Down to Business

Well, we finally did it.  We've had a fairly boring week.  No travels, no excursions, no fun activities, just work.  And it's about time!  We hit our two month mark yesterday, so we better be getting into the groove of missionary work by now.

Our leader, Carlos Hale and his companion, Javier Caseros, took a trip to Puerto Maldonado the first of the week and left us in charge of the Self-Reliance Center.  Puerto Maldonado is in the Amazon jungle area of our mission near the border with Bolivia.  We, mostly Dave, would like to visit there at some point.  It is tropical and warm all year round.  Apparently you can catch tours from Puerto Maldonado out to the jungle to see the wildlife.  But this time we stayed home and held down the fort.  Which was not as easy as you would have thought.

This is a photo we found off of the internet of Puerto Maldonado. We have not visited here ...yet!

We have three sisters who volunteer time and help run the center.  One had her baby three weeks ago and isn't currently coming in.  Another sister had family visiting from out of town this week so she didn't come in at all.  That left us with one sister and she came down sick and missed Tuesday completely and came in late Wednesday.  I am pleased to report that we managed pretty well on our own.  We were able to help the people that came in for the most part.  We did have to make a couple of calls to Brother Hale on a few things, but other than that we did pretty well. 

Part of the battle is convincing the members that we truly can help them and they don't have to resort to Brother Hale or one of the other sisters.  I think as we are here longer that will become less and less of a problem, I hope.

We completed week two of our English classes.  The number of participants has swelled to the point where for some of the classes we have to divide into two groups and both Dave and I teach that hour.  This week's class was based on talking about family.  We have noticed that the younger members seem to pick things up so much easier than the older ones.  So if you are going to learn a language, do it while you are young!

Tuesday, we also had our teacher for the Planning for Success Workshop not make it in to teach and we had three members there to take the first lesson.  Once again, I had to fill in last minute with no advance notice.  I did have a teacher's manual to follow but it was a challenge.  I think I did better than the last time this happened though.

We've been asked by the Institute director if we could teach a class.  We told him only if it was Provident Living as that would dovetail with our calling.  He said he was amiable to that and will get us a manual.  However, it doesn't look like we will be teaching that as Javier Caseros already offers that to the members.  Now they are talking about having us teach a Book of Mormon class in English for those members who have more advanced English skills.

Last Sunday  we had a long but very enjoyable Sabbath.  We started out attending our ward, where Zoila, one of our volunteers, blessed her baby.  Dave got to be part of the circle and it was a good thing, as there were only two other men, the father and a friend that participated.  They named their baby Nathan, surprisingly.  The father's name is Jimmy. We have also met a lot of men named William, Freddy, & Percy down here.  Those are not Spanish names. Where they come from we have no idea.

Our ward also just did a temple trip to the Cochabamba Bolivia temple and so testimony meeting was almost exclusively sharing testimonies by those who went about that experience.  It was a week long trip, requiring a couple days of travel each way.  It was very moving to hear them talk about the sacrifices they had made and how the Lord had opened up doors to make it possible for them to go.  It's about a two day trip just to get there and many do not have a lot of disposable income to do something like this very often.  We are sure spoiled in Utah.

Cochabamba, Bolivia temple.  This is off the web as well.  We did NOT travel to take this photo.

Last Sunday, we also decided we would join the choir that is practicing for the Cusco stake conference that is at the end of August.  We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.  The practice went three hours!!  They are learning Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and it is way beyond their abilities.  Not sure if we will stick with this endeavor.  We will definitely miss this week's practice.

Once Brother Hale returned from Puerto Maldonado, he put us to work getting ready for an open house the center is hosting for the leaders of the Cusco stake this Sunday, August 10th.  Friday we spent all afternoon cleaning and straightening up so we can give a tour to all those who come.  It is hoped that each bishopric and the high council members along with the stake presidency and their wives will attend.  We've been told to plan on 30 people.  We will have a short program in which Cindy has been asked to give a talk and Dave will bear his testimony among other speakers and there will be a question and answer period, a tour of the center and we will provide refreshments at the end, which we were given the bulk of the responsibility to prepare.

Yesterday, we finally had some time to do some housekeeping at our apartment and then we headed over to the other stake in Cusco, Inti Raymi, for their stake conference meetings.  Saturday at 4 pm was the leadership meeting and we were hoping that would help us meet some of the bishops and other leaders we need to work with in that stake.  We also attended the Saturday evening session that started at 6:30 pm.  Poor David, he had to sit through two two hour sessions.  Luckily, the visiting general authority, Frederico Calderon an area seventy, was a very animated and entertaining speaker.  We got to speak to him at the end of the evening session.  We also were able to meet some of the bishops for a few of the wards in that stake.

Even though we didn´t travel or go sightseeing anywhere this past week, while we were out and about doing errands we stumbled across the municipal theater and had to step inside and take a few photos.  We try not to take the same route every time we go somewhere so we can get better familiar with the city and this time we were able to enjoy exploring this theater.

This door was what got our attention.  Dave would have loved to take this home with us.

In the lobby of the theater.  Dave, your tour guide, points out the amazing mural on one side of the lobby.

This was my favorite part of the theater.  In the lobby above the entrance were all these typical Peruvian instruments but gigantic in size.

Ceiling mosaics found in the theater.

 In the different lobbies were these llama statues.  Three in the entrance lobby, these above in another smaller lobby along with a condor statue and these below in the open balcony above the main lobby.

How's this for a gilded mirror frame?  Like the artistic effect Dave used to catch both of us in the photo?

 We peeked inside the theater.  It was pretty modern and plain compared to the lobby and entrance.  You see this golden disc around Cusco a lot.

 

To all you older readers of this blog, just want to let you know we have discovered the way to lose weight without even trying - serve a foreign mission.  Both Dave and I have lost weight since we've been down here.  I've lost 10.5 pounds or 4.5 kilos in 5 weeks.  Not sure how much Dave has lost, but his clothes are looser on him as well.  So one more reason to plan on serving a mission, it can be good for your health.

Spiritual Thought of the Week:  Area Seventy Fernando Calderon in his talk to the Inti Raymi stake encouraged them to be diligent in their scripture study.  To illustrate his plea he talked about the Israelites in the desert and the fiery serpents and how many of the Israelites would not look at the brazen serpent due to the easiness of the way.  He said we in our time read about this situation and we think, "How dense were they to not look?"  He then reminded the members that studying the scriptures is an easy thing to do as well.  He asked them if generations from now, people will say the same thing about us, "How dense were they to not read their scriptures?" 

John 5:39  Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life:  and they are they which testify of me.