Technology is Great!

Wow, October already.  We had a good week that was capped off by being able to listen to all sessions of conference via the internet.  We were so grateful to be able to hear conference as if we were sitting in our family room in Utah.  Well, not quite as good since the internet here is slow and at times the download was delayed but for the most part it was good.  I couldn't help but be reminded of what conference was like when I served in El Salvador 35 years ago.  Oh, that's right.  There was no general conference available.  We had to wait until the Ensign arrived with the conference talks in them and then we would read and study them.  That was it.  Next week, they broadcast the conference to the members so we will hear it twice, but this next time will have Spanish voice overs for all but the two talks that were given in Spanish.

Sunday was election day down here.  They do not hold church meetings on election days.  It is against the law to have anything conflict with being able to vote, so the church members here had no church.  We learned that in Peru you get fined if you don't vote so people do everything they can to vote.  Sometimes they have to travel back to their home town to vote and if the fine is less than the cost of travel, they just pay the fine.

But political ads were everywhere.  They don't have a two party system here.  Each candidate is identified by a symbol so those who are illiterate can still vote.  We must have seen somewhere between 6-10 different symbols.  Here are some photos just to give you an idea of what we were seeing. 

Guys driving around in trucks with flags and signs were pretty common.  Sometimes there would even be people cheering for their candidate in the back of the pick up.

The candidate above, for example,  his symbol is the vicuna and the candidates below used the wheat symbol.

 Here are two more.  The ones above use the shovel.  We figure they represent the labor party and below the symbol is the typical inca cap.

During the week there was a lot of loudspeakers blaring out of candidates' headquarters and caravans of vehicles with balloons and signs and people piled in the back of pick-ups cheering for their candidate.  We tried to learn what the political candidates stood for, but no one was able to give us a real good idea. 

We spent Sunday at the other missionary couple's apartment watching conference and having lunch with them.  She fixed the best roast (lomo fino is what the cut is called here) and Dave prepared a potato salad that was delicious (nothing to compete with Cyndee's salad however).  For dessert she had baked a chocolate Texas sheet cake with chocolate pecan frosting that was amazing.  We ate a big piece of that and were on a sugar high the rest of the day.

There is an empty apartment right next to theirs that we looked at and I am convinced we need to move there.  It seems to address most of our complaints with our current apartment.  Dave is holding out to find something even closer to the chapel.  So far everything we've seen closer to the self-reliance office is not adequate or very pricey. We're seeing more and more rain, and some of the storms come with pretty heavy rainfall.  It just makes Dave more determined to find something closer to the office.

Saturday was the hottest day we've had here.  It got all the way up to 74 (which is 23 centigrade) and it felt downright hot!  Dave was involved in a service project helping a member build a new roof on his house.  Apparently, the rains had caused his roof to cave in.  It was made of logs and straw and tin pans.  Dave said there wasn't a single nail used in the construction.  They had tied everything together with leather straps.  Here are some photos of the work.  He recruited the four missionaries serving in that ward to help.

You can see them hauling away old bamboo that was used for the old roof.  You can also see the adobe bricks they've made being dried in the sun.  Below is a sample of their bamboo construction.

Below is where the roof caved in and they are working on fixing.

We ate at Chili's twice this past week as we treated these four missionaries to lunch and their schedules didn't allow them to go at the same time.  These four missionaries - Elder Talavera (from Lima, who is an awesome missionary) and his companion who is new to the mission, Elder Webb went on Monday and Elder Gallegos, who is set to finish up his mission this month and Elder Bird - were a big help to us with the Career Workshop we had just finished so we wanted to thank them.   Dave didn't much care for Chili's in the states but he is learning to really appreciate the daily specials they have here.

We had some wonderful experiences this week with the spirit guiding us and providing revelation on behalf of some of the members we are trying to help.  It has been gratifying to see the scripture "ask and you shall receive" apply to us here on our mission as well as the scripture "For it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say."

 On Wednesday we met with Jose, the head of household for this family in financial distress, and his bishop.  We were truly guided by the spirit in what we said and how we handled working with the father.   That morning while at the center, I came across some articles on self-reliance and finances that were exactly what we needed for that meeting.  I was also led to D & C 104:78-80 that fit perfectly with his situation, but it wasn't until we were in the meeting that it was clearly given to me how to teach from this scripture and the invitation that needed to be given to him and his family to pray in faith for deliverance from their financial bondage.  Dave as well was inspired to share a personal experience he had had as a young father with his down syndrome daughter, Danielle, that could apply to this situation.  We truly felt the spirit in this meeting.

The second experience came Saturday night and Sunday when we were approached by a leader from the Picchu ward we've been working with.  On behalf of the bishop he shared with us some of their concerns for 2-3 families in their ward that are struggling financially and how they hope we can help solve the problem.  It was very disconcerting as their solution is not in harmony with the counsel we received during our training.  We set up a time to meet personally with the bishop in this regard.  We went home and earnestly prayed for help in dealing with this challenge and then went to bed.  The next morning both Dave & I during our scripture study had strong impressions as to what counsel we needed to give this bishop and how we need to approach this problem.  We don't meet with the bishop until next Sunday but it was such a relief to get a clear answer to our prayers so quickly.

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  Your life is carefully watched over, as was mine.  The Lord knows both what He will need you to do and what you will need to know to do it.  You can with confidence expect that He has prepared opportunities for you to learn.  You will not recognize those opportunities perfectly, as I did not.  But when you put the spiritual things first in your life, you will be blessed to feel directed toward certain learning, and you will be motivated to work harder.  --Henry B Eyring