Abancay is the beginning

We started the week, (Jan 18) out in Abancay, a small city about a 6 hour drive from Cusco on a very curvy road up and over two mountain ranges.  The drive isn't too fun but Abancay is a treat.  It is at a much lower altitude so it is quite a bit warmer!  Yeah!  Dave visited back in August without me so this was my first chance to visit.  It is in a secluded valley and this time of year, a very green valley.

Here are some photos from our trip and fireside.  We were so high up at times that we were driving higher than the clouds.  It made me think of the movie titled A Walk in the Clouds.

 You can see the city of Abancay below in the photo above.  Below you can see a view of the countryside.  It is so green right now since we are in the rainy season.

 So many tiny villages and hamlets with their livestock out in the front yard.

 I like the photo below because it shows the road sign that we kept seeing over and over again - hairpin curve ahead.

Dave shows off the choclo, or corn on the cob, he bought from a roadside stand on the way out.  Hopefully you can see how huge the kernals are.  The Peruvians love to eat this corn.

There was quite a bit of water in the river this trip.

Of course no trip to Abancay would be complete without some photos of the tropical or semi-tropical plants you can see there.

We were told this was a type of tomato that has not reached maturity yet, but it was growing on a tree not from the ground.  So not sure exactly what this is.

We held our first fireside with the new program, Mi Camino a la Autosuficiencia (My Path to Self-Reliance).  We still do not have the church's printed materials so we did a do-it-yourself print job off the digital files you can find online at srs.lds.org.  It wasn't as professional and it cost a pretty penny but we were excited to finally be able to work with the members using this great program.

This photo shows the size of the meeting.  At the last minute we were told we were supposed to talk.  Great.  We thought we were only there for moral support and to field questions from the members.  We kept our part short.

After the meeting the members signed up for a follow up workshop based on what they determined their needs were at this initial fireside.

Carlos Hale, the area manager, fields questions.

Everyone excitedly discusses what they learned after the meeting.  Or maybe they are just talking about the weather as we had a very strong thunderstorm during the meeting.

Needless to say things didn't go completely smooth due to it being our first time but we learned from the experience and will make the adjustments needed.  Our next presentation is Feb. 1st in Urubamba, Sacred Valley an hour out from Cusco.

Monday we hosted both Elder Guevara, from Mexico and Elder Black, from Arizona to a birthday dinner.  They are companions and Elder Guevara had a birthday the Saturday before and Elder Black had his birthday Sunday, the day before.  We did a spaghetti dinner.  It had been so long since we had eaten spaghetti it tasted like heaven.  It helped that we had found cans of Hunts spaghetti sauce at the supermarket.

We also shared with them a video we really like that has a lot of life's lessons embedded in the animated video.  It is by Pixar, called Boundin'.  We found a Spanish version.

See my facebook page for the English version.  I'm not sure how to get that one linked to the blog.

Our area manager, Carlos Hale, traveled to Arequipa this week, and the other local member, Javier took his family down to Lima for a vacation and visit to the temple, so we were on our own to hold down the fort.  And it was a very busy week but we managed to do pretty well, I think.

We had a member come in and ask us to help her find members to work for her business.  She really preferred to hire church members.  There were 5 positions, all requiring computer skills and English ability, 4 basic English and 1 advanced English.  These are good quality jobs with good pay.  We have sent a number of members over.  We learned that 3 have been hired.  One in particular we were happy to hear was hired, a girl named Rubi.  She has been coming to our basic English classes and had asked us to help her find a job working on the computer.  We knew she had good computer skills and would be a good employee but she is only 19 and hadn't really had a real job yet.  She also has a speaking impediment that makes it a bit difficult to understand her and we were worried that employers would not look past that.  But luckily, their desire to hire members worked in her favor, I think and the fact that there are not a lot of people with good English skills kept the competition down.  What a great opportunity for her.  We wish her the best.

Another one hired is the oldest son of the Cusco stake president, Alan Garcia.  He has advanced English skills and was hired for that position.  Both he and we are excited about this opportunity for him to use his English skills in a work environment.

We did our first class using the new Education for a Better Employment material.  It still teaches a lot of the same things, just in a different format which requires more commitment and action from the students.  It will be interesting to see how the students preparation for applying for the Perpetual Education fund improves with this course.  The first four lessons follow the old program, but then they have two additional classes that talk about how to be an effective student in the classroom and outside of the classroom so it aims to teach them good study skills and provide them with other tools to be successful in their goal to graduate with a degree.

We now have a second group doing the self-employment workshop.  Our pilot group had the sixth lesson this week, which means they are halfway through the workshop.  The participants had to do a 3 minute presentation to the class members about their business and then they were able to get feedback from the group.  It turned out to be a very interesting and productive meeting.  Those that are doing the assignments and implementing the principles taught are progressing.  There are some that aren't and you can easily tell which ones they are.

We went right from that lesson over to the other stake center for the first lesson with the high councilmen in the Inti Raymi stake.  Our stake specialist was in charge, we just went to support him.  It is a good thing as he had misunderstood and had only prepared the initial My Foundation lesson which teaches a spiritual principle of self-reliance.  He was totally unprepared to teach the first lesson of the workshop.  Luckily I had the digital manual on my USB that I carry with me everywhere and the videos needed as well.  Considering his lack of preparation he did amazingly well, which speaks volumes for how well they have written the manual.  It is really designed so that anyone can handle facilitating a group if they will just follow the materials and we saw that in practice Saturday.

Saturday morning, after our institute training,we took a trip to Dave's favorite market, Barrattio.  I was looking for a typical dance costume for a fellow missionary and Dave was looking for one of his favorite things, pieces of eight.  I didn't find what I was looking for but ended up buying some other typical outfits that are actually from Bolivia or the altiplano area.

The shawl is surprisingly heavy but beautiful.  The slip is worn under the skirt with just a portion of the bottom lace part showing.  This one had sequins and everything.  I couldn't decide on which top skirt to buy so that will have to be on another trip.

Dave did get three more silver pieces of eight that he can now add to his collection.  He has 6 total now.

Spiritual Thought of the Week:  I read the article from the January Ensign on setting goals (Three Ways Setting Goals Can Be Different This Year) and it corresponds with what Elder Gay talked about in his September presentation to all church employees and what we teach the members when we are working with them on self-reliance.

1.  Know what God wants for you
2.  Know that God can help you succeed.
3.  Know that God loves you even if you feel like you have failed.

They quote Elder Uchtdorf "God loves you this very day and always.  He is not waiting to love you until you have overcome your weaknesses and bad habits.  He loves you today with a full understanding of your struggles...He knows of your remorse for the times you have fallen short or failed.  And still He loves you...He wants you to achieve your destiny -- to return to your heavenly home in honor."

And you think you're busy now?....

Monday, January 12, 2015 we taught our sixth returning missionary training.  This group was small after the last two times with only 13 missionaries and it was weird to have only one sister, Sister Ponce!  She was going home to Trujillo, Peru one transfer early due to university study requirements she has.

This was a quiet group and difficult to get them fully engaged.  We did our presentation during the second half this time so that may have made a difference. This training starts at 9 am and goes until 2 pm with a break for lunch.  We have done our presentation both first and last and I think I prefer the early slot.

 Trying to concentrate and not think about home.

Below, our group photo.  We are missing one elder who was in doing his exit interview with the mission president.  We had only two North American missionaries in this group.

Sister Ponce has been attending our English classes in the Cusco zone.  We also had our former Cusco zone leaders in this group, Elder Garcia (2nd from right in back row) from Mexico, and Elder Lehman (tall blonde in the center front) from Minnesota.  To the left of Elder Lehman is Elder Bejar, he had attended our English classes in the Inti Raymi zone  for a little bit as well.

We were asked to help teach English to the youth during their summer vacation break, which started right after the Christmas holidays.  The kids are now out until February 25th and apparently the Inti Raymi stake sponsors activities during the day to occupy the kids.  They asked us to teach from 9 am to 10 am Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.  Since we are over at this stake building on Wed. & Fri already teaching the full-time missionaries at 10 am we told them we could do it those two days only.

What a big challenge that is!  We are using Daily Dose and started at the beginning, but you really have many levels of competency and attention spans that are much shorter and we have double the amount of time and a large group of students.  We did the first lesson on introducing yourself and the second lesson on the family.  It takes a lot more preparation than the adult conversation classes.  Luckily, only five more weeks to deal with it.

We've been joined by another pair of senior missionaries!!  This week Elder & Sister Johnson arrived to serve a one year mission in member services.  They are friends of President & Sister Harbertsen, the mission president.  They also do not speak Spanish.  They studied for about a year before coming, but study and real life usage are worlds apart.  We met them Wednesday night and learned that they are going to work out of Cusco and help with family history but working directly with the full-time missionaries as they give discussions to recent converts and less active members related to family history.  President Harbertsen said that retention goes way up when the members get involved in family history.  They will also work out of the family history center located in the Tullumayu ward building (which is just down the hall and around the corner from our Self-Reliance Center).

I also had a sister come talk to me about teaching piano.  She is the stake primary president for the Cusco stake.  I was sunk as soon as she used the argument that there is a big need for the youth to learn as every building has a piano, yet most wards have to sing accapella as no one knows how to play.  I couldn't argue with her on that.  I gave her the same deal I offered earlier to another member.  I told her if they want to come to the Tullumayu ward building at 9:30 on Monday mornings, I will teach.  She asked about group lessons, but I do not have any experience teaching in a group setting, so not sure how to go about doing that.  I did go online and immediately order the church's teaching music kit to help me.  Piano lessons will start Jan 26th, as we were traveling on the 19th.

We've also been recruited by the Institute administrator to teach a Book of Mormon class in English once institute starts up again the first of March.  They tried to have us teach this course last semester but we wouldn't commit.  Now we are even busier, but we have added that to our to-do list.  We scheduled it in during our hour for English conversation as that has gone by the wayside.  So it looks like Tuesdays at 6 pm we'll be Institute instructors.

So last Saturday morning we attended training for all institute and seminary instructors from 7 am to 9 am.  It looks like we will be doing this for the next three Saturdays as well.  I have never taught seminary or institute so I learned a lot from the training.  Thank goodness the youth English class ends before Institute starts or we would need a lot of prep time for these two lessons.

We met with both the Ponce family and Nilda this past week.  The Ponce family has not progressed much lately.  We talked to the Ponces about seeking inspiration as to how to solve their problem, even fasting if necessary.  Often they see only the obstacles to success.  We felt like we needed to build up their faith.  Nilda's laundry business is continuing to improve.  We did up her signs for her and I gave her some dry cleaning business as one of my suit jackets needed cleaning.  Both of them continue to come to our self-employment workshop.

We had our fifth lesson on Saturday for that workshop, teaching them to separate their business income from their personal or family income.  It teaches that they may be the business owner but they are also an employee and need to pay themselves a salary. It is so common that they don't designate what monies belong to the business and what monies go to them.  This creates many financial challenges if they don't take care and often they set themselves up for business failure.  The church has developed some great videos that go along with this lesson called "Don't Kill the Chickens".

Our new workshop for the Perpetual Education Fund didn't get started this week as anticipated as no one showed up to take it.

Saturday we managed to squeeze in a fun activity, visiting the Tupac Amaru Saturday market.  This is held at the plaza Tupac Amaru which is not too far from our apartment.  This market is different from the Huancaro market as it is not a produce/grocery market.  This market had vendors  selling plants for inside and outside.  We saw fruit trees, bushes, and flower (especially hydrangeas) starts.  There were furniture vendors, toy vendors, dessert stalls, and a section for meals, sort of like the Peruvian version of a food court.  

 Trout is very popular here.  Below is a big tray of oven baked noodles, that also seems to be well liked.

 Above, trout frying in tons of oil.  Below kebobs of all types, which are also popular.  There is chicken, beef, hot dogs and very popular, anticuchos (which are beef hearts).

Above - cebiche (or ceviche) is a very famous, popular Peruvian dish.  It is raw fish preserved in citric juices so the flavor is very acidic.  Takes some getting used to.  Below - a serving of fried trout, choclo (their version of corn on the cob) french fries.

 Here you can see these food vendors are very popular.  Most tables were full of people eating lunch.

 There were also a lot of baby clothes vendors.  We found a very pretty outfit to give to the Guerra's daughter who is due to have a baby girl in February.  Crocheted outfits were plentiful and very pretty.

For the future baby Guerra

Dave did a service project with one of our non-member English students.  His name is Edgar and he works part-time as a taxi driver on the side from his wood working business. He gave us a ride home one night and Dave noticed some body damage to his front driver side near the headlight.  He offered to help him fix that.  So Saturday afternoon, Dave worked with him on that.  While he had him as a captive audience, Dave also managed to bear his testimony to him about God, Jesus Christ, and our accountability to them some day.  Dave says the spirit was there.  We will see if the seed bears fruit.

Saturday night we had Elder Black (a distant relative to Dave) and his companion Elder Guevara over for dinner.  Saturday was Elder Guevara's birthday and the next day, Sunday, was Elder Black's birthday.  The plan had been to make tacos as Elder Guevara is from Mexico and mentioned that he misses eating tacos.  But at the last minute we were told not to do tacos so we switched to spagetti, which we had not eaten in a long time.  It tasted delicious.  I even made garlic bread, which you can't find down here.  But I managed to improvise and made something pretty darn close to what we know as garlic bread.

Apparently adding to our schedule a youth English class, an institute class and piano lessons wasn't enough.  We learned that our area manager,Carlos Hale, has been asked to now manage two areas, Cusco & Arequipa.  The Arequipa manager has been given a new assignment for the church and has left a vacancy for that position.  Carlos is from Arequipa originally and is very familiar with members and influential people in Arequipa.  He is of the opinion that he will eventually be permanently assigned to Arequipa and someone new will come in to handle the Cusco area.  Until then he has to juggle both jobs.  He will probably spend much of his time down in Arequipa, because as he put it, "there is a very capable, seasoned senior couple serving in Cusco in Self-Reliance that can hold down the fort and help fill in his shoes" during this time. We wonder who he is talking about??

Spiritual Thought for the Week: comes from a most excellent article in the January Ensign, a talk by Elder Russell M Nelson given at BYU-Hawaii on Sept. 6, 2013.

"As youth of the noble birthright, you are literally sons and daughters of God, born at this particular time in the world's history for a most sacred purpose.  Youth of this Church are to be standard bearers of the Lord and beacons of light to attract others to Him.  You are also "children of the promised day".  Each of you young men and young women was commissioned by your Heavenly Father to build up the kingdom of God on earth right now and to prepare a people to receive the savior when he will rule and reign as the Millenial Messiah.

But neither your birthright nor your premortal ordinations and commissions can save or exalt you.  You will do that through your individual decisions and as you choose to access the power of the Lord's Atonement in your lives.  

This whole talk was AMAZING!!  There is a section where he talks about the importance of education,which may be my next week's inspiration thought if I don't come across something else equally spectacular!

6 years and 7 months

Life has calmed down and we are now back into more of our regular mission routine.  We started our English classes back up after the holidays.  We are excited about our classes in the Inti Raymi stake.  This is the class that has struggled to stay a float.  We've been lucky at times to even have one person show up some nights.  However, our first class back, we had 7 people attend!  Most of them non-members.  About three are receiving the discussions from the full-time missionaries.  One lady was a contact I made on the city bus one day as we were riding somewhere.  She is a travel agent and has some English but was excited to think she could get some free practice.  Our taxi driver non-member continues to come faithfully as well.  Esaias, our book seller market contact hasn't shown up for English classes but he did come to church today!  Yeah!  And we found out today that Rolando, one of our investigator English class members has accepted to be baptized on Feb. 7th.  Yeah!

The talks in sacrament meeting were very appropriate.  One speaker spoke on faith and another talked on repentance.  We attended the Gospel Principle class with Esaias and that went well.  The lesson was on the plan of salvation and the teacher showed the video from the church comparing life to a 3 act play.  Here is a link to that video.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-07-002-the-plan-of-salvation?lang=eng

We had some really fun English classes with the missionaries this week as one group had the lesson on the supermarket and the other on clothing.  Fruit basket upset and pictionary can get pretty competitive when you play with Elders.

Our center is getting busier as we are between university semesters now and the youth are getting serious about putting in their applications for the Perpetual Education Fund before the next semester starts.  We've lost our two regular service missionaries, Gaby and Gladys, as their one year commitment started in January last year.  We are praying for help to find new volunteers as we can´t do it all by ourselves.

We are doing our last group with the old Planning for Success workshop for PEF.  They will finish up on Tuesday and then we will switch over to using the new Education for a Better Job workshop.  This means it will take at least 4-6 weeks for them to finish the course rather than the two weeks previously.  It should be interesting to see how that works, as consistency is not a strong suit for the Peruvians.

I changed over the bulletin board by our office to reflect the new programs. It depicts the flow chart used to illustrate the process any member of the church who wants to become more self-reliant can follow to participate in the workshops available. (We share the board with the family history center so I left them a small section in the upper right of the board)

We've been feeling for awhile that we needed to start meeting with the ward councils and talking to them about the center and it's services.  Especially now with the new program almost available here.  We got in to the Inti Raymi ward council meeting this week and it went quite well.  We were well received and the bishop is now going to start coming to our business pilot group meetings on Saturday as well.

Friday, January 9th we celebrated two anniversaries.  Our 6th year wedding anniversary and our 7 months as full-time missionaries.  We did lunch up in the Plaza de Armas, which is a splurge as those restaurants cater to tourists so they are a bit pricey, but there is a hamburger place up there that we have heard a lot about, Papachos, that we decided to try.  They have all kinds of different combinations of burgers.  Here is our view from the restaurant.  We were lucky to have a sunny day to enjoy the view.

Not sure if you can pick it up, but you could see three Catholic cathedrals from where we ate.  One is way back there in the distance.

There are plenty of photo opportunities in the Plaza de Armas.  For 1-2 soles you can snap a photo of you with a baby llama & a woman in native dress.

Us on our 6th wedding anniversary.  Dave is anticipating the awesome hamburger we ordered.

Any time you go to the Plaza de Armas you have street vendors trying to sell you something.  Dave allowed an art vendor to show us what he had.  Dave ended up buying one of the paintings.  I told him that would be his anniversary gift from me.  Here's what he bought, a watercolor.

Saturday morning we made a trip back to our outdoor market in Huancaro.  I've been missing the fresh fruits and vegetables at low prices.  It is always an adventure to go to the market and Dave was busy taking photos.  Here are a few interesting ones.

 So the long green things captured our attention.  We weren't sure what they were.  We found an opened one.  Apparently, they eat the inside white part and throw away the seeds.

 The eggplants were tempting, but Dave said he doesn't care for them so I passed on those.

 Yucca is a staple in the Spanish speaking world.

 The pineapples were exquisite today in the market.  Below such a sight, a lady sourrounded by citrus fruits, piles and piles of it.

 I guess watermelon is on as well, as I don't remember seeing such a stack of watermelon before in the market.

Watching the people can be just as interesting.  So many babies on mama's backs.

 And this sight of the country women all wearing their hats, sitting with their wares, hoping for a sale.

Our Saturday self-employment workshop was the best one yet.  It was lesson 4 and we had all our participants in attendance, plus one new one.  The group always starts with a lesson on a spiritual principle of self-reliance.  The church has a video to go along with each principle.  This week's lesson was on Managing Your Money correctly and taught two main things: 1-Pay tithes & offerings first and 2-Live on less than what you earn...save for a rainy day.  Saving is a basic principle that they are asked to work on each week no matter what the previous lesson taught.

The participants then have to report on the goals they were asked to complete from last week's lesson.  They have to write on the board if they did or didn't do each task assigned.  Those that complete all the tasks are asked to stand and are given a round of applause and recognized for their efforts.  This was the first week we had someone complete all tasks assigned.  Yeah!  The group can then share what they learned by completing the tasks assigned.  This basically allows the members to bear testimony of how these principles are true.  Last week's lesson was on finding the best providers of products available for the best price and determining how to set your selling price.  Basic principle of buy low, sell high.

We then teach a new business principle that they then have to put into practice the upcoming week and report to the group the next time we meet.  This week's lesson was on keeping good business records of your earnings and costs.  It is amazing how many down here don't practice this simple concept.  The lesson teaches the why for doing it and has them practice going through the steps to do it and then they commit to keeping good records this week.

We get our materials off the church's website at srs.lds.org, under self-reliance then manuals & videos. If you want to go take a look at some of the videos they are short and well done.  They have them in English unless you change the site language to Spanish, then you can watch them in the language we are using them in,  My favorite is the one for the first spiritual principle called Pure & Simple Faith.  It is quite powerful.

The rainy season is in full swing now.  It rains just about every day.  A day with no rain is rare and very welcomed.  I broke down and bought a pair of rubber rainboots.  They are not very attractive, but  will make sure I don't ruin my shoes or nice boots.  So far, when I do wear them, it doesn't rain.  Dave loves it when I wear the rubber boots.  The hills around Cusco have turned green and it gives Cusco I different look, much prettier and it no longer looks like a desert.

It's a bit hazy in the photo but hopefully you can see how much greener the hills are surrounding Cusco.

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  Discussion with Elder Gay of the Seventy who is supervising the Self-Reliance aspect of the church throughout the world was jam-packed with good solid information.  Here is what he said about the self-reliance centers, one of which we are supervising as part of our mission.

" But self-reliance centers are not just for those receiving fast offerings.  These are conversion centers.  These are returned missionary centers; these are chronic fast-offering centers; these are recent convert centers.  Because we're teaching what?  The gospel in action.  Now I think the key for us is that as long as you keep hearing His voice and stay on His guided path, you will arrive, you will hasten - and how fast that hastening moves will depend on how tuned in we are.  If you deviate from the purpose, it will slow down.  If you stay with the purpose, He will open the door that needs to be opened."

Yellow underwear?

So the week started us out in Puno.  Sunday we worked on Self-Reliance activities, meeting a couple of the bishops of two wards we attended and getting their contact information and then in the afternoon we held a self-reliance meeting with leaders from the Puno Central Stake.  We had hoped to pick their brains about what they are doing and see if we could share ideas but we quickly found out that even with a great leader who is very self-reliance oriented, Fredy Apaza, minimal work is being done in Puno.  However, Fredy, is now in the stake presidency and so we are confident more emphasis on self-reliance is gong to happen.  We taught them about the four spiritual principles of self-reliance and then reviewed the new programs and got them excited.  After our meeting we crashed a YSA meeting where Brother Apaza was speaking on...self-reliance!  He called us up out of the audience and had us speak as well.

Sunday afternoon we had a unique experience.  We were out on the main square as it was only steps away from our hotel when along came what is called a tuna group.  This tradition dates back to the middle ages and thus the members of the group dress in medieval garb.  They are a wandering ministral group and their specialty is romantic ballads.

We were treated to a romantic ballad and one of the group members encouraged Dave to dance with me so we danced together on the main square of Puno with a crowd of tourist snapping photos.  Afterwards, a young man from Israel came up and offered to send us his video of the whole thing, but as it turned out, his camera had malfunctioned and it wasn't there.  Too bad.  We talked with him for some time.  Tried to do some missionary work with him, but he didn't seem too interested in religious matters.  He told us he was a non-practicing Jew and he had a pretty synical outlook on life.

One of the things fun about Sunday was seeing a number of missionaries that we had previously worked with in Cusco that are now serving in Puno.  One of our favorites, Elder Talavera, is now a zone leader there.

I also was able to take a photo with one of the members after church.  I've been dying to get a photo of the typical inca ladies garb and a member came dressed appropriately so I asked for a photo.  Here it is.  She was so short!  But so sweet.

Monday morning we left again early for another day of sightseeing.  This time our goal was a ruin site just over the border into Bolivia, called Tiahuanaco.  Dave had heard his older brother talk about this place when he served back in the 60's and was anxious to see it first hand.  It was a three hour drive to the border.

On the way, our guide surprised us and stopped at a small village and said there was an ancient ruin site he wanted to show us that wasn't planned.  This is what we saw we when go there.

Any guesses as to the purpose of these ruins?  Well, check out below and I think if you can't figure it out yet, you will by the time you see the photo Dave is in

Yes, to our embarrassment our guide told us this was used as a fertility temple in pre-Inca times.  Women that had fertility issues would come and go through rituals that supposedly would fix the problem.  I wonder what the success rate was?  Dave has got a hold of the main attraction.  We tried not to stay too long at this site.

Our guide then took us into the small village and had us look around the main plaza.  The church was falling into disrepair.  This was definitely off of the typical tourist route.

But to it's credit, it did have some lovely stone designs worked into the concrete of the plaza.  Here are a couple of examples.

 We did drive past a bullfighting ring in one of the small towns.  I was very surprised because I didn't think Peru held any bullfights.

We finally made it to the border and what we thought would be a quick 20-30 minute wait to go through customs ended up being a 3 hour ordeal.  There was a line out into the street on the Peru & Bolivia side.  I think due to the holidays and people traveling to visit families.  If that had been the only problem, it wouldn't have been so bad.

But when we got up to the immigration window in Bolivia, the lady at the counter did not extend a warm Bolivian welcome.  Now keep in mind that the Bolivian government is socialist/communist and we learned that North Americans are not well liked by the people.

We had been told we'd be able to cross using our Peruvian ID cards and not have to pay to get a visa.  Considering that we were only going to cross and be in Bolivia for a few hours that was preferable, as they can charge up to $130 per person for a visa.

The immigration official took one look at my ID and then at me and asked where I was from.  I told her I was living in Cusco.  She was happy with that answer.  She asked me what my nationality was.  I knew telling her US was going to doom me but what else was I going to say?  Sure enough as soon as she heard american, she insisted we pay for a visa.  We protested, our guide protested.  She was having none of it.

This meant we had to go in yet another line and deal with all the red tape there.  We managed to only have to pay $50 per person for a visa valid for 30 days, but in the process they lost my paperwork from Peru that I needed to get back in the country was we finished sightseeing.  I was not happy.  I had visions of being stuck in Bolivia for who knows how long.  That didn't happen, thankfully.

Here's our visa tag, 360 bolivianos which comes to about $50 US.  Dave was happy that at least for our money we got a stamp in our passports showing we have visited Bolivia.  A bit expensive, if you ask me.

But the important thing is we got through and finally arrived at Tiahuanaco, the famous ruins that Dave so longed to see.  Below is right at the entrance.  Our guide is showing us a stone that amplified sound, just like a megaphone.

Below is a photo at the top of the hill.  Now there is only a large cavity, but previously they say a pyramid was built on top of this.

The photo below shows the excavation site.  It was quite large.  Behind us where the statue is found that David so wanted to see.  But I included this so you could see how windy it was.  Just as we got to the site the winds picked up and you could tell a storm was headed our way.  So we had to quickly view the site.

Looking below at the area of the heads.  All four walls around this area, had carved heads 170 of them of the government leaders.

The photo below shows some original stone work that was just unearthed back in 2005-6.

Walking from this newly uncovered area, you could see the top of the heads courtyard and the upper level where the Puerta del Sol is located.

From the far side of the heads courtyard looking over to the upper complex.

Above is a close up of the stone basilica in the middle of the heads courtyard.  Below is looking into the upper courtyard from the side of the heads courtyard.

And this is the famous statue that Dave so wanted to see.  He is convinced that this represents the two sticks of Judah & Joseph that are prophesied to become one and this is a prophet holding them.  Of course, the guide told us this represents the pre-Inca god, Wiracocha and that in one hand he is holding a stick that represents the religious aspect and the other stick represents the governmental aspect.

On the other end of the compound, is this large statue which is another representation of the two scrolls or sticks.  This time he is holding them in front of him.

 Also the guide was quite excited to show us these rocks and how they were "mystical" due to the magnetic forces within them.  He showed how the compass pointed north away from the rock, but as he put the compass over the rock the needle was pulled totally in the opposite direction.  Dave says it was due to the iron content of the rocks, nothing more than that, but the guide was pretty convinced that these rocks held magical or mystical powers.

At this point our tour ended due to the downpour that finally hit.  We ran for cover but ended up soaked.  I had put my poncho on in anticipation so it wasn't so bad for me, but Dave was one soaking puppy.

We dried off the best we could, hopped back into our waiting taxi and speed back to the border, where we got out of Bolivia after having to wait in another long line.  Then we had to pass the Peruvian border check.  Not having my paper was a problem, but not as much as I had feared.  I had to fill out another paper and that delayed us but nothing more than that.

By this time it was almost nightfall when we were supposed to have been back to Puno.  We ended up not getting back until 9 pm and we had to drive through a lot of rain and snow.  The higher pass was covered with the white stuff, they call hail, but it looks just like snow to us.  The driver had to take it easy after fishtailing a couple of times.  We were grateful our hotel room had a nice big bathtub to soak in hot water.  But the first thing I noticed when we got back to our room was what had been hanging over our bed all this time - a tapestry of the very image we had traveled all the way to Bolivia to see!

The next day we hoped on a bus to return to Cusco, this time it was a direct route with no stops, but the perk was the bus had seats that were larger and well spaced with plenty of leg room because they could tilt back almost into a bed.  We thought we were in heaven.  What a nice way to travel across county.

The next day was New Year's Eve.   New Years is a bit different down here as well, but not as much as Christmas is.  Yellow is the color, however.  They believe that the color yellow represents luck.  We first saw it in the market when we started to notice all these vendors with yellow underwear.  What's with the yellow underwear everywhere we thought?

Then we noticed it again on New Year's Eve.  Yellow flowers everywhere in the market and people walking down the street carrying yellow flowers.  We would pass one person after another with yellow flowers.

Then when we went to the New Year's Eve party at the chapel, a number of the members were wearing yellow items.  Apparently, parties in the chapels is what they do here.  Every chapel hosted a party and we could have party hopped if we wanted to, but we decided to stay close to home and just go to the Tullumayu party.

Loud music and non-stop dancing was how they celebrated, which people of all ages there.  We danced a bit, but quickly tired due to the altitude I think.  We still can't keep up with the natives even though we now have plenty of months under our belts living at this altitude.

Then at midnight, everyone hugs one another and wishes them a Feliz Ano Nuevo and yellow confetti is tossed everywhere, especially over your head (see Elder Rhoades below), to hopefully sprinkle luck your way I think.

Then after all the celebrating winds down, they serve a dinner.  We had a porkchop and a couple of boiled potatoes, peeled with nothing on it.  I didn't eat anything but Dave said he took one bite of the potato and about chocked as it tasted like a cross between turpentine and motor oil.  One bite was enough for him.  We didn't stick around much after that and made our exit at 12:30, but supposedly they party until the wee hours of the morning, 3-4 am.  That explains why New Year's Day is so quiet.  Everyone is finally at home, sleeping!

Later in the day we made visits to the families we are working with and brought them goodies and presents.  We gave them each a homemade Yahtzee game set and with the Guerras we stayed and played with them so they could see how it works until 11 pm.  And I was finally able to eat paneton, the holiday bread that you see everywhere selling in the stores.  

Apparently, the tradition during the holidays is to eat paneton (a sweet bread with little bits of dried fruit and raisins) and drink hot chocolate.  Dave refused to try the paneton, thinking it would be just like fruitcake, but it's not nearly as bad, a bit dry but that's all.  I quite liked it.

The next day Friday, Jan 2, we tried to get back to a regular workday routine.  We didn't quite make it, but it was closer to normal.  We did attend a baptism of the daughter of a sister in Tullumayu ward that was going to help us in the center but it didn't work out.  

They must have some money because after the baptism they threw a birthday party as her birthday was just the day before, Jan. 1 and invited all the people who attended the baptism to come. 

Here is the birthday and baptism girl, Eliza Since Lechuga.  We think her favorite color is pink as everything was in pink.

Saturday we had our third lesson with our Self-Employment pilot group and we had good attendance and good discussions.  It was encouraging.  We hope our group members are benefiting from their participation.

We feel like 2015 got off to a good start.  This whole year, practically, we will be missionaries here in Peru.  I'm sure we are in for a very interesting and exciting 2015.  We hope we will do a lot of good for the people here in Peru.

Spiritual Thought for the Week: "Caring for the poor and needy is a fundamental gospel doctrine and an essential element in the eternal plan of salvation.  As followers of the Savior, we have a personal responsibility to care for the poor and the needy.  Faithfully caring for the poor and the needy is a reflection of spiritual maturity and will bless both the giver and the receiver."  Bishop Dean M Davies "The Law of the Fast"  General Conference October 2014