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."