Be Careful What You Wish For

or pray for... you just might get it.  During the first few weeks here in Peru, we weren't very busy and we didn't feel like we were contributing very much or like we were being diligent missionaries.  We prayed and wished for more work to do.  Well, now we have what we wished and prayed for, plenty of work!

August 10th we had a busy Sabbath day.  It was our mission president's 60th birthday and we were invited to a surprise birthday dinner in his honor.  It only involved the local senior missionaries, his assistants and the couples that work with him in the mission office so it wasn't a big group.  It was interesting to find out that President Harbertson is the same age as David, just 4 months older.

 Pres. Harbertson blowing out his candles.  You can see Dave practicing for his turn in December.

Here is the merry group.  L-R  Elder & Sister Hasler, document retrieval missionaries for family history, President & Sister Harbertson, the Rhoades, Veronica & Carlos Hale, unknown couple, Bro. & Sister Aguerra, mission secretary

 

We didn't get to stick around much, we had to eat and run because we also had our Self-Reliance Center Open House for the priesthood leaders of the Cusco stake that evening.  All the bishoprics for all the wards, the stake presidency members and their wives were all invited. It was well attended.  We had 42 people in attendance and it was a fairly big affair.  We had flowers for the office.  Below is an example of one of the arrangements. Look at the flowers not me (not the greatest photo of me)

 



You can also see an example of the English posters we use for our English classes.

 

We also had a program.  I spoke and introduced Dave & I and gave a little background of how we came about to be serving in Cusco.  Told them about the big long delay in getting our call and the obstacles we had to overcome to get out on the mission.  Then told them with how hard we had worked to get on a mission we wanted to make sure we worked hard while here in Cusco and we asked for their help.  I had also been given the assignment to plead for volunteers to help us man the center.  Dave bore his testimony.  It was short & sweet since he is still struggling with Spanish.  Each of the other volunteers bore their testimonies, Javier & Carlos both spoke on Self-Reliance and the stake president, Mario Garcia spoke.  He is great!  He is very supportive of the center and our activities.

 

After the program we invited them all to visit the center and see what resources we have.

It was a bit crowded as you can see.  This photo shows a bit of both rooms.  The leaders are in the room with the six new laptop computers, but you can see through the window that connects to our other room as well, where we have two desktop computers and printer.

 

We also served refreshments.  Not just a few nuts or cookies and punch.  We served a full meal it seems.  We served two types of empanadas (which are very popular here), chicken & cheese, a veggie tray, drinks and cake.

 

It must have been a success because we've been busy ever since with lots of people coming in to the center for help.

 

English classes continue.  It is always anybody's guess as to how many will show up for each class.  Sometimes we have to divide the group and we both teach.  Other times we are lucky if we have three to four people there.  We do have a handful of faithfuls that are coming to every lesson.

 

We started the Career Workshop this week.  We found a teacher to present the class who has experience with this workshop.  He taught it down in Lima before moving to Cusco.  He is also in his branch presidency and starting his own business so I hope he will be able to keep his commitment.  Now we just have to get the members to attend.

 

We also met with the leaders of the Picchu ward.  They have caught the vision of self-reliance.  They are asking us to help them present the Career Workshop to all their members. I told them it was really important that they be taught the underlying spiritual principles first and then the workshop so it was decided that we would meet with their ward on the 5th Sunday during the combined priesthood/relief society hour and talk about self-reliance principles and then each Saturday in September we are going to present one of the 4 lessons included as part of the Career Workshop.  It is their hope that if their members don't necessarily need help finding work right now, they will learn something they can pass on to others that they know who do need the help.  It should be interesting to see how this turns out.

 

We received some additional training from Lima this week as well via telephone conferencing.  This training was on the system that tracks the PEF recipients and their loan status.  I have been exploring the system and trying to figure things out and some of the things taught I had managed to master on my own, but I did learn a few new things that were very helpful.  There are a couple of surveys we are supposed to do with each recipient, which this training helped me learn how to handle and register in the system.  One is a graduation survey and the other is a work survey.  We are behind in all these tasks because we didn't understand the system.  We have 52 graduation surveys needing to be done and we have 245 PEF recipients (and growing) that we need to stay in contact with and track.  We received this training on Tuesday.

 

I really feel this is a mountain that needs to be conquered and it has been such a struggle.  So I determined that I would faithfully make phone calls the remainder of the week.  I wish I could report good success, but it was a flop.  So many of the recipients' contact information seems to be out of date.  Even the alternative contact information wasn't very useful.  But I did learn how to look up their bishop's contact information and stake president's information as well.  It may be slow going to get everything verified but hopefully once we do we'll be able to consistently contact them.  We learned that Cusco is in the bottom of the cellar for repayment of PEF loans.  That is not something to be proud of.  It needs to be a major emphasis for us to help turn that around.

 

By the time we hit Thursday evening when we attended our first Cusco stake self-reliance committee meeting I had devised a plan.  I asked the stake counselor to help us.  I told him I had made a list of all the recipients from his stake and that we needed help from the ward leaders to verify the contact information.  He said he would talk to all the bishops in a meeting he had scheduled for Sunday and that all I needed to do was get him my list.  I did that before the meeting was over.  Let's hope that will help.

 

Dave got to travel this week to Abancay with Carlos Hale.  I opted to stay in Cusco.  At that point, I was still hopeful regarding phone call success.  Plus I really needed some time for housekeeping items.  But to be truthful, a big factor in me choosing to stay home was what we were told the road was like to get there.  Abancay is lower in altitude than Cusco but you have to go down, then back over another mountain and then back down to reach Abancay.  Apparently, the road has many switchbacks that are quite acute and motion sickness and nausea are very common.  Dave was told to go without breakfast since it is easy with an empty stomach.  It is a 4.5 hour drive one way from Cusco to Abancay so they were planning on leaving Friday morning spending the night and coming back sometime on Saturday.  So it was the first time we worked apart since arriving in Cusco.

 

I did a lot of grunt work those two days.  I gave our apartment a good thorough cleaning, did laundry, walked all over doing errands, shopping at the markets, and working on a power point presentation for the Picchu ward and getting no where with phone calls (very frustrating).

 

Dave had a blast on his trip.  He did say he had some problems with the drive but while in Abancay he enjoyed his time.  I had given him a list of PEF recipients for that district and asked him to verify their contact information.  He came back with current telephone numbers.  He also met with some of the members who need help and met a number of the full-time missionaries out there.  He said it is much warmer, more tropical there.  He said there were banana trees, avocado trees, and mango trees.  Yup, that's tropical.  Here are some of the photos he took.

 Close up of an avocado hanging in the tree.  Here the word they use for avocado is palta.

Here is a close up of some bananas hanging in the tree.  So interesting how they grow!

 Dave says the taller tree on the left is an avocado tree and the taller tree on the right is a date tree.

 On the road to Abancay.  Apparently one of the straighter sections of the road.

I liked this photo because you can tell how high up in altitude they are since the shot is from the car window and the clouds are on level with the camera.

They passed this mountain which if it is snow covered, you know it has to be one of the higher peaks in Peru.  They are so high up it's like you're only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

 

Dave took quite a few photos of the tropical flowers they had there in Abancay.  Here are some of his photos.  I have no idea what types of flowers they are, except the first one does look like a daisy.  He says there were orchids there, but I don't think any of these are orchids, at least not the kind I am familiar with.

 



He said the hotel where he spent the night had a flower garden.  Here is a photo showing part of the garden. 

 

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  "What an amazing source of power, of strength, and of comfort is available to each of us.  He who knows us better than we know ourselves, He who sees the larger picture and who knows the end from the beginning, has assured us that He will be there for us to provide help if we but ask.  We have the promise:  'Pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good' [D&C 90:24]  ---President Thomas S. Monson  Ensign August 2014 "Heavenly Father Said No and Yes".