Almost a run-of-the-mill week

This week was pretty low key.  We plugged away at our English lessons, piano lessons, Institute lesson, service at the center and day-to-day activities.

Most of our English classes started Level 3 of Daily Dose.  We decided to have our Inti Raymi group start at Level 1 as that is the group that mostly has the non-member taxi drivers and some of them are really struggling having come in towards the end of Level 2.

We are needing to divest ourselves of some of our English class duties.  More of our time needs to be spent on self-reliance.  We have the missionaries on board with teaching our group on Tuesdays & Thursday at the Ttio chapel.   We plan on letting them take over Tuesday nights to start with and then eventually Thursday.

We also need to scale back our teaching the full-time missionaries.  We will probably take a similar approach with them and free up one day a week to start with.

Our morning class has picked up students and we now have 8-10 every morning.  That at one point was a group of 2.  The other classes are at that level as well.

Piano lessons now go from 9:30 am to 11 am on Mondays as well as 3 pm to 6 pm Monday afternoons.  With the mother of a couple of the boys coming Tuesday morning before English class.  I couldn't say no to her.  She is just a natural at it and is so excited to be able to learn.  But I've about maxed out my time for this.  Actually no about.  I've maxed out.

Service at the center was slow this week due to being offline.  The church was upgrading the PEF site and so we weren't able to make any calls or help anyone with their applications.  We still tried to help those who came in looking for work.

Dave struggled to come up with lesson plans for his drywall classes.  He knows what he wants to teach, but putting that into a lesson plan format was foreign to him.  But he finally was able to complete that and get that sent off to Fundet.  He is now waiting for them to get on board an approve his course so the participants can earn a certificate.  He had a phone call from the Executive Director at their world headquarters in Guatemala.  He is not convinced there is job opportunities in this area of construction.  Dave worked hard to help him understand that this is an emerging trade here in Peru but that there will be work demand and he wants the members to be ahead of the eight ball on this.

We hosted Betsy Moore again this weekend as she returned from her Inka Trail and Machu Picchu adventures.  She came in Saturday night and stayed until Sunday evening when she took a bus out to Arequipa and then down to the Nazca lines.  She heads back to the states Friday, March 27th after touring Peru for two weeks.

She fixed us a delicious fruit salad for breakfast Sunday morning and we got to try a number of the exotic fruit here that we haven´t dared tried before as we weren´t sure how we would like them, or how to prepare them, etc.

One of the fruits we hadn't tried yet, but was delicious.  Pepinillo is what it is called.  I have no idea what the English equivalent is, if any.  It had the color and texture of a pear, but the taste reminded me of a type of honeydew.

She also fixed us a dinner of steamed vegetables that was amazing.  She loves to cook and be in the kitchen (not something I´m a big fan of) but she was appalled at my lack of spices.  I felt ashamed as well and am going to have to remedy that.

We had hoped to prepare this version of potatoes as well, but didn't need to as we had plenty to eat without them.  We'll have to get around to fixing these soon.  We've been curious about these since we first saw them.

We in turn provided a tour of Cusco Sunday afternoon.  We took our camera and got photos of places we always pass and even found some new things we hadn´t noticed before.  We even did some of the typical tourist things.

 This fountain and park is right down the street from our apartment and the center.  We pass it all the time.  But what we've never done before is what we've seen so many tourist do, that is stand under the waterfall and have a picture taken so we asked Betsy to take a photo of that.  Not sure you can see us though.

 This native Inca women cut out making an offering to the gods is just outside of a souvenir market we walk by often.  With Betsy we took the time to take a photo.  Very goofy, if you ask me.

 We walk by this building all the time as well, and almost never pay any attention to the architectural design.  It is not ancient, but just incorporated the ancient designs, etc. in it's facade.  Pretty cool door too.

I'm pretty sure I've posted a photo of this mural before but this is a good shot of the whole thing.  We walk past this every time we go to withdraw money from the ATM.  It is within a few blocks of our center.

 I love the photo I managed to get of Dave with the San Blas fountain behind him.  I don't think he even realized I was taking the photo.

 We walk past these statues as well fairly regularly.  A fountain with statues of a mama Puma with her babies and one of a native women sitting and weaving.

 These statues are just along side one of the Catholic Cathedrals.  I asked Dave to stand in the doorway mostly so I could get a photo of the woman with her sheep and not have to pay her a sol to take it.

 Betsy and I sit in front of the monument to the native women of Cusco on one side and the words to the Cusco anthem are on the other side.  The rainbow flag stands for the Quechua nation.  This plaza is just up the street from our center where Tullumayo runs into Avenida de la Cultura, a main drag in Cusco.  We pass by this often as we ride the bus and I've been wanting photos for quite some time.

We did discover something new when we took Betsy around, this statute below.  It looks like Harry Potter holding up his magic wand perhaps, but it is actually a replica of the mayor of Cusco who served for over 50 years from 1949 to 2002.

Sunday morning we had a very unusual opportunity.  Saturday night we had run into the bishop of the Tiahuantinsuyo ward that meets in our chapel and he asked if we could attend his sacrament meeting the next day so I could play the piano.  He said the counselor to the Presiding Bishopric was going to be attending their ward.  I had to ask him three times to repeat himself because I couldn´t believe what I was hearing and doubted I was understanding his Spanish correctly.  But as it turned out, we did have Gerald Causse, his wife and about 6 or 7 other couples walk into the building and attend sacrament.  

First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric

They even had him be the last speaker of the meeting.  He spoke some basic Spanish (with a french accent) and then used an interpreter for the rest of his talk.  He even touched on self-reliance a bit as he spoke to the parents about the "traditions" they should teach their children.  I had the opportunity to shake his hand and talk to him afterwards in the hall and thanked him for discussing self-reliance with the members.  

We have no idea what prompted that visit.  We think it was probably a side trip to see the sights, as most people don´t come all the way to Peru without visiting Cusco & MachuPicchu.

But look who else showed up in Cusco this past week?

He was hanging out in the hallway just outside of our office.  So funny to see my nephew Devin (large photo, guy on the right) down here in far off Cusco, Peru!

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  The invitation to repent is rarely a voice of chastisement, but rather a loving appeal to turn around and to re-turn toward God.  It is the beckoning of a loving Father and His Only Begotten Son to be more than we are, to reach up to a higher way of life, to change and to feel the happiness of keeping the commandments.  Repentance is a wonderful gift available to all who desire to return to God and allow Him to mold their lives.  Elder Ulisses Soares, "Hold On to the Rod" March 2015 Ensign.

We've hit the hump!

Holy cow!  Monday, March 9th, was hump day for us.  9 months as missionaries.  Most of the times it feels like time is flying by.  Every once and awhile, I get homesick and can hardly wait to be back in the states and enjoying family and friends.

Monday was as close to a P-day as we've had in a long time.  We unpacked from our trip to Puerto Maldonado, did some shopping, did laundry and planned for the week.

We did filler classes with our English classes as we had our Level 2 Celebration on Thursday during the hours we would have held class and we knew we would not be able to teach a complete lesson.  We devised a tic-tac-toe game where they had to answer a question in English to claim that square.  It worked out so well that we decided to adjust it for our missionary review class as well.

For our celebration we followed the same format we used for Level 1.  We played games, had them sing songs, presented certificates and then had some refreshments, American style, of course.  This time we didn't go all out with the refreshments like last time.  But we did do banana splits.  Oh my, were they good!

 We had everyone playing BINGO.  They can never have too much practice with numbers.  It is something we take for granted but it takes time to master as a foreign language.

 We even had some sister missionaries that were in from Juliaca for a leadership meeting taking part and the Johnsons stopped in and we got them to play a bit as well.

 In the photo above you can see all the daily dose posters up for the lessons we've covered.  We have taught a lot of material!

We put the sister missionaries to work.  Above they are calling out the BINGO numbers.  Below they helped prepare the banana splits.

And the photo above shows a classic reaction to the refreshments.  They were a hit, just like last time.  It sure was one of the best tasting banana splits I've ever had.  I think the fact that it has been months since having something like that made a difference.

We had an interesting experience this week that was out of the norm.  Wednesday while we were doing our classes at the Inti Raymi chapel, a man from Sweden came in looking for the missionaries.  Dave ended up talking to him for some time and suggested that he come back in the evening.  Apparently he was having financial difficulties and was hoping for a handout from the church.  That happens from time to time here.

Well, Wednesday evening he showed up to the mission office drunk.  The elders came and got Elder Rhoades as they didn't know how to handle him and couldn't get him to leave the premises.  Elder Rhoades, having had experience with drunks as a fireman, went back and dealt with the situation.  It ended up taking two hours for him to deal with it, however.

In the meantime, Elder Rhoades felt impressed to tell him to come back tomorrow and he would help him out, it he showed up sober, as that is what he was repeating over and over again - Ayudame,  ayudame.  He spoke English and Spanish.  The next morning he showed up sober so Elder Rhoades and the office missionaries gave him a discussion.  Dave says he was asking some really good questions.  This made Dave hopeful.  The man's name is Magnus and he is 39 years old and has spent the last two years living in Cusco.  However, he has been an alcoholic for many, many years and has also done drugs and apparently some pretty bad stuff in the past.

Dave kept him by his side the whole day to help keep him sober.  He even came to our English celebration. You can see him in the photo below.  He is the one with the baseball cap on.

Without the alcohol in him, he was going through pretty bad withdrawals and I think being sober was making him face the reality of his life and choices and it wasn't pretty.  In fact it was pretty painful for him.  We encouraged him to hang in there, everyone at the celebration was being friendly and supportive to him.  We paid to put him up for the night in a very cheap hostel (15 soles a night, that is only about $5) and told him to meet us the next day, Friday.

He was waiting for us Friday morning and still seemed to be sober.  But he did not want Dave to babysit him the whole day, so Dave came back to the self-reliance center and told him that he would hook up with him again in the afternoon at 5 pm.  While when we met with him that afternoon, we talked with him a bit and tried to encourage him to stick it out and things would get better.  However, I thought I smelled just a bit of alcohol, but it was so slight I wasn't sure.

Sure enough, when Magnus went outside to take a smoke, Dave looked around and this is what he found.

A bottle of  alcohol with a 40% alcoholic content!  Dave confiscated it and didn't let on that he knew.  We put him up for another night in the hostel and set an appointment up for Saturday morning so he could talk with the stake president.  Because in the meantime, we had consulted with him Friday evening and his advice was to turn him in to the immigration authorities as he is in Peru illegally.  They would then take him to the closest Swedish embassy and the Swedish embassy would then arrange for him to get back to Sweden.

Well, Saturday morning he was a no show and later in the day we got a call from the elders saying he had shown up stone drunk.  Dave advised them to not let him on the church grounds.  We had been storing his luggage and bags in the church kitchen up until then and so Dave had the missionaries tell him to look for his things at the hostel and he returned them to the hostel later that day.

It was a long shot that we would be able to help him, but Dave felt obligated to make an effort.  We feel bad for Magnus and hope that we will have been able to plant some seeds that will help him in the future.  It certainly made me reflect on the journey we took 5 1/2 years ago with my daughter, Jenni.  I have always been proud of her ability to put that path behind her and extremely grateful that she dodged a fateful end that so many experience on the addiction path.  It also made me reflect on the great blessing Christ's atonement can be in our life, allowing us to change and overcome and more importantly be forgiven!

Saturday started off with an early morning practice with the youth.  I've been asked to play the piano for a special musical number for a youth program scheduled for April.  They will be singing "Choose Ye This Day" and they pretty much learned it in less than an hour.  I suggested they learn another song, and told them about the EFY Sisters in Zion/Army of Helaman song.  The music director knew of the song and it's Spanish version.  She was all for it, if we could find the music.

Saturday morning, our friend, Betsy Moore, flew into Cusco.  She had been serving a PEF/Self-Reliance mission in Trujillo and had completed her time earlier in the month.  She is doing some traveling around Peru before heading home.  She spent Saturday in Cusco before she headed out to Puno and then to the Camino Inka and MachuPicchu.  We will put her up upon her return next Saturday and she will spend Sunday in Cusco again before heading out to see Arequipa and the Nazca lines.  She will have seen a lot of Peru before she heads back to her home in Arizona.

I let Dave hold down the fort with our work and I took the day off to take Betsy to see Sacsayhuaman, the ruins just outside of the city.  We haven't even visited them yet and we have 9 months so it was fun for me to go.  And it was impressive.  Not like Machu Picchu, but the size of the rocks used were huge!

 The bus let us off up the road from the ruins, but we found these on our walk down the mountain.

The first section of the ruins we visited were these caves that showed carved spaces in them.  It worked out well because it started to rain about then and we just stayed in there until it mostly let up.

 We didn't pay for a tour guide, so I don't know for sure, but my guess is that this area was used for burial purposes.

Sacsayhuaman, was an Inca fortress before the Spaniards conquered the Inca empire.  The Spaniards then used the already cut stones in the construction of their homes and buildings in Cusco so that not much is left at the site except for the stones too large to move.  Apparently, these ruins boost some of the largest, if not largest, sized rocks in all the Inca ruins.  Pictures of those to come.

Next we visited the area where you could see where rock had been hewn out.

This area was located on a higher part of the ruins.  From there we had a great view of the impressive walls that still stand with the large rocks.

The following 3 photos are looking from right to left.  You can see the city of Cusco in the background on each side.

 Betsy taking in the panoramic scene.  It really is quite beautiful and impressive.  Not on the Machu Picchu scale, but still impressive and to think it is a 20 minute bus ride from Cusco!

We then walked down this flight of stairs to the center open space 

and you would not believe how close we could get to the llamas that were grazing there.  This photo was not taken with a zoom lens.

 Then we got up close to the massive stones left on the walls.

 This one above is the largest we found in our exploring.  It was impressive to see the rounded walls as well.

To get a good idea of the height of the stones, I had Betsy, who is over 6 feet tall stand in front of one of the large rocks.  Here is what it looked like.

We actually found a way to walk down from the ruins into Cusco.  Going down the mountain wasn't bad.  Walking up to the ruins would have been extremely strenuous.

We visited San Pedro market and she loved that place.  I bought some fresh figs and oh, they were good.

We headed out to one of our workshops to make sure it got started.  I left Dave there so I could get Betsy Moore to the bus terminal in time to head out to Puno, Lake Titicaca and the floating islands.  She is on a whirlwind tour.  Hopefully, she has the energy and stamina to handle everything.  She didn't seem to have any problems with the altitude Saturday while she was here.  She is amazing!

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  With seeing all these massive rocks that have withstood the test of time it seems appropriate to post the following scripture as our spiritual thought for the week.  Helaman 5:12 -  "And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

Heaven and Hell

We had a very interesting week.  It started out with a special meeting for all the ward council leaders and all the missionaries with the area president, Juan A.Uceda, who happens to be a Peruvian and the local members are quite proud of that.

Juan A Uceda, NW South America Area President, Member of First Quorum of Seventies

It was a great meeting.  The spirit was really strong.  I got to be on the stand with Pres. Uceda as I played the piano for the meeting.  The chapel was full and the overflow activity room was full and they even had people sitting on the stage in the back of the activity room.  When we sang, it was powerful.

They started out by announcing that the EFY program was coming to Cusco this year.  That created quite a buzz in the audience.  Five hundred youth will have the opportunity to participate.  It will be the first time something like this has happened in Cusco.

Next, Elder Uceda gave a report on the temples here in Peru, which was of much interest to the members.


The Trujillo temple is scheduled to be dedicated on June 21 and all chapels will broadcast the dedication ceremonies.  There will be 3 of them at 9 am, noon and 3 pm.  They will also do a cultural celebration the day before and they said that would be broadcast as well.  He then gave an update on the Arequipa temple (which will be the closest temple for the members here in Cusco).  They are in the blueprint stage which takes 10-12 months and then the building stage will take 30 months so it is still 4 years out before that will be completed.  Elder Rhoades and I figure we might be able to time our second mission to coincide with the dedication there.  We are pretty sure if we put on our mission application that Carlos Hale has requested us, we would get called to Arequipa.

Then he spoke to them about how to be more effective in their ward councils and how to use the full-time missionaries more to reactivate, and retain new converts.  I know the members in Cusco would really like to have their own temple, but they need to build up the wards and stakes in Cusco and the surrounding cities.  It will take work, but it could happen.  Pres. Uceda was quite blunt and frank with them about needing to change some of the "traditions of their fathers" something we've noticed is holding the members back in prospering and progressing, so it was good to hear it come from one of their own.

Piano lessons are now taking up about 3 hours of Cindy's time on Mondays.  New students show up every week.  It's amazing.  She is now about six weeks into it and can tell which students have more potential then others.  Some pick up the concepts so fast and do a good job practicing between the lessons.  Others really struggle and seem to not practice much at all.  No surprise there.  It's the same the world round.

Monday night we had a fun night at the mission home.  All four senior couples were in town so President and Sister Harbertson hosted a potluck dinner.  The Sandbergs had come in from Abancay to renew their visas so they could stay longer than a year.  It was good to find out it can be done right here in Cusco.  That means we, hopefully, will not have to return to Lima to take care of that (although we will miss a chance of doing some temple work while down there).

Tuesday we had our first institute Book of Mormon in English class.  We had 8 students show up.  Only about 3 are relatively fluent with English and 3 are definitely in over their heads.  But we had a good lesson, the spirit was there and the students are excited and eager to take this class.  During the week we had about 3 more people say they intend to enroll as well.

Thursday we started up our second group for the new Education workshop.  We had the bishop from the Los Alamos ward contact us and volunteer to help while on vacation, so we have him facilitating this group.  We are hoping it will sow some good seeds within the leadership of the stake and he will become a spokesman on behalf of the new programs to the other leaders.

Our member English classes have completed the second level of the Daily Dose program!  We will be holding a celebration on March 12th.  It is exciting to see the ones that have been in the program from the very get-go doing so well with their English.  We had about 15 members qualify to receive a certificate on the second level.  That is more than we had on the first level, if we are remember right.

This weekend, March 6 - 9th we traveled to the jungle area of the Cusco mission, Puerto Maldonado.  We've heard much about how hot and humid that part of Peru is.  We had meetings set up for every night we were there, but we took time on Saturday during the day to take a tour into the jungle.  We like these trips where we can combine work with play.  We talked the Johnsons into coming with us so they came as well as Javier Caseres, who managed to book us some amazing airfare, hotel rates and the tour.

We left Friday about 11 am.  The flight takes only 35 minutes.  It seemed you no sooner reached cruising level and the airplane leveled out, then it was time to begin the descent.  They say by car or bus it is a 10 hour drive, very scenic, but long.  We could definitely feel the heat as we came out of the plane, but it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.  I had envisioned a duplicate of El Salvador where the heat and humidity is so bad that your make up melts within 20 minutes of being out in the heat and sweat is constantly pouring down your face.  But it didn't come close to that.  We were hot and sticky most of the time, however.  We apparently visited when the temps were down about 10 degrees from normal and the rain was minimal.  It only rained once while we were there on Sunday afternoon.

Initial views of Puerto Maldonado on the drive to our hotel from the airport.

Here are some photos of our hotel, Cabana Quinta.

View from our hotel room.  Yes, that is a coconut tree.

Everyone drives a motorcycle it seems.  We saw men, women, youth and even children driving a motorcycle or scooter.  This is what it looks like at a traffic light.

You will pull up to a restaurant or store and there will just be a line or crowd of motorcycles parked there.  We saw some motorcycles carrying a ridiculous number of people. Even mothers holding small babies as their husband's drove.

We saw this adaptation that would allow a small child to sit in front of the driver.

Our first meal in the jungle was at a restaurant called Burgos. 

The Johnsons and us in front of the restaurant where we ate "Amazon food".

 We sat out on a shaded patio that made you feel you were in the heart of the jungle.  To one side of us we could see bamboo plants growing.

At our table was a centerpiece of an exotic jungle flower.  We saw a lot more of these on our tour the next day.

 And the food was fresh fish.  Look, they even cut the cucumber to look like a jungle plant.

Our walk back to the hotel took us past a very pretty park and near the river and bridge.  We were told this is the largest bridge in Peru.

 The park was in honor of all the Marine heroes Peru has had, in particular, Miguel Grau, who is quite famous throughout Peru.

 This row of busts were of the distinguished marine heroes Peru honors.

We had a few hours to kill before our evening meeting so we headed down to the marketplace as I had forgotten to bring some walking shoes with me.  And guess what I scored?  A very rare find.

I bet none of you have ever owned a pair of sneakers made by both Nike AND Adidas.  Knock-offs are very common down here, courtesy of China.  And these were comfortable and cheap and will probably become a collector piece in the future due to the two name brands.  If only Adidas was spelled correctly!

So of course, we had to take some market photos as we are in the jungle and the fruit and products are different from in Cusco.  Can you see the banana leaves in the foreground of this photo?  They cook food inside the leaves.  The flavor is wonderful and it saves on having to wash dishes!  A win-win situation if you ask me.

 Oh and joy, joy, they had plantains, the frying bananas.  I was able to eat fried bananas every morning for breakfast.  Those were common on my mission to El Salvador but not in Cusco.

 And here are two Peruvian fruits.  Above is carambola and below is the delicious chirimoya.

 And what would a visit to the jungle be without drinking coconut water?

 We were fascinated to learn that this is where brazilian nuts come from.  They are grown in quite a large brown husk, that when cracked open reveals many nuts inside.

Oh and one of our favorite finds were these key chains.  They are actual piranha heads varnished to preserve them.  Pretty cool, huh Rhoades rugrats?

Friday night we held a training meeting with the leaders of the district and the facilitators for the new workshops. We trained a member called Willian who is going to handled the Education Workshop.  He is very gun-ho so I think things will go well.  We found out he is the uncle of one of our English students here in Cusco, Nefi Miranda.  That was cool.

Friday night we also saw Elder Rivera (wearing the green tie) at the chapel.  We had worked with him in Cusco quite a bit before his transfer.  He had been the zone leader of the Inti Raymi zone.  They explained that they are wearing typical attire for Puerto Maldonado during the rainy season - high rubber boots.

Saturday morning we got up and headed out on our tour.

No, this was not our boat, but it was pretty cool as it looks like it was made out of one complete tree trunk.

 Here's our boat we traveled on up the river into the jungle.  Puerto Maldonado is located where two rivers meet up, the Tambopata and the Madre de Dios.

Here's what the river bank looks like.  Trees and vegetation up to the very edge., even into the river sometimes.

We stopped off at Yakiri Eco Lodge.  Some of the passengers were going to spend a few nights in the cabinas there.

This is also where we hooked up with our guide for our jungle jaunt.  As we disembarked our welcome committee was comprised of this peccary, named Lucy.

We were instructed to exchange our walking shoes for rubber boots as the trail would be quite muddy due to all the rain they have been having.  So here we are in our dabber attire.  Javier Caseres is on the left, then Elder & Sister Johnson and then myself, Sister Rhoades.

Dave is busy doing his best Where's Waldo impersonation.  Can you spot him somewhere amongst these massive tree roots.  We found this to be a very common sight on our hike, but as this was our first glimpse of this type of tree we were very fascinated. Wait until you see some samples of trees with this type of root on our hike.

So off in the boats once more for a short drive up river to our starting point.  This is what we saw as we got of the boat.

Ok.  Rubber boots were a lifesaver because this was only the tip of the iceberg.  Here is what we hiked through for 3 kilometers.

I don't think Javier & Dave would be smiling if they had actually fallen into the mud.  One gal in our group did slip and fall into the mud at one point.  The mud was so prevalent that at time we were half way up the boots in mud and you could hear the slurping sucking sound as we tried to pull our foot out of the mud without leaving our boot behind.  It took us 2 hours to hike 3 kilometer.

Here is what we saw along the trail.

 We walked through a very swampy area.  Good thing they had built this boardwalk to cross it.

 Some of the trees were huge!  And then so were the roots.  Look at these we found.

Those are tree roots, believe it or not.

 This lizard actually changed colors in front of our eyes.  And he uses three different colors to blend in.  Very interesting.

One of the more interesting things was this walking tree.  The guide says the tree actually moves as it extends it's roots until it gets too big and then it stays put.

 The roots actually grow out of the truck and down to the ground and extend out in the direction of the sun so that is how it's location can actually move.

At the end of the trail we arrived at a lagoon.  Dave said it reminded him of the Louisiana bayou.  There were some canoes there and we hopped in one and headed out to the Lake.

Dave even took a turn at paddling us around the trees growing out of the swamp.  And then as we came out of the trees this is what we saw.  Gorgeous.  Lake Sandoval.

Our guide paddled us around slowly.  While we sat in the canoe we ate our lunch so we literally had a picnic ON the lake.

 Our lunch was wrapped in these banana leaves.  Insidee was a lot of rice with a piece of chicken, an olive, half a boiled egg, some slices of pepper and tomato.  Quite tasty.

As we glided around the lake we were all silent as we didn't want to scare of the wildlife.  That's what we had hiked in for.  We had hoped to see some river otters, but they were no where to be seen.  But we did see the following...

Bats asleep hanging upside down along this tree trunk.

 Turtles sunning themselves on logs

 A woodpecker and then about a half a dozen of the creatures below.  We have no idea what they are.  I'm amazed I was able to even get a good clear photo of them, they were pretty hidden in the brush.

And what would be a visit to the jungle and swamps without seeing some sort of alligator, crocodile or in this case, cayman

But the highlight of the sights at the lake was this heron below.

 We saw him over and over again, as he would fly away as we approached but just further up the lake coastline in the direction we were traveling so we would approach him again and again.  It was awesome.

And so we headed back.  Here I am almost to the end of the trail.  Just had to get a good photo of my jungle attire.

 Here's the view of Hna. Johnson and myself as we leave the jungle and arrive at the river to take us back to our hotel in Puerto Maldonado.

 And so we traveled back down river just as the sun was setting.  What a great end to a great adventure.

We were hot and tired when we got back but we had to quickly shower and clean up as we had a meeting that night.

Saturday night we held a fireside with the members regarding the Perpetual Education Fund.  We were not told much about what to expect or prepare for that meeting.  As we are sitting in the chapel waiting for the meeting to start, Javier tells us that we are presenting the bulk of the meeting.  He is only going to give an introduction and then turn it over to us.  What???

Good thing we have been working with the PEF a lot here in Cusco.  I was able to talk off the top of my head for 45 minutes, going over the requirements and process to follow.  We also opened it up for questions.  Dave was my scribe and wrote the criteria up on the blackboard as I discussed them.

It turned out to be a productive and good meeting.

The next day on Sunday we made a tour of all 5 branches.  We would stay long enough at one branch to make our announcement about the Mi Camino fireside that night and take the sacrament, then head out to the next branch and make an announcement at the end of the meeting, then skeedaddle out to the next meeting that would just be starting up and do it all over again.

As we visited one of the branches, La Joya, which meets in a rented house, we were told that the area that La Joya branch covers is called infierno, which in Spanish means "hell".  Well, it certainly was plenty hot to qualify for that name.

It must of paid off because we had a full chapel at our fireside that night.  Dave estimates there were about 100 people in attendance.  The biggest group we've had so far.  But we only came prepared with 40 workbooks, so we ended up short and with a group that big it is hard to answer and help everyone individually.

At the end when everyone was signing up for the follow up workshops we ended up with almost 40 signed up for the business workshop and about 23 signed up for the education workshop and only 7/8 for the job search workshop.  That last one never seems to be very popular with the members.

 Members wait in line to sign up for the workshop of their choice.

When the chapel was almost cleared out we noticed a sister with something scampering around on her shoulder.  From a distance it looked like a mouse or rat.  We had to find out what it was.  As we got closer we were surprised to find a monkey!  A very tiny baby monkey.

They said the monkey was only 10 days old.  How and why they had it we don't know.

The next day it was back to Cusco.  We enjoyed our time in Puerto Maldonado and the jungle but we were happy to be back to less humidity and cooler temps.

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  David A Bednar  General Conference April 2005

"The Lord's tendermercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protectin, assurances, guidance, loving kindness, consolation, support,and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and throuogh the Lord Jesus Christ.  Truly the Lord suits 'his mercies according to the conditions of the children of men' (D&C 46:15).  One of the ways whereby the Savior comes to each of us is through His abundant and tender mercies."