"We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto!"

Greetings from Lima, Peru!  We are now in our third day in country.  What an adventure we are having!  Every day has brought interesting events and developments.  We are enjoying ourselves.  Dave especially.  This is all new to him.  For me, this brings back a lot of memories from my mission days in El Salvador & Guatemala.

But let me back track a bit and talk about our PEF training we had the early part of last week.  We spent 2.5 hours in training with a member of the Seventy, Elder Gay, who is over the PEF/Self Reliance arm of the church.  It was a very intimate meeting with ourselves and four other couples.  We are upset that we didn't take a photo of this group of missionaries nor our trainers.  But here is a list of those involved in this part of our training.

David Roper - over the PEF/SR missionaries
Wayne Boem - liason for missionaries in the field and Salt Lake
Elder & Sister Hunsaker - assists missionaries

Elder & Sister Waldron - Marshall Islands
Elder & Sister Francom - Mongolia
Elder & Sister Smith - Tanzania
Elder & Sister Johnson - Mendoza, Argentina
Elder & Sister Rhoades - Cusco, Peru (us!)

So anyone interested in seeing the world or having an adventure, sign up to serve as PEF/SR missionaries!  As you can see from the list, all the couples are in for quite the experience.

We were also all day up at the church office buildings on Monday and another half day of training back down at the Provo MTC on Tuesday and that finished up our official PEF/SR training.  Not a lot but very powerful.  It had us all pumped up to get started working for,the Lord.  I loved the spiritual emphasis they placed on this program.  By the end of training, I had a testimony that this Self-Reliance program is truly inspired and the brethren are being guided by the Lord in the implementation.  Now we just have to make sure we are as well!

 

 

In Salt Lake on the Church Office Bldg observation deck.  Our training was on the 26th floor.  Monday, June 16, 2014

 

Can't spend time at the MTC without posing for the required missionary pose in front of the world map pointing at your mission area.

 

Dave's reaction to finding out that apparently he is expected to live the law of polygamy on the mission.  Name tags used during our PEF training had a typo error.

Just a note..before we finished up at the MTC we had the opportunity to listen to Sheri Dew give a Sunday night devotional and she spoke on grace, one of my favorite topics.  She did an amazing job.  We also heard Russell M Ballard at the Tuesday night devotional.  He emphasized we should NEVER be ashamed of the gospel, no matter what detractors may say.

Wednesday was our last prep day to finish up last minute things and be all ready to go.  We started by going to one last temple session.  It was a great experience.  In the celestial room I received inspiration that God is aware of all his children and he knows who needs this program down in Cuzco.  We just need to allow Him to guide us to them and be His messenger to them.  He and the Holy Ghost will do the rest.

We had our last get together with family.  Monday night with the Rhoades kids.  Everyone was there.  It was a very noisy, but fun time.  It meant a lot to us both that we were able to spend one last time with all of them.  We will miss them greatly.

Dave with Brody, Sadie, Jacob, Griffin & Dustin

 



Wednesday we spent some time with Cindy's kids.  We will miss them as well.  We invite any and all of them to save their nickels and dimes and come visit us in Cuzco.  We have a big apartment so housing is on us and most of your food as well.  In fact, we invite any of our family and friends to come visit.  We will post photos of our apartment when we get there so you can see how nice of accomodations we can provide.  And no it does not have dirt floors or cardboard roof!

We left early Thursday morning from our home in Pleasant Grove to the airport.

We headed over to Los Angeles and after a 2 hour lay over said good bye to the United States for now.  The flight from Los Angeles to Lima was about 8.5 hours.  We had seats on the very last row on the plane and it was a completely full flight!  I had a Japanese lady sit by me that spoke no English or Spanish so we didn't have much interaction with her.  There was a slew of movies, video games, music etc. to keep you entertained.  We did succumb to the temptation and watch movies and played a few of the games.  But I watched my movie in Spanish language so I count that as preparation for my mission.  It was a soccer movie too called Goal.

 

Flight from Salt Lake to Los Angeles

We arrived in Lima at 12:30 am. Yup, the middle of the night.  Luckily that meant Customs wasn't very busy and we got straight through.  It didn't take long to get out of the airport but the ride to our hotel took awhile.  We are staying in Hotel Yeyas in the La Molina neighborhood of Lima.  It is within walking distance to the Lima MTC and to the NE SA area offices of the church which administers over the church affairs in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia & Venezuela.  It was 2 am by the time we crawled into bed.

 

Dave is waving from our hotel room window on the second floor.

 

Dave standing at the entrance to our hotel.

 



Friday we were picked up at 10 am and taken to the area offices, which we have since been walking to since it is not that far.  We met a lot of senior couples that are serving there.  We also met some of those working in the PEF program, 3 locals and 2 senior sister missionary.  One is from El Salvador but has been living in the states since 1979, in fact in Lehi.  The other is quite the character, Hermana Moore, from Arizona.  She is younger, about 50, and is full of energy and adventure.  More about her later.

We stayed at the offices until 3 pm when we lost steam and had to go back to the hotel to take a nap.  That one nap is all we needed to be over our jet lag, thankfully.  Cindy got to make some PEF mentor calls since she knows Spanish well.  She spent about 1.5 hours helping with those calls.  Talk about throwing her in with the lions!  It was a bit stressful to her, but by the end of the 1.5 she was more comfortable with it.   

We ventured out Friday night to explore and had our first experience with bad food.  We wanted to eat cheap so we got what we paid for.  Hamburger is not the same down here, by the way.  We both felt a bit sick after eating but not so bad that we had physical side effects (vomiting, diarrhea) thank goodness.

But Saturday was our big exploring day.  Hermana Moore offered to take us to the markets, which we of course didn't want to pass up on.  We met her at 10 am and didn't finish up until 3 pm.  She kept us hopping on one bus and off again to get on another bus.  We would not be able to find our way around again on our own if we tried!  Hermana Moore is an older version of Darci Rhoades Stone we decided.  She has worked as a tour guide and loves to travel and is into extreme, but not too extreme sports.  She begged us to take her to Cuzco with us.  She so wants to be up in the mountains rather than in the big city here in Lima.

Hermana Moore took us to the National Agrarian University market first.  It was a lovely place with a good selection of fruits, vegetables, etc.  Here are some photos of what we found there. 

 

We could not believe the size of the avocados here!  They are gigantic.

 

Purple corn (maiz morada).  They make a drink out of it called chichi morada.  It is very sweet.

This shows some of the many variety of bins of produce for sale.



 

Some of the many variety of potatoes they grow in Peru was here at the market.  We will probably post more photos of potatoes before we are through.

We met a lovely couple there, Jose & Juana Alverez.  They were so kind to us.  We got their phone number and we are trying to do some missionary work with them.  They have cousins that are Mormons living up in the states so they know quite a bit about the church.  They bought David a granadia for him to try.  He loved it.  It is quite an unusual fruit.   You peel it like an orange and eat the insides, but the insides are black seeds inside what looks like clear white slime.  The white slime is sweet and the seeds are tart and crunchy.  It is really quite delicious, you just have to not think about the white part reminding you of slime.  We'll try to get a picture of that to post.

We also found the fruit they use in the temple film, we think.  We haven't bought one yet as we are in a hotel but once we do, will let you know if we are right.

We went to a second market that was a specialty market for organic foods since Hermana Moore is into that.  We decided that Marilyn Garrett would do fine down here serving because they have so many different flours made from other things than wheat.  It is a paradise for gluten free items here it seems.  We didn't buy too many things as we are still living out of our suitcases and in a hotel room but it was very interesting to look around. 

Here is a picture of a tree that was next to this market.  They call it a trumpet flower tree.  Sister Kendall, an ESL missionary is in the photo with us.  Her husband is taking the picture.  They came with us to this market and we enjoyed getting to know them and hearing about their mission experiences so far.  They have been here for 5 months now.

We also were exposed to some street vendors that sell coconut water & meat, and a pineapple vendor.  It was the most delicious pineapple!

By this time our feet were complaining about all the walking and running around we had done for the last 5 hours.  We said our good-byes to Hermana Moore and the Kendalls and came back to the hotel, but not for long.  We took off again to see if we could set up a cell phone to work in Peru.  That was an ordeal.  It touk most of the rest of the night to get the phone activated and then to get minutes put on.  Most people do a prepay situation and it was not an easy task to make that happen.  It was 10:00 pm by the time we were done.

We did find an excellent Chinese food restaurant for dinner.  A much better experience than the night before.  We did pay more but still only spent less than $10 for both of our meals.

Today we attended church where the area staff and their families meet.  We met two mission presidents, the Ardilas from Colombia that are serving over the Lima East mission.  Their service ends at the end of the month so they were speaking in church.  It was quite funny because he was very confused to meet us at first.  You could tell he wondered why he hadn't been informed we were coming.  I had to clarify that we are serving up in Cuzco, not in Lima.  We sat by another mission president family, the Archibalds.  They are over the Lima West mission.  There were translating earphones to use since so many speak English.  They also have two Sunday School classes one in Spanish and one in English.

We met a sister member, Rut (that is Ruth in English) that is from Cuzco, grew up speaking Quechua.  She has been a member of the church for 24 years.  She has two sons still living in Cuzco who are not members.  One owns a restaurant called Sara, which means corn in Quechua.  We got his name and address and told her we will look him up and see if we can't do some missionary work with him as well.  He may be of help in PEF, if he can provide jobs to members.

Interestingly, while we were in Relief Society/Priesthood the building started shaking.  It shook for quite awhile and strong enough that some of the members got up out of their seats and headed for the doors.  So we experienced our first earthquake here in Peru!  It was a 5.5 quake and didn't do any damage, but it made the news.  Apparently it happens a few times each year in Lima, not sure if we will have that issue up in Cuzco.

We called our market friends, Jose & Juana Alvarez, after church and spoke to their cousin Miriam who lives up in Bountiful and is here for a visit.  She told us she has a relative that lives in Cuzco that is a dentist and is a member.  Yeah, I want to find a dentist in Cuzco.  We told her we would really like to hook up with her cousins again before we go.  She will talk to them and see if we can make that happen.

We had another missionary moment later in the day as we were out walking.  In Lima they have security guards everywhere.  One stopped us and asked us if we were Mormons.  Apparently the church is well known in Lima because of the temple and the membership is about 5% of the population in the capital city.  We had a nice discussion with him.  He had been taking the missionary discussion and going to church and stopped because of his work schedule.  We encouraged him to return and make time.  Later I wished I had been more direct and more powerful, but hopefully we will see him again before we leave and have another opportunity to bear testimony.

We had dinner with another missionary couple, the Kendalls, who fixed us a very nice meal and even had ice cream for dessert.  Once we get up to Cusco, there are not going to be that many opportunities to connect with other senior couples, but that will hopefully allow us to focus on the work and be more diligent.

Spiritual Thought for the week - Pres. Uchdorf, April 2014 Conference - Are You Sleeping Through the Restoration?

"I testify that the cleansing power of the Atronement of Jesus Christ and the transformative power of the Holy Ghost can heal and rescue mankind.  It is our privilege, our sacred duty, and our joy to heed the Savior's call t follow Him with a willing mind and full purpose of heart.  Let us "shake off the chains with which we are bound and come forth out of obscurity,and arise from the dust."

Let us be awake and not be weary of well-doing, for we "are laying the foundation of a great work, even preparing for the return of the Savior."