Wait What? They Didn't Teach Us This in the MTC

One of the lessons learned this week: very few things go as planned but the Lord's work gets done.

Fresh mango marmelada from Soledad at the office. Here in Paraguay Mango trees are plentiful and the sidewalks are at times covered in Mangos. We are waiting for one of us to get hit in the head with a mango falling from the trees.

Preparation day came and Chris tried her hand at making her sugar cookie recipe. They were tasty but not pretty. The temple cookie cutter didn't work well with the dough. Chris made a solo trip to the store to get eggs in the middle of making cookies. Good thing it's a block and a half away.

Sunday was the day we gave our talks and we made it through. Chris has more confidence now. The Lord was there beside her all the way. Ken was awesome as always.

On Monday there was a baby shower at the office. It was fun to be included and nice to get to know more people. We all pitched in and bought the high chair. 

This is the thank you gift.

Also on Monday or Tuesday our projects that we thought were well on their way to approval were bounced back to us for revisions. Oh, it is always a little sad to have hard work not be enough, but it is even harder when what you learned at the MTC isn't quite in place in the field. So you regroup and adjust and go on another adventure so you can move ahead, learn from your differences and focus on serving the Lord.

Our adventures seem to include our need to be stopped on the side of the road. This time we only had to pay $7 USD to have someone change the tire. Sometimes in Paraguay you have to pop up on the curb to park. Um, we just popped. You can see the gash in the second picture. We are not sure we are going to be allowed to use the cars anymore. Haha, the term go big or go home may be changed to just go home.

We are now prepared for our adventure to the Chaco with the camping gear we picked up. We heard they are bringing extra diesel up and will run the generator all night so the church we are sleeping in will have lights and fans but most importantly we will be able to use our CPAPs. 

Our adventure included finally meeting someone from our mission even if by accident or divine design. These sweet sisters, Hermana Feliz (Dominican Republic) and Packer (Utah) were such a tender mercy when our day seemed to be not the success we wanted it to be. They are amazing women serving the Lord. Hermana Feliz is almost done with her mission and Hermana Packer has been out 3 months.

Finally on Wednesday we got permission to start bragging about having another granddaughter in May! Polly and Oakey are having a girl. It is always a blessing to have our family grow. Polly and Oakey will be great parents and Kenny and Cooper are taking the responsibility of being a big brother very seriously.

Sometimes we get so comfortable with how we do things that we forget that there are other ways of doing them. Other ways may not seem as efficient, or by the book but learning to focus on getting the work done more than how it is done is very important. We've learned we are just here to funnel information. We gather and pass information from those seeking help from the Church to those who make the decisions about who and how we will help. In order to do that and reflect the love of the Savior while doing it, we've learned we can't let ourselves get overtired, hungry or overwhelmed. As we feel our way through the learning curves of senior humanitarian mission life we know we have to stay focused on who we serve (Jesus Christ and our brothers and sisters) and that will determine how we serve.  

After Wednesday meetings we were ready to just do something that would make us feel successful. We can count and put things into bags, right? You would think. We began the job of making these medical training kits for the conference this coming week. There will be 55 medical professionals coming to learn how to better deal with postpartum bleeding, preeclampsia and eclampsia. They in turn will become the trainers and go out and train more professionals. It's great, we were only supposed to have 40 and now we are at 55.

It has been hard to be away from family for the holidays and all things familiar. But just like bumping into the Sisters on our tough Tuesday, this rainbow came on a weepy Wednesday just to let us know He is aware of us.

Thursday we went to work and Ken spent the morning with Global Support trying to get our computers to work correctly and allow us to accesses the programs we need to get our job done. After about 2 or 3 hours he learned that he would have to wait for a call from a level two tech. Ugh! Last time we waited for level two to call it took nearly a month. (This time it only took less than 48 hours. Yay!)

We went home early and worked from home. There is something about the comfort of home that refreshes our soul and helps us endure well.

Thursday night has become our temple night. It is so wonderful to be able to walk to the temple. Ken had made his appointment to do initiatories but Chris was planning on doing an endowment session to work on her Spanish understanding. Another success, as she did the whole session including the veil in Spanish (reading from the card). Going to the temple helps us remember how much Heavenly Father and the Savior want us to be with them and become like them with Their help.

We keep forgetting to share about our alarm clock. Each weekday morning and sometimes on Saturday anywhere between 5:30 and 6:30 am  a man with a loud speaker on his car drives up and down the streets announcing something in Guarani and then "comida caliente." He passes by our apartment complex at least twice. Ken realizes if he is still in bed by the second call of "comida caliente" he needs to get up.

This is Friday's miracle. Finding out where to buy things is always part of the learning curve when you are in a new place but it doubles when it is a new and not a fully developed country and you don't have your own car. We are walking a lot and learning about great places in the city. One of the things we were searching for were labels to use on the medical vials. We were ready with labels to tape on because we had not been successful in finding Avery labels anywhere. (We couldn't even find 50 pocket folders, it's been a rough week). Friday Chris was looking in the credenza behind out desk in the morning and found two packages of labels. They were so old they had old floppy disks pictured on the cover. They worked, they stuck to things and we found a template on the Avery UK site so we could print them easily and now have them printed and ready to stick on the vials when they arrive. 

Friday was another early out. Ken again worked on paperwork at home and Chris did the weekly cleaning and made chicken soup. We also took the time to decorate for Christmas.

The Lord seems to always share with us what we need to hear and learn when we study His word. This week's spiritual thought comes from Alma 8, while he was teaching in Ammonihah and the people "would not hearken unto the words of Alma. . . Nevertheless, Alma labored much in the spirit, wrestling with God in mighty prayer, that he would pour out his Spirit . . .nevertheless, they hardened their hearts . . . thou hast no power over us . . withstood all his words and reviled him and spit upon him and caused that he should be cast out of their city."

Alma," being weighed down with sorrow, wading through much tribulation and anguish of soul," received a visit from an angel who said, "Blessed art thou . . . lift up thy head and rejoice . . . thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the time which thou receivest thy first message . . . now . . . he returned speedily to the land of Ammonihah.

We learn the Lord prepared Amulek to take care of his servant Alma and he was filled and tarried many days with Amulek before he began to preach unto the people.

Alma is such a great example of persevering in following the commandments the Lord gave him despite the outcomes and doing it with meekness and patience like the Savior. Alma shows great integrity to keep his focus on the Savior through sorrow, tribulation and anguish of soul. Alma boldly kept doing what he was asked without or regardless of being noticed or shown any fanfare. But he did also recognize his need for rest and knew that Amulek was a blessing prepared from the Lord.

Here in Paraguay and through technology we continually have our Amuleks who lift us, love us, fill us and let us tarry with them until we can go out and work some more. 

We are grateful for the Amuleks in our lives that buoy us up on our tough weeks.

I have fixed the settings on the blog so everyone should be able to comment now even if you aren't signing in from a gmail account.

 Next week we'll share some great food we've tried.

Not a lot of Pictures but Plenty of Growth

 We have told many people that although we are called to serve the people of Paraguay we know our call is to help us develop greater faith and dependence on the Savior and to strengthen our relationship with Him and each other. Christ's name on the badge gives us added courage to do hard things but everyone who has been baptized has taken on his name and can enjoy the strength and power of doing things in His name. When we do that, it is amazing what we see, feel and can accomplish.

This week we tackled a few hard things with His strength, power and direction and we did it together. Not many pictures this week as we were very busy with paperwork and didn't go visiting projects. Although we love the beauty we see we are becoming more accustomed to it and not taking as many photos.

On Sunday (Nov 12) we were asked to give talks in Sacrament Meeting this Sunday(Nov19) about charity. We wrote them on Sunday and Monday, translated them into Spanish and have been practicing them each night and morning. Below is a link to Chris's talk in English and Spanish in Google Drive. Ken wasn't up for sharing his.

Chris's talk 

We have not had a week when our missionary meetings have been at the same scheduled time since we arrived so there are days when we just don't get it right. Monday we ended up going to our weekly devotion an hour early. Good thing is it is only upstairs so we just went back to our office (temporary office) and got a few more things done.

Last week we shared this video from the movie Bruce Almighty with the other senior humanitarian missionaries in the South America South area about how life as a humanitarian missionary feels sometimes with all the requests and paperwork. (And no, although they sell Juan Valdez down here we don't drink it even on a tough day.) Click the link below for a laugh.

Bruce Almighty answering prayers

We have an important medical conference that LDSCharities is helping to sponsor with the Ministry of Health here in Paraguay Nov 23-27 on Mother and New Born Care. There are many things that need to be done and fall into place in the next week, prayers would be helpful. 

Thanks to remembering a share from Chris's sister, Kim, we enjoy oatmeal in the mornings. The night before we add some of the drinkable yogurt we find here (that's the only kind they sell) into some oatmeal and add some cinnamon. The yogurt softens the oatmeal and gives us a great stick to your bones breakfast, because you never know what time your are going to get to eat lunch.

Tuesday Chris felt sick with head congestion so she worked from home Tuesday afternoon.

By Wednesday Chris was feeling better physically but emotionally, we had to decline our first project because it was not sustainable and that was heartbreaking. In order for a project to be approved, because we are safe guarding the widow's mite, the project needs to be sustainable either by the help of other organizations or those requesting the project. We hope that after some more collaboration that we can resubmit the project we had to decline at this time. Tough mission day! Thanks for those of you who reach out when I posted on Facebook. It helps so much on those days to have a cheering section.

So Chris deals with stress by (cr)eating. Wednesday we worked with what we could find and made a delicious "cowboy caviar." We bought some choclo which is field corn and tried cooking it and adding it to the caviar. It didn't taste bad but by the second day it was like little pebbles. We now think they may grind that for their chipa guazú or sopa paraguaya (different kinds of cheesy cornbread). They have Tostido brand tortilla chips. The chips are just salted Doritos without the flavoring. Salty is great when you sweat alot. The tortillas we used on Thursday for steak tacos were Bimbo brand and excellent. 

The great thing that did happen Wednesday was that we were able to meet with some people from the legal department and a couple who has close government connections in the Paraguayan Senate because they wanted to learn about our Humanitarian projects in Paraguay. She was impressed that Chris knew to do the double cheek kiss and by the end of the meeting we were old friends. We hope this will help us make inroads on our education project.

Thursday we stayed and worked from our home office. We had deadlines and we find it is easier to not be distracted at home. There are a lot of hoops to jump through to get approval for a project to begin. One hoop is to enter your project into a specific software program (Chas). The software is a work in progress so there is a dance we have to do with what we want to put in and how it all fits. That makes it important to not have too many distractions. We had a deadline of Friday and wanted to get two done. For our first two we feel we made a great first effort and Elder and Sister Barney would be proud of our measures. For our humanitarian missionary friends, we made a developing projects measures table just like the one we trained on and are using that in our definition. For us that was a huge help!

On the left is Ken and our daughter Kensington(11 months) in Rhode Island in May of 1989 and on the right is Nick and Lane14 months) (Kensington's husband and daughter) in Sayulita, Mexico November 2023

 

Thursday we were able to go to the temple again. It is a place we can feel wrapped in the arms of love. We learned more about a couple who were born in Paraguay, lived 30 years in Philadelphia USA (there is a Filadelfia, Paraguay too) and returned to Paraguay, so they speak English. They were so kind to us and even asked about our Thanksgiving plans.

Friday went by fast and it was hot. It probably wasn't the best idea but we decided we would walk to the computer clinic to pick up Chris's old MacBook that was being worked on. It was a 30 minute walk to and 30 minutes back. We were a little disappointed because before we left the clinic, we turned it on and it wouldn't boot up. The clinic has a great policy that you don't pay if it doesn't work so he needed to do a few more things so we walked home empty handed. We weren't pulling a handcart but it reminded us of our Trek experience because it was 100°F and humid. We won't be doing that again but the Lord in his mercy sent a man driving by in a truck who recognized our tags and yelled, "Hermanos!" and then held out his copy of the Book of Mormon and waved. We gave him a thumbs up and made it home with smiles.

Today, Saturday, is a rest day. We are only doing essential cleaning and laundry today, the rush of the next three weeks will be a test of our ability to work hard and be examples of disciples of Christ so we need to rest up and enjoy a little self-care today. After speaking at church, preparing and executing the training conference and then making a trip to the Chaco (three nights without our CPAP's because we will basically be camping) we will be shown our weaknesses and where we need to work on our Christlike behaviors.

Sorry for lack of pictures and it may be a while before we get the time to post again, so sit tight (Mom, please don't worry I will text you). We love you all and feel your prayers of strength for us.

Today's spiritual thought is from Alma 5:19

"can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?"

Think about the word engraven. We are all born in the image of God and on the surface we reflect his image but how deep does that image penetrate? When an image is reflected the permanence depends solely on the image being reflected remaining true and not moving(God is true, faithful and unchangable) and whatever it is reflected on not moving. But if the image is engraven it takes time and effort and depth to copy. It remains even if the original image is not there(integrity) How are you carving out the fleshy tables of your heart with his image?

  

Have a Great Week

A Week of Wonders

    Sunday when we entered church a young man came and shook our hand and knew who we were. It took us a minute to realize he was one of the mission presidents in Paraguay. President Alleman is an amazing guy. He had emailed us that he wanted to meet us but was really busy with transfers and Elder Renlund's visit so he would catch up after, but there he was, so excited that we were here. Oh it did our hearts good. Somedays as a humanitarian missionary you feel like an orphan because you aren't really involved in the "mission" or in your ward by assignment. Having President Alleman love on us was wonderful. He was also very excited that we were from Minnesota as he and his family lived in Rochester for 10 years before moving to Arizona.

    Paraguay has the best breads, beef and dairy products (ie. ice cream and butter) We are proud that in nearly a month's time we have only accumulated two ice cream cartons in the name of having storage containers. But really they are the perfect size and the ice cream is amazing.

Monday's Wonder:

    We really have the best mission in the world for so many reasons and we are happy and prospering but we wonder sometimes if they knew we were coming. Each day we wonder if our office will be finished, if Chris's laptop will come (if you don't have a church computer with all the security you can't get into some needed stuff), if we are going to get our desktop computers, if our mission president will get to meet us, if there are any other senior couples in Paraguay. We try not to focus on those things but we do wonder.

Tuesday's Wonder:

    The wonder of technology. Each week we enjoy a devotional that is transmitted from Argentina at our Area Headquarters. This week's devotional featured Elder Dale Renlund.

Elder Renlund gushed gratitude for senior and service missionaries and said we were called by apostolic keys and if we haven't had the confirmation that we were called with that power we need to humbly plead in prayer until we get it.

Leading up to his humorous and memorable analogy he made a few points:

• Revelation changes outlook. 
• Define the problem
• See heaven's help which comes in councils
• We can all be together without worrying about who's more important
• Move forward being open to revelation

His analogy: Nitroglycerin although great at blasting through rocks is unstable on its own. If it was disturbed, it would explode. If it was left alone too long, it would explode. If it was too hot or too cold, it would explode. Because of these traits, it was banned in some places because of it's unpredictability. and the destruction it caused.  Then Alfred Noble did the research and found that by adding diatomaceous earth (a main product of kitty litter) nitroglycerin's explosive properties could be predictive and serve the greater good. In fact Alfred Noble prospered greatly from this discovery. Elder Renlund asked "which was more important, the nitroglycerin or the kitty litter?" Answer - both are equally important. Without the kitty-litter the nitroglycerin was unusable. Without the nitroglycerin, all you have is kitty litter. Whether we are the explosive or the kitty litter we are important in getting the job done. We are all here to make the explosion of the work of the Church safe.

Wednesday's Wonder: 

   We knew Elder Renlund was coming (part of the reason we don't have our office, we are kitty litter). A youth and parent devotional was announced for Wednesday evening but we were not youth or parents of youth and didn't want to take up their space. As it was they ran out of space and had youth sitting in the aisles. We prayed on Tuesday even and Wednesday morning that if it were possible we would be able to see Elder Renlund, thinking that maybe he would walk through the Church office building here in Paraguay and we might get to say "hi" or wave but if not we would keep our temple appointment and go there instead. Around 9:00 am on Wednesday, a sweet brother we work with who has taken great care of us and is the Paraguay Asuncion Mission clerk invited us to the missionary meeting at 5 with Elder Renlund. There are not many reasons I would miss going to the temple but the opportunity to be in a room of about 200 people with an Apostle is one of them. We changed our temple appointments to Thursday which brought other blessings and went to the meeting.

   We thought we were doing well getting there about 4:15 for a 5:00 meeting but the chapel was full of missionaries as quiet as church mice. The love and spirit were strong. We took pictures (we haven't gotten a copy yet) and were able to go up one by one and share our name and where we were from with all the guests (The Renlunds, The Walkers (from the Area presidency) and the Allemans. Prayers are answered.

    We enjoyed a spiritual feast. A second wonder was the Renlund's sense of humor and the amazing way Elder and Sister Renlund worked together as equals. She was as powerful a speaker as he was and it didn't bother him a bit in fact he called her back up a second time so he could seemingly take a breather. It would take too long to share all the wonderful things we heard but I want to share something funny Elder Renlund said in jest, something like  "I think the war in heaven (Revelation 12:7) was started over what was or wasn't going to be in the hymn book." Elder Renlund also said many important things that have changed my life and one was his powerful apostolic blessing. What I was able to remember and write down felt like he was talking individually to us. He blessed us to be able to sense Heavenly Father's love and that what was not right at home would be made right by our sacrifice of coming on a mission, not staying at home trying to fix it. Boom on so many levels but he was speaking to the whole room. Amazing.

Some great talks for consideration that the Renlund's comments were directed from are:

October 2016 RMN Joy and Spiritual Survival 

October 2022 Liahona RMN The Everlasting Covenant 

This was not as amazing as it smelled. Italian pizza made in Paraguay. Not bad tasting but you know when you smell something but it doesn't taste like you expected? Ya, and the Mexican pizza (Ken's choice) had sliced hardboiled eggs. We would brag that we only paid $10 but it was wasted calories. Some things just don't taste the same and that's ok but we won't be buying it again. But the other picture is of the temple lit up at night across from the pizza place. Save!

Thursday's Wonder:

    So remember we switched our temple appointment to hear Elder Renlund? Well, we worked a full day and left the office about 5:45 pm to walk across the street (yes, we are bragging) to head to our temple session, and find it full of people from our ward who warmly welcomed us. A young man was going through for the first time. It was beautiful praying in Spanish together. We were supposed to get a picture of all of us in front of the temple but haven't received it yet.

Friday's Wander:
    A friend asked on Saturday (which is our day off) if we were staying at home to rest or going on an adventure. I told her that although we were working, Friday was our adventure and we were getting things done at home on Saturday.

    Friday we left early to go for our first time on our own to visit organizations who have solicited help from LDS Charities. It is a bittersweet experience to see the humble circumstances that exist and yet beautiful to see the joy that comes from love and not things. (In Paraguay the greeting is a kiss on each cheek).

Here is Ken with the staff of a clinic out from the city. It is only open three days a week during the mornings and it is a dentist office as well as primary care for the people of the community. These are courageous women to be doing so much with so little. We hope we can help them.

This is a picture of our first fleecing from police. You know when you are in an unfamiliar place and you don't catch all the roads signs? We missed a no left turn sign supposedly. We had been coached by our trainers to ask for a receipt and we did but not until after they had enough of our cash for a nice Friday night on the town. Kind of a downer but we live and learn.

This was the farthest out of Ascunción we have been. The gardens are immaculate and we also stopped and got all this for $10 at a farm stand.

The last stop of the day was at a hostel near a hospital that allows those from far away to live there in order to receive the needed dialysis for kidney failure. Most of the residents live there until they die. They are allowed one companion to stay with them. As we toured the building there was a young women celebrating her birthday and we sang Happy Birthday in English to her. It made her and her mother smile. Here we are with some of the staff, the director and a resident after they were trying to teach us some Guarani. We really want to practice so we can surprise them when we return.

They gave us this mug as a gift. "No tengas miedo.,Solo tan fe." Don't have fear, just so much faith." That means so much on so many levels for us and especially Chris learning two languages.

Police stop part dos (two). In Paraguay you need to drive with your lights on and Ken forgot. Gratefully this time he just warned us and we were on our way. Do you remember I called it an adventure?

This is a picture of Ken's puzzle he was working on this week at night although he finished most of it on Saturday.

It was a great week, full of many wonders. We really just feel full of gratitude and love as we serve. We are growing and learning so much from the wonderful people of Paraguay each day.

There are so many spiritual thoughts to share this week but one that sums it all up is from  

Psalms 16: 8,11

 I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

 Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

Don't not let things interrupt your rejoicing!

Some Weeks You Personally Feel You're Spinning Your Wheels But People Love You Anyway

    So last Saturday only a few hours after we blissfully drove around Asunción(above) and the city of Luque (flooded below) trying to find our way to places where would be taking our Salt Lake Humanitarian visitors, roads flooded. And just to make us feel a little more at home a tornado happened in Ciudad del Este from the same storm that swept across Paraguay. Paraguay much like Iowa just picks up the pieces without a lot of fuss and keeps living.

    On Sunday we experienced a different kind of storm. We walked into church and were both asked to bear our testimonies after the sacrament was passed. Chris cried in fear on and off through the opening song, prayer, announcements, sacrament song and really until she was done. She was determined to put faith before fear though and with Ken by her side shared a simple testimony in Spanish with only needing help once. The joke is Chris can now cry in Spanish or English. Ken of course did a great job.

Some other Sunday funday things were meeting a couple emigrating from Switzerland to southern Paraguay. It will be fun to visit them when we travel to southern Paraguay and also to enjoy their company when they visit the temple here in Asunción. We also learned that our bishop here served in the Utah Salt Lake City Mission just like Carter but a few years(10) before.

    So this Sunday some of you are turning your clocks back, right? Well we wanted to be on top of things and found out that Paraguay does daylight savings but in reverse of what we do and on a different weekend. The first weekend in October ( beginning of spring in Paraguay) Paraguay went on Daylight Savings time and moved an hour ahead. That means those of you who are falling back on November 5 will be one more hour behind us. I will share the updated World Clock for examples:

    Shout out to the Marshall Ward Relief Society sisters and especially Erin Hadfield who had the foresight to buy Chris some warm Minnesota socks to wear so Ken can have the AC on "Morgue" setting and she can still be comfortable. 

All week it has been storming and this was another amazing view from our balcony of a coming storm on Wednesday evening. Our raincoats are getting a work out.

Wednesday night we had to help pick up our Salt Lake and Argentinian visitors at 10:15 pm which is way past missionary bedtime so Chris ventured a try with cinnamon rolls. For a first go with flour, yeast and salt being the only ingredients that matched her normal recipe, they turned out great and were a welcome gift to our guests at the airport and a few office friends.

Thursday and Friday were full of taking our guests to projects that have been completed by our trainers. We had been to all of the spots before but it is still easy to get choked up when people thank us with such sincerity and gratitude for what the Church has done to support them. The first picture is of the new Oxygen plant at a hospital where the Humanitarian arm of the Church donated all the machinery and back up generator. They would really like a new hospital but don't want to move because the location is close to the people. We also toured the newly furnished emergency room and 2 ultrasound machines donated by the Church. It will save lives because people won't have to wait in long lines and there will be better ways to diagnosis things. They were working with a machine that ranked #49 before they purchased a machine that is #2.

    This next picture is of the wheelchair project. This time we even met with the director who is amazing. The most productive projects are those where the implementing organization is not only looking for assistance financially but has plans and principles that help others to grow and become more self reliant. The wheelchair project at Fundación Solidaridad does just that. 

    Again we were able to see the smiles on the faces of the wheel chair recipients the moment they sat in their new chairs. We learned from her parents that the girl in front of Ken in the picture, had lived a normal life until she was 15 and then experienced water on the brain and began loosing her ability  to move. Her dad told us the wheelchair she had been using was 35 years old, so it was used when she started using it. Her mama hugged Chris for what seemed like 5 minutes saying in tears, "Gracias" over and over. 

One of the places we were able to visit was Beehive clothing, where temple clothes are made for South America. Due to the amount of temples announced in South America this particular manufacturing facility is doubling it's capacity. Working here allows for better working conditions, pay and benefits to the workers in comparison to other jobs in the country. 

It has been wonderful to see how these projects improve peoples lives and self sufficiency.

On a personal note we also found out while our visitors were here that when our trainers leave in January we will be taking over some of their area in Northern Argentina. See you then, Cheathams!

The next two pictures have things tied to our past. If you see them post in the comments, text us, or email us.

Spiritual thought for this week: While reading about Limhi and Alma in the Book of Mormon the thought came to mind that the Lord often sends people out in the wilderness to protect them and to help them learn and grow. Even Adam and Eve were sent out of Eden so they could repent (change) and grow in their covenant relationship with God. These verses were in a cross reference:

Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.

And know ye this day: for I speak not with your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched out arm, . . .

But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord which he did.

Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that ye may be strong, (Deut. 11:1-2,7-8)

We hope you are all working on your relationship with God and his son Jesus Christ. As we understand more about who they really are and how much they love us and every other person on this earth that has lived or will live, we can all improve our desire to be more like them and bless others.