Unexpected blessings - return from Argentina

 

Christmas Party, 2019, Buenos Aires

Have you ever been blessed in ways you don't expect? or found the proverbial "silver lining" in the clouds of a stormy and challenging time?
Bonnie and I were called to serve an 18-month humanitarian mission to Argentina, that we expected to extend from September 23, 2019 to March 23, 2021. We served in Argentina for exactly six months, until March 23, 2020, when the COVID pandemic sent us home to continue our mission remotely. We were frustrated and disappointed to leave the country, naturally. But we have worked hard from home and feel we contributed greatly to the humanitarian relief needs in Argentina during the challenging time.
Meanwhile, we've begun to notice that there are reasons to count our blessings that we are in Utah instead of Argentina during this time, many of them related to unexpected medical concerns. Those issues included a dental situation that required oral surgery, which had begun treatment in Argentina but was not going to be resolved properly; both of us contracting and enduring COVID and its lingering effects; cataracts requiring several delicate surgical procedures; a developing situation involving a heart condition that needs to be understood and treated; and most recently, discovery of uterine cancer that required significant surgery and recovery.
Through all of this, we have been very glad to be able to continue our mission service in spite of these challenges. Had we been in Argentina when some of those situations started, we almost certainly would have been released from our mission and sent home early to resolve the problem. But since we were already at home, working remotely, we have been able to address the medical issues while we continue to fulfill our missionary calling. What a blessing it is that we were sent home! We #GiveThanks for the continuing privilege of being humanitarian service missionaries.


Buenos Aires Temple, January 2020


Coming home, March 2020

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