A Trying Week

This has probably been one of the hardest weeks we've had on our mission.  I guess it can't all be a bed of roses and we have to taste the bitter to know the sweet.

I have been sick all week.  It started the Saturday of our English party with a terrible sore throat and it proceeded to worsen from there.  Despite trying to take it easy and rest, it just got worse.  As of this writing (Nov. 19th), I am still sick so I am on day 11.  It has really hindered how much work we've been able to do.

I think it also possibly contributed to a spirit of contention that has existed between Dave and I.  Satan truly doesn't want the work to move forward and we have started to see small but significant advances.  Both of us have had to humble ourselves and repent of our errors and make a greater effort to live close to the Spirit.  Being on a mission seems to magnify these offenses.  Serving the Lord full time can also be a refining experience as all returned missionaries can testify.  No wonder the missionaries need so much the prayers of the members! I found this video on the church's website about the refiner's fire. If you want to watch it, here is the link.  http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?=3897359657001&cid=HPTU111814487  The spiritual thought at the end of the post this week speaks to this topic as well.

The other stake here in Cusco, the Inti Raymi stake, has finally gotten on board with self-reliance.  This is a major miracle!  They have called a stake specialist who went to our training retreat in Valle Sagrado and this Sunday they actually held a stake self-reliance committee meeting which Dave attended and came back very enthused and excited about how the members reacted to the training they gave -  a big step forward!  And even more amazing is they have designated a room at the stake center as the self-reliance center for their members.  Now to get the word out to the members.

Dave standing in front of the Inti Raymi stake center.  It is by far the biggest chapel in Cusco and one of the newer ones as well.  I love the hat he is wearing.  It makes him look British, but it works great as a sun protector for his head.

Here I am in the new office.  It is pretty austere right now.  We will need to encourage the stake leaders to brighten it up.

Dave and I have committed to being at the Inti Raymi center on Wednesday and Friday mornings with the idea of training the stake specialist and any volunteers we can manage to recruit.  This week was our first week of going over there.  The specialist didn't show, but we did get a few visitors.

One visitor in particular was a counselor in the bishopric of the Cusco ward.  He was wanting to know how we can help his members as their economic situation is not the best.  Yahoo!  Another field white and ready to harvest.  He got excited upon hearing about the new workshops set to be released and said he would take that information back to his bishop.  We will need to do a follow up visit to their ward.

We started English classes with the missionaries of the Inti Raymi zone, which are Wednesday and Friday mornings since we are over there with the center.  What a different feel!  They are so much more quiet and serious than the missionaries in the Cusco zone.  Not as much comaraderie between them either.  Anyway, we gotta build more energy into the classes.  I hope that will come with time.

Dave has been meeting with the Ponce family in Picchu ward, advising them on ideas to improve their income levels.  He has had various talks with them, but has been sure to let them know they have the individual responsibility to solve their own problems and we are here to help.  He used Brother Ponce to do some work in preparing the new apartment so we could provide some extra income to them.

The Cuadros family has gone by the wayside as I´ve been too sick to do more than the minimum and Dave has been busy with our move.  Next week we will have make a contact with them.

One fun thing we did this past week was take one of our favorite English students, Empe Dolmo, out to lunch with her two kids.  Her birthday was Nov. 4th, but the 10th was the earliest we could squeeze in time to treat her to a meal out.  Since it was a Monday, we ran into a few missionaries eating at Chili's on their P-day.  Dave recruited them to join the waiters in singing happy birthday to her  as they brought her a complimentary scoop of ice cream.  Cusquenos love ice cream.  It is customary to clap while singing the birthday song.  They sing it in English and then the Spanish version.

L-R:  Karolayne, her 17 yr. old daugher, Victor, her 14 year old son and Empe, the birthday girl.

Most of our attention this past week went towards making the move to our new apartment a reality.  We didn't get any help from Henry Guerra who is over the church facilities.  He means well, but he doesn't seem to know how to move quickly, so Dave took things into his own hands and made sure we didn't lose this apartment.

The contract is still being worked out but the owners are members so they have a lot of confidence in the church.  The wife´s dad worked in the institute programs here in Cusco for many years before retiring.

Since we don't have a lot of things here, it didn't take long to pack things up, but it still took two trips with the hired truck to get things moved.  It took all day Saturday.  It didn´t help that the truck was scheduled to arrive at 1 pm and didn´t show up until 2 pm.  That is life in Peru.  Punctuality is not their forte.  Dave had asked a few members to come help, which was a good thing, and the missionaries from the Picchu ward (4 of them) came over to give service as well.

It was a bit tricky getting our king size bed up the stairwell and every piece of furniture and box had to be carted up two flights of stairs as we are now on the third floor.  By the end, we all were exhausted and the next day our legs were feeling it.

 Calif, in purple and Julio in green were two of our helpers.  They show off how tired they were after helping all day.  We took them out for dinner afterwards.  Chicken seems to be the hands down favorite of Cusquenos.

Here is a view from one of the bedroom windows.  We are directly across the street from one of the train stations here in Cusco.  This train goes to Puno & Arequipa so it is not the real busy station that Machu Picchu is.  The two hills in the background are the ones we lived by in our previous apartment.

We are now only about two blocks from the chapel.  On Monday we left our apartment 5 minutes before we needed to be at the center whereas before we had to leave about 30 minutes before needing to be there.

We are still settling in, but here are some photos of what the apartment looks like.

 This is our apartment building from the outside.  We are on the top floor on the left.  Dave is bending down near the brown metal door that we enter at.

 View from the front door, and yes, our bed is in the living room.  It gives the apartment a hotel feel, but the bedrooms face the street and the first night, Saturday, the traffic was pretty heavy well into the night.  I couldn't sleep and finally went out and slept on the couch.  Dave stuck it out but says he didn't sleep all that well, so we brainstormed and this is what we came up with.  If we can find sound deadening curtains, than we may move the bed back into the bedroom and give it another try, but for now, it stays in our living room.  We figured a good night's sleep was more important than aesthetics. We don't have that many visitors anyway.

View from the other side of the living room.  You can see we are using a tarp as the curtain...for now.

The kitchen is good size but lacked storage space.  Dave built some shelves for the kitchen that were simple to make and functional.

View looking into the kitchen above shows the shelves Dave made.  Below is a view looking out from the kitchen.  It had an opaque glass window that we decided to take out so we can easily hand food from the kitchen to the table.  Dave has promised to put a curtain rod up and allow me to have a curtain there so when we do get a rare visitor or two they can't see into the kitchen.  We do not have a separate laundry room so the washer and dryer are in the kitchen hooked up to the kitchen sink when being used.

I just had to include a photo that shows off the tile color used in the kitchen.  We don't know what the builder was thinking, perhaps he got a good price.   But it will take some getting use to, if that is even possible. The kitchen size is actually larger than the other two apartments we considered getting and many apartments we looked at so I don't want to complain, but I definitely wanted to get a photo in as a picture is worth a 1,000 words.

The shower is a work in progress.  Right now it is just a tube coming out of the wall, no shower head.  After 3 days of no shower, it was great to just have warm running water to bathe in.  So now it definitely feels like we are living in a 3rd world country!  No more high society penthouse mansion for us.  But that doesn't mean we don't want family and friends to come visit us.  The hotel prices are very reasonable and we live close to a number of them.   We'd probably even help pay for the cost since we are saving quite a bit of rent money with this move.

Just so you won't feel too sorry for us, here is a photo of the shower now, just minutes ago Dave installed a shower head!

Below you can see what we have done with the master bedroom.  It is a very glorified dressing room.  Here is the closet space.

 And below you can see our dresser.  The odd thing is this room has a post, not in the middle of the room but in an awkard position in the room, which limited what you can do in the room.  The bed was able to fit but I had to walk around the post to get into my side of the bed.  Currently we are using blankets for curtains in this room.  Since the church representative didn't help us with anything, we have been on our own to take care of all the arrangements.  Between being sick and trying to keep the self-reliance work going and moving forward, it has been difficult to find time to take care of all these things.  Especially since in Peru any task you need  to do typically will take much longer than you could do it in the states.

The other bedroom is being used as an office.  We finally have it somewhat organized so here is a photo.  The other side has a second bookshelf and it is from this window that I took our outside view.You can see the most beautiful sunsets from this room.  Not that we will be here often at that time of day, but since I've been sick and spending more time at home, I've witnessed a few.  I tried to take photos but the photos just didn't do them justice.

As you can see, it is much smaller and simpler than our first apartment.  The advantage to that is Dave ought to be able to hear me no matter what room I´m in and it is easy to heat if needs be, but being on the third floor it stays a lot warmer.  We also figured we stand a better chance of surviving if a major earthquake hits.  We won't have as many cement floors crashing down on top of us as we would have at the other apartment on the first floor. But honestly, we don't worry about that too often!

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  Being able to see ourselves clearly is essential to our spiritual growth and well-being.  If our weaknesses and shortcomings remain obscured in the shadows, then the redeeming power of the Savior cannot heal them and make them strengths.  Ironically, our blindness toward our human weaknesses will also make us blind to the divine potential that our Father yearns to nurture within each of us.

We must approach our Eternal Father with broken hearts and teachable minds.  We must be willing to learn and to change.  And, oh, how much we gain by committing to live the life our Heavenly Father intends for us.

Those who want to improve and progress, those who learn of the Savior and desire to be like Him, those who humble themselves as a little child and seek to bring their thoughts and actions into harmony with our Father in Heaven - they will experience the miracle of the Savior's Atonement.  They will surely feel God's resplendent Spirit.  They will taste the indescribable joy that is the fruit of a meek and humble heart.  They will be blessed with the desire and discipline to become true disciples of Jesus Christ.               Dieter F Uchdorft "Lord is it I?" General Conference Oct. 2014