
her. She had all the worries of a young
teenager and she was delightful and wanted a picture with us. We flew home that evening.
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