Three Month Mark

Three months we've been serving as missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or should I say la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias.

We had a much better week.  It took me until Thursday to be back to mostly full steam and able to handle a full day's worth of work.  Tuesday Dave had to go it alone.  I was in bed the whole day.  I think my sickness helped Dave to become more fluent in Spanish and more confident in his abilities.  He didn't have me to rely on so he was forced to do it himself.  It was good for him.  I've noticed that he is doing a much better job with his Spanish now. 

We made up for a slower start to the week by working extra hard over the weekend.  On Friday we learned that all the branch presidents in the mission and the district presidencies were in Cusco for training meetings on Saturday.  We finagled our way onto the program so we could hopefully get the priesthood leaders to help us get good current contact information for our PEF recipients from their units.  So we quickly had to come up with a 10 minute talk.  So we decided to review what President Hinckley´s vision for the PEF program was when he introduced it and talk to them about how that isn´t always how it turns out.  We asked them to please emphasize to their members that PEF is a loan and they need to have integrity to pay it back.  Of course, I was the one to deliver that message.  I was willing to do it so we could get all this contact information at one time rather than having to make multiple phone calls.  This was Saturday afternoon.

Dave took this photo from the back before our presentation.

Then Saturday night we held our first Career Workshop with the Picchu ward.  We prepared for 31 as that is how many had signed up but never believed we would get even close to that number at the class.  Boy were we surprised!  We had 24 come.  That is about 2/3rds.  We took two hours to go over the first class.  Most are wanting help either starting or improving their own businesses.  The Career Workshop is more for job seekers and the lessons are geared towards helping them with interview skills, networking, writing a good resume, etc.   The church doesn't have material out in Spanish for self-employment until the end of September, so I hope the members aren't too disappointed.  We will encourage them to continue with the new workshop once they complete this one.  Dave was back up support but I really had to handle the whole two hours.  It went pretty well.  I will be really glad when Dave can present parts of each workshop.

The full-time missionaries helped us out as well and we are grateful for that as a number of them are native speakers.  One of them took photos and shared them with me.

Here is Dave welcoming the members to the class.  As you can see we only have one row of participants at this point.  As the priesthood holder I always try to get Dave to at least welcome the class and call on someone for prayer.

Here is what the workshop ended up looking like once everyone got there.

He got a good shot of us in action.  I'm walking them through how to do one of the activities in the workbook.


Sunday we attended our home ward for the first time in a long time so could be sure to pay our tithing and fast offerings.  We decided to take some photos of the mural that we walk by everytime we go to that meeting house.  It is a pretty cool mural depicting different areas and locations that are of interest to tourist.

 This one above shows the jungle area of Peru.

 In this one you can see Sacsayhuaman or sexy woman whichever way you want to say it.

 Of course the famous Macchu Picchu.

Close up of the Sacsayhuaman with Cusco in the background.

 Close up showing a condor flying over the inca ruins.

 Dave having a stare down with one of the natives.

 This Peruvian lady and I are good buds.

 Here depicts Tipon, a city where the Incas built very complex water systems.  We've been told it is a must see.  As well as this one below that depicts Moray, another archeological site that is a popular tourist site close to Cusco.

 

This one is at the corner where the mural curves around.  It shows the golden disc that you can see everywhere and then has a saying that is also popular, "Cusco ombligo del mundo".  It cracks me up because ombligo means navel or belly button.  A literal translation would be Cusco, belly button of the world.  But apparently they use the expression ombligo del mundo to communicate the idea that the world revolves around that object.  I think the idea is to say Cusco is the center of the world after all, Cusco was the center of the Inca empire.

After attending fast and testimony meeting and breaking our fast, we headed out to Sicuani, a small town about a 2.5 hour drive from Cusco for a PEF fireside.  We have a new PEF specialist for that stake.  The one we trained back in July didn´t work out. But this one is really dedicated and got this organized right off the bat.  We were supposed to be there at 5 pm but didn't get there until 5:45.  We kept having to pull over on the drive out to take phone calls from the church leaders in Puerto Maldonado (the big city out in the jungle).  Our PEF specialist there, who is 34 years old,  had what appeared to be an anuersym burst earlier that day and they were seeking advice on what to do for him.  Carlos Hale & Javier kept asking Dave for advice.  Dave's medical training and background came in handy as he was able to tell them to have the brother do a few activities to test the damage.  He apparently had facial paralysis on the left side of his face but equal strength in each of his hand grips, which Dave said was a good indication that the damage was not as severe.  But the hospital out in Puerto Maldonado is not well equipped and had only recommended that he seek some physical therapy for his paralysis.  They were able to convince him to fly in to Cusco on Monday and see a neurologist and get a tomography of the brain done.

We met him today just before he was flying home.  It turns out that he has an inflammed nerve that is pinched, thus causing the paralysis.  Dave was stumped because one of the questions he had them ask was if he had a fever because that indicates inflammation.  But their response to that had been no.  But we were relieved to hear that it wasn´t anything more serious.

Back to our Sicuani activities.  So we started the Sicuani fireside about 5:45 pm and didn't finish until 8 pm.  Long fireside huh?  But we had good attendance and they had a lot of questions we were able to answer.  I played the piano for the hymns and I was excited to play on a real piano.  Most of the chapels have electric pianos.  This was a Yamaha and it was actually in tune and had a very nice touch.  It seemed fairly new.  It is the best piano I have played on here in Peru.  Funny, that a small town in Peru would have the best piano I've seen.

I also gave a talk, which I had to change when we were about a half hour away from Sicuani since that is when I found out what they really wanted me to talk about which was not the same thing I had presented at our last fireside in Puno back in July.  Good thing I've given a few other talks since then.  I was able to quickly adapt my talk to the branch presidents for this fireside.  I introduced ourselves, told them how we can help them, then reviewed what President Hinckley's vision was for the PEF when he first announced about it 13 years ago.  I spent quite a bit of my time emphasizing to them that this is a loan and the need for them to be true to the commitment to pay it back.

Dave gave the same talk he prepared for our Puno fireside, but this time did a much better job.  He didn't make very many pronunciation errors and he was able to pause and give better inflection to his sentences so his delivery was so much better.

The stake president talked after Carlos Hale gave his presentation and we were quite impressed with him and his advice to the members to quit buying items that drain them financially or going into debt too soon and focus on buying items that generate income and hold off making big purchase items (like a house) until they are better off financially.

We had good attendance and they all stayed the whole time.  Here is some photos Dave took somehow.

We had to stay the night in Sicuani.   I was a bit nervous as to what type of accomodations we would have due to the small size of the town.  We pulled up and it wasn't much to look at, but to our amazement, it was a VERY nice place.  We took quite a few photos so brace yourself.


 The photo above shows the view we had as we walked out of our room.

 This is the inner patio/courtyard area.  Very pretty, huh?

 A sitting area.

They had a lot of wrought iron and plants around which gave it a very pretty atmosphere.  The paintings they had were of dancers in native costume.  Here are some samples.

This last one shows a dance where the men wear masks.  The one with the long nose is a caricature of a Spaniard.  They were seen as having big noses compared to the Indian population apparently.

The owner is an antique afficionado and had many of his antiques on display. Here are some samples.

 For Alyssa & Kelan, here are some reminders of your England/London days.

 This was my favorite.  A really old sewing machine where you turn the handle on top to make the needle go up and down.  Anyone have any idea what era that comes from?

These were on display in the reception area.  Pretty cool typewriter, don't you think?

Then for the older generation, does this bring back memories?

We also were in for another surprise when we briefly turned on the TV and channel surfed and found ourselves watching BYU television....in Peru!!  Crazy.  I never expected to see that.  Here's the proof.

We had to get up bright and early to head back to Cusco as Monday was the returning missionary seminar that starts at 9 am.  On the way back we drove past a pretty bad accident.  Why we don´t see more of them with the way people drive here is beyond me.  A small pick up truck had flipped over.  It was full of boxes and things in the back that were scattered and all the cab´s windows were shattered out.  We didn´t see any people in the truck so they must have taken care of that before we got there. 

We got back just in time for Carlos Hale to start the seminar.  We headed home to shower and change.  Our part of the seminar didn´t start until 11 am.  We teach the Career Workshop during a two hour time frame so it really is just an introduction and hit the highlights enough to hopefully get them to check out the full class at their local center. 

This group of returning missionaries was mostly sisters.  We had 8 missionaries in all, 6 of whom were sisters and only one of the missionaries was from the states.  The rest were all latinamerican.  We actually knew two of the missionaries.  The one from the states had served in the Cusco zone as his last area and the other sister that we knew was the sister I had gone out with during the missionary invasion that took place during our first week or two here in Cusco.   I had been pretty impressed with Hermana Gomez.  She had been very confident, and easily taught the members we had visited.  She used the power of testimony well. 

I was much more comfortable teaching a group made up of mostly sisters.  I was smart enough to have them introduce themselves a bit and I was able to find out that most of them were well into their studies and some even had jobs already liined up for them upon their return.  This helped me adapt the presentation to what they needed.  I also am now much more confident with my Spanish speaking ability.  At the lunch break I asked the sisters how I could improve my Spanish and they thought I was kidding.  They said I do great right now.  I had really hoped for some suggestions for improvement.  Dave was my technical support for the videos we showed.  He has six weeks before the next round and I hope he will be able to teach part of that.  I think he should be ready.

Here is the photo of this group of returning missionaries.

L-R  Sister Parraga, Hermana Rhoades, Elder Rhoades, Elder Ortiz, Elder Jones, Presidente Harbertson.  Middle row L-R  Hermana Del Rio, Hermana Huaman, Hermana Enriquez,  Front row L-R Hermana Oliveras, Hermana Gomez.

This weekend we had the opportunity to get to know the other senior couple that is serving in the Cusco mission, the Sandbergs.  They are serving in the area of member support services and were asked by the mission president to serve out in Abancay.  He is serving as a branch president and his wife works a lot with the sister missionaries and the members.  They had come in for the branch president seminar.  We went out to eat Friday night with them when they first arrived.  They were interested in eating American food so we took them to Chili's.

This is their second mission together, the third for him.  He served originally as a youth in Central America.  Their first mission was in the mountains of Guatemala, pretty rough conditions, but it didn't deter them from serving again and this time they find themselves in Peru.

We also got together with them and Elder & Sister Hasler on Monday night for another dinner, this time at an Italian restaurant near the Plaza de Armas (tourist central) so it was a bit pricey, relatively speaking.  My lasagna was still under $15 but I guess we've become accustomed to the more typical prices of around $5 a plate.

Before hooking up with them Monday evening, I finished up working with a gal from Sweden who is a member of the church and had come over to do some humanitarian projects.  She needed some help translating so I helped her on two different occasions.  She was gathering stories from a small village and plans on publishing a book.  From the sales of the book, she is hoping to make enough money to purchase a vehicle for the village to use to help them transport their products to the market for sale.  Look what she gave me as a thank you present!

A huge bar of Swedish chocolate.  She says Daim is a real popular brand of chocolate over there.  It is much better than any chocolate I can find here in Peru.  It tastes a lot like a Hershey symphony bar.  And since I've lost 15 pounds since being here in Peru, I don't feel a bit guilty if I eat the whole thing myself!

Here is a photo of her with the Haslers in the Plaza de Armas on Monday night as we went our separate ways.  She was leaving to return to Sweden the next day.  Her name is Jenny Geuken and she is now part of our mission experience.

We took quite a bit more photos this week round about Cusco and our daily lives, but since this is now quite long already, I think those will be part of next week's post.  I don't think we will have quite as active of a weekend or week for that matter.

Spiritual Thought:  Not every prayer is answered so quickly.  But truly our Father knows us and hears the pleadings of our hearts.  He accomplishes His miracles one prayer at a time, one person at a time.  We can trust that He will help us, not necessarily in the way we want but in the way that will best help us to grow.  Submitting our will to His may be difficult, but it is essential to becoming like Him and finding the peace He offers us.  C.S. Lewis said, "I pray because I can't help myself.  I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping.  It doesn't change God.  It changes me."  General  Conference talk, "Fear Not; I Am With Thee"  April 2014  Jean A Stevens