This week started out feeling like Christmas. Dave has been working with a member whose family business is making the llama wool hangings that are popular souvenir items for tourist. However, Dave has been trying to help him see the potential LDS tourist/return missionary market if he were to have some LDS themed designs. Dave commissioned him to do one for us using the angel Moroni in the middle and he brought in the finished product to the Self-Reliance Center Monday morning.
There were two local members present at the time he showed it and they couldn't stop oohing and aahing over it and exclaiming how beautiful and lovely it was. Dave couldn't have hoped for a better way to convince this member that what he was telling him about LDS interest was valid. Any of our readers that would like something like this or know someone who would, please let us know. Or if you have any other ideas for a LDS theme that isn't too complicated, let us know. I suggested the YW logo as shown below on the pendant.
I also received a lovely gift from Gladys, our volunteer in the center. She handmade me a crochet scarf that is really popular to wear down here. I tried to take a photo but I don't think it shows real well how beautiful it is.
I think the highlight for Dave this week was picking up his custom made quitana (not sure of the spelling). It is smaller than a guitar and has ten strings, three single strings and then two pairs of three strings. Dave has been spending his free time learning to play this instrument.
I am really enjoying teaching the institute Book of Mormon class. It is hard to know how much they are understanding, and it is a challenge how to cover all the material for each lesson (we don't, we just highlight what we feel inspired are the most important concepts), but I really like how it causes me to study in depth each of the week's assigned chapters. I read the chapters multiple times, look over both the student and teacher manuals, ponder often on the lesson material and as a result I am gaining new perspective on this book that I have read so many times I've lost track. We are so blessed to have the knowledge we gain from this sacred volume of scripture.
Most of the week we kept our noses to the grindstone. The new system for tracking PEF recipients was up and running and we worked on learning our way around in the new system. The church has produced some tutorial training videos to watch and a practice site to help people learn. I am loving the ease and simplicity of the new system. Hopefully it will help us do more calling, but it doesn't solve the problem of more time or more volunteers.
We've got Gladys back working in the center. She is great about making phone calls so that should help. Guido continues to volunteer and he is good about making calls to people about job openings that match what they are looking for.
Dave now goes to our English class with the Inti Raymi zone missionaries alone while I keep the center open. He also has been doing the our Thursday night English class at the Ttio chapel alone as well while I host an Education workshop. Next week we are starting a second Education group on Tuesday nights so I will miss the Ttio class completely until I can get some good facilitators that can handle things on their own.
Our landlords' daughter turned 5 on March 27th. They held a big party for her. Look what we could see from our apt. window.
Dave came down with a stomach bug at the end of the week that made him home bound for the weekend, which was bad timing as Saturday we had a presentation to give to all the district presidents that were in Cusco for training and Sunday was our big Mi Camino fireside to all the Cusco stake ward council leaders.
To the district presidents and branch presidents we (Javier & I) quickly explained the new self-reliance initiative. I started out comparing the children of Israel's journey out of Egypt to the promised land and Lehi's family's journey from Jerusalem to the promised land to the members journey from poverty to self-reliance. I told them it is a process that takes time, but hopefully not the 8-10 years it took Lehi's family or, for heaven's sake, not the 40 years it took the children of Israel. We have presented the new program to all the districts but two of them. But we wanted to make sure they knew that this is an on-going program not a one time deal.
I went to church alone Sunday morning and made sure to visit the Cusco ward which was giving a third hour combined lesson on self-reliance. The bishop's counselor in charge of the lesson had visited the center during the week to gather information. We offered to present our 40 minute presentation but he opted to do the lesson himself. (Great example of self-reliance there!). But we wanted to visit and support him. To my surprise, mid-way through the lesson, he announced he was going to give me 10-15 minutes to explain the new program. What? I must be used to this impromptu speaking by now as I had no problem using the full 15 minutes.
Sunday night was not as big of a crowd as we had feared. If every person that attends the ward council would have come we would have had 90 people. Javier figured we would get half, but we were below that. We had about 35 people attend, which was more of a manageable group. Since Dave was sick, I had to do 2/3rd's of the presentation. We walked away with about 8 more people for the Education workshop, 3 people for the Job Search workshop and 26 for the business workshop. It isn't clear to us who the facilitators are for these groups. That is Javier's responsibility and he hasn't shared with us what is happening with that.
We want to give our Inti Raymi self-reliance specialist more training, but we haven't had any luck as his wife had an accident where she broke her right arm near the shoulder and is now required to keep it in a sling and not move it at all which has required her husband to take on more of the household responsibilities and so he hasn't been very available. We did show him the website list of his responsibilities and he had never seen it before and was surprised how much was on the list!
Despite Dave's illness, we had a good week with some good productive self-reliance activities.
Spiritual Thought for the Week: Elder Richard G. Scott, a quote from the Institute Manual for our Book of Mormon religion class this week.
"May I share some suggestions with you who face … the testing that a wise Heavenly Father determines is needed even when you are living a worthy, righteous life and are obedient to His commandments. Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain"
I suggest the CTR logo for the llama wool hanging or if it's not too hard the local temple outline. It does look beautiful!. How big is it? It's hard to tell from the photo.
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