Consejo Monday

A foggy morning in Concepcion - the fog just rolls along over the river and mountains.  It often clears off by 11 or 12.  You can see the smoke rising from the chimneys of the homes.  

Here we are in our dining room again - next day!  It is our monthly "Consejo" meeting - which is a training council for those missionaries who have been called to serve as Zone Leaders and Sister Trainer Leaders.  We have 20 Elders and 12 Hermanas serving in these capacities.  They travel in for this meeting from all over the mission area - some having to come by bus the night before so that they can be to the mission home by 10 for the meeting.   Those who travel in stay in the casas of nearby missionaries.  We meet for a couple of hours, take a quick snack/potty break, then meet for another hour.  At that point we have Almuerzo together.  This time I taught Ingrid how to fix Hawaiian Haystacks - you know - the layers of rice, chicken gravy, green onion, tomatoes, cheese, pineapple, and this time we added corn and peanuts:).  The North American missionaries were elated - it is a comfort food for us!  The Latins were a little skeptical - but hungry enough to eat it:).

The only problem was, we ran out of rice before about 6 of the Elders got some!  I think that Elder A (center) was the most disappointed.  I told him that we were going to fix it and he had gotten geared up for it - a family favorite for him, too!  We scrounged up something else real quick - nachos, I think.  And I promised a plateful for him at another time.  He and Elder P, behind him, are our Assistants and we see a lot of them.  They are always polite and let everyone else eat before them!  They are OUR trainers!

Here are our twelve Hermana Sister Trainer Leaders - an absolutely outstanding group of young women!!

This is the narrow entryway that leads to the parking area behind the mission office!

And here is the President - happy and ready to go to work - again!!