A pretty darn good week!

We started the week out in Puno, the town on the shores of Lake Titicaca.  We had a Mi Camino fireside scheduled with the Bellavista stake that evening.

Here is a photo of the hotel we always stay in when we are out in Puno, Conde de Lemos.  

I would rank the fireside up there as one of the best firesides we have had.  Dave trained the leaders on what part they should present and how while I got things going.  And when they presented they each stuck to the script and kept things going for the most part.  And we had over 70 people in attendance!

These photos show some of the members still in the chapel after the fireside finished up.  We had quite a few people asking questions, mostly about the Perpetual Education Fund.  Interestingly, this stake had the most people sign up for the Education workshop (enough for two classes) and that is not the norm.  Usually it is the business workshop that gets the most enrolled.  The Bellavista stake has facilitators lined up for two of the three workshops.  They need a facilitator for the business workshop.  So that is a concern there.

President Luis Oliviera, the leader of the Bellavista stake over self-reliance.  Below, you can see Sister Rhoades fielding questions from the members.

This trip to Puno, we decided to not "get in and get out" like we always do but give ourselves some time to work with the missionaries and the leaders.  We stayed until Wednesday morning this time.

Monday, we helped out at the self-reliance center in the Puno Central stake.  They have two volunteers that work in the center and we trained them on how to enter the website to register these workshop groups, as well as how to look up information in the church's system for tracking PEF recipients.  

We were able to look up these three youth that have not had their loans work out well, along with another member from the Bellavista stake that said he had been approved but hadn't seen the money yet.  In all but one case, the problem was that the member hadn't completed the steps needed after the approval come through.  I don't think the volunteers have a good knowledge about that process like they do about the application process and so they are not helping the members work through those steps that lead to disbursement of the loans.  We hopefully were able to educate the volunteers and the members on what to do and they will now get things moving with their loans and be able to study.

Monday for lunch we ate at a restaurant right on the Plaza de Armas in Puno and this was our view from the balcony where our table was.

Since Independence Day for Peru is July 28th, the town was all decked out in red and white flags (If you are a Ute fan you would feel right at home during these weeks when Peru shows their patriotism)

We also saw a funeral go by.  They started in front of the cathedral and then marched down the side of the Plaza and passed right by our restaurant.  They had a hearse, but the coffin was carried on the shoulders rather than in the hearse.  Not sure what purpose the hearse had.

Monday afternoon we prepared for our English class with the two missionary zones scheduled for Tuesday morning.  We had to make a number of copies and buy a few items.  While out shopping we did step into a few souvenir shops and sure enough ended up walking away with a few new items to bring home.

 As you can see from these photos, we are getting quite a collection of items to bring home.

Monday evening we were invited to a family home evening with Fredy Apaza's family.  He is the priesthood leader in the Puno Central stake over self-reliance.  We had met his wife before but not his kids.  This time we were able to meet his three kids, two girls and one boy.  His oldest, a girl, was working on submitting her mission papers even though she doesn't turn 19 until April!

We were surprised when they announced the FHE program that we had been assigned parts.  I was asked to bear my testimony and Dave was assigned to give a message.  Good thing he had his translation of his chainsaw story in his small notebook that he always carries around with him.  That story is always a big hit.

We were served hot chocolate (Peruvian style) and arroz con leche for dessert.  We stayed and visited a lot with them before we left for the evening.  What good people.  Poor Brother Apaza asked a question that haunts us as well.  He related how he has read about some members in other parts of the world making great sacrifices to participate in these self-reliance workshops.  In his stake, as in all areas of the mission, his members show great interest in participating, but their commitment and follow through to attend all 6 or 12 sessions is weak.  We see about 1/4th to 1/3rd of those who start a workshop participate and complete all classes required for that workshop.  Brother Apaza asked, with sadness in his voice,  "Why can't our members make those same types of sacrifices?"  

Tuesday morning we held an English class for the full-time missionaries.  There are two zones in Puno and we had about 35 missionaries at the class. Prior to the class we invited those missionaries that had been asked to teach these classes to come early and receive training, which we gave.

It's a bit tricky to work with big groups in these Daily Dose English classes. We divided into two groups for the lesson part and planned a game that we hoped would keep a big group occupied and engaged. The missionaries seemed to enjoy the lesson.  Hopefully, this will get this program going strong in both zones.  One zone has been doing it for awhile.

We had the afternoon free so we decided to visit a site that we hadn't been to yet in Puno.  The Kuntur Wasi overlook.  We had heard that you could get an awesome view of the lake and the city from there.  What we didn't know was there was a price to pay to get there.

What you see below is half of the stairs we had to climb to reach the top.  At over 13,000 feet in altitude it is no easy feat to climb that many stairs.  We took our time and stopped to rest a number of times to make sure we didn't start to feel dizzy

It actually allowed us to enjoy the varying views more, and look what else we saw as we climbed!  We had a close encounter with some cute llamas.

At the top they have this huge sculpture of a condor, made out of metal plates, sitting on a tower.

And below is the view of the lake and city.  We had a gorgeous day of sunshine and warm weather (since it was afternoon) to take in the view.  We were told the lake level is down this year.

Below is our attempt at a selfie.  It's not the greatest.  We don't have a lot of practice taking selfies so it took a number of tries to even get this so-so photo.  You younger readers of this blog who are way more tech savvy then we are, please don't judge us too harshly for our lack of talent in this regards.

Above, I take in the view and below, Dave smiles for the camera.  Short of going to Tibet, (which I don't think is in the cards for us) I doubt we will ever be higher than this (unless you count flying).

We returned to Cusco on Wednesday just in time for a visit from Elder Uceda of the Seventy, who is serving as the area president for the South American Northwest Area.  He is doing a mission tour and was meeting with the missionaries in Puno the morning we left and then came to Cusco the next day.  It was the biggest group of missionaries we have seen assembled since we have been here.  They had flown in the missionaries from Puerto Maldonado and bused in the missionaries from Andahuaylas, Abancay, Quillabamba, Sicuani and Valle Sagrado along with the missionaries serving right in the city of Cusco.

Due to the Peruanan habit of arriving late to meetings, they had the missionaries arrive one hour before the meeting was to start.  It turned out that Elder Uceda was delayed and arrived about a half hour late.  So the missionaries had sat in the chapel for an hour and a half, studying quietly.  They had not been allowed to visit during that time.  We arrived 10 minutes before the anticipated meeting and we could feel the spirit as soon as we entered the chapel.  What power was there with about 120 of the Lord's representatives all in the same room!

The photo below shows the senior couples in the back.  The Johnsons on the left, the Haslers in the middle and me (Dave was taking the photo).  The other couple that had been serving, the Sandbergs had finished up their mission the end of June and are now back home.

I was excited because the Haslers had gone back to the states to visit family for three weeks and Julie Hasler had brought me a number of things from the states, but the best thing was two big bags of Red Vines!  I have to admit the first bag was eaten pretty quickly and moderation was not adhered to very well.

Elder Uceda is much loved by the latin members as he is from Peru.  He shared his experience as a missionary in Peru back in the mid-70's and he shared some history of the church in Peru.  But the best part was he told the missionaries how important it was for them to learn English.

When he served, there were very few Latino missionaries and only one mission for all of Peru.  Since the mission president and all but a handful of the missionaries were North Americans, the conferences, interviews, etc. were all done in English and someone translated for the Latino missionaries.

His first companion told him the rule was that when they were alone, they were to speak only English and when they were with others they speak only Spanish.  He didn't know any better so he went along, but he sometimes wondered why he needed to speak English when he was serving in a spanish-speaking country.  He knew no English when he entered the mission, so it was very difficult for him at first.  But he testified that the spirit told him it was important for him to learn English, so he was obedient.

His second companion said the same thing, but his third companion told him if he didn't want to study and learn English they didn't need to follow that same rule.  His first thought was, "Oh boy, that would be great to not have to struggle with the English language", but again the spirit told him he needed to learn English so he told his third companion, no I want to learn English.

He said after one year in the mssion, he was the one that would translate for the Latino missionaries. And by the end of the mission, he was fluent in English.  He then told the missionaries he was certain, that he would not have received the calling he has as a Seventy, if he did not speak English as it is vital for him and is used often as he serves.

He admonished them over and over again to learn English because the Lord needs them to serve in his church.  We wanted to cheer from the back row.

He also allowed each zone to have their photos taken with himself, his wife who accompanied him and the mission president, President Harbertson, and his wife.  Here is our zone, the Cusco zone, having their photos taken.  The senior couples had their photos taken separately with the leaders.

He also at the very beginning had each missionary go up to the stand and shake his hand and introduce themselves and say where they were from.  For many of the Latinos who don't have a lot of opportunity to meet General Authorities it was a very exciting thing to be able to shake hands and speak to Elder Uceda.

It was a very powerful meeting and the spirit was oh, so strong.  We were in the meeting for four hours but the time just flew.

Elder Uceda's wife talked as well and one of my favorite quotes comes from her.  She talked about what every missionary should learn while serving and one of the principles is obedience.  She said "There are no disobedient Gods".

Elder Uceda also spent quite a bit of time talking about repentance.  One of my favorite quotes from him on this topic was "Repentance is a principle of perfection"  We can't become perfect without it.  He gave some powerful examples and teachings in that regard.

Saturday we made a trip back out to Urubamba and met with the full-time missionaries and trained them on the self-reliance workshops and how to be facilitators.  The sisters are going to teach the Employment workshop and the elders are going to teach the Business workshop, so hopefully the members can start to benefit from these programs in this district.  The idea is one of the members that completes the workshops can then be the facilitators for the next groups.

Saturday evening we had another meeting with the bishops in the Inti Raymi stake, supposedly to provide a "rah-rah" presentation about the new self-reliance program so they can "sell" it to their members.  That is what they requested from us in last week's meeting.  We tried to prepare what they asked for.  In fact we got a power point all ready to present, but it just didn't feel right.  Both Dave and I felt like that wasn't the right approach.  So on Friday, one day before having to present this, we went back to the drawing board and prayerfully asked for guidance.  We both came up with the same approach, which was to emphasis that now is the time to implement this in their wards and stake as outlined in the leader guide for self-reliance and the members will come, the classes will fill up and if presented correctly to their members, the spirit will teach them and lives will change.

I was worried how the bishops would take it, not getting their "rah-rah" presentation from us, but what was wonderful was how the stake president, William Carrasco, and his counselor in charge of self-reliance, Victor Condori, stepped up and testified to their bishops that this program is inspired and will work.  I couldn't keep from smiling as I watched the local leaders take ownership and they themselves presented the "rah-rah" presentation to their bishops.

The cool part was after the meeting was over, one of the wards, Vista Alegre, told us they were announcing the next day in church to their members a Mi Camino fireside for that night.  They didn't want to wait any longer to begin to offer this program to their members.  Hooray!  Payday!

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  "Truly, one of the great blessings of devoted discipleship is 'the peace of God, which passeth all understanding' (Phillippians 4:7).  The peace Christ gives allows us to view mortality through the precious perspective of eternity and supplies a spiritual settledness that helps us maintain a consistent focus on our heavenly destination.  Thus, we can be blessed to hush our fears because His doctrine provides purpose and direction in all aspects of our lives.  His ordinances and covenants fortify and comfort in times both good and bad.  And His priesthood authority gives assurance that the things that matter most can endure both in time and in eternity."  David A Bednar  "Therefore They Hushed Their Fears"  April 2015 General Conference

Things get even crazier

We started the week with a trip out to Sicuani on Sunday afternoon.  We thought we were going to do facilitator training but when we got there we found only one facilitator available, that was our stake specialist, Fredy Corrales.  He is a good man, with a desire to serve, but he has his own agenda and it's a bit difficult to steer him in the right direction.  He has a group of 20+ people in his business workshop, which is great.  However, the groups are geared for a size of about half that much.  He is having trouble controlling the content and the discussions of the class and not getting through the material.  When we were there he was teaching something completely outside of the manual and the topics of the workshop.  So he is a maverick that we have to somehow tame!

We didn't spend the night but turned right around and came back to Cusco.  Two and a half hours out, an hour and a half in town, and then two and a half hours back.  It wiped us out.

With piano lessons, Cindy is trying to plan a recital for her students and she is assigning them songs to perfect and polish up.  The problem is finding a date when the chapel is available and we are in town.  So far, no date has been found in August and that is when she would like to do it.  Earlier in the month, it looked like August was wide open, but that is not the case anymore.

Pretty crazy outfits, huh?  We were walking to an appointment and these members visiting Cusco from Lima hijacked us and insisted on getting a photo with us.  I think this will need to be used for Dave's obituary photo, what do you think?

Dave headed out to do some errands and he learned some sad news about Nilda, one of the members we have tried to help with her laundry business.  He was up in her area and decided to visit her and found out why we have not seen or heard from her in some time.  She has been in the hospital a lot.  They have diagnosed her with lymphoma and are trying to determine if she is stage 2 or stage 3.

What a blow!  Nilda is already struggling as a single mother to 4 children, as she was abandoned by her husband.  One of her children has special needs.  Nilda has worked hard to develop her laundry business and sells clothes on Saturdays in the market.  She has a good head for business but it is hard for her to work a business and be a single mom at the same time and now to be sick with cancer.  She has stayed active in the church through all of her trials.

Here most of the people have no health insurance available to them and they live from day to day.  She has no money to pay for the medical treatments and she is so sick she needs help running her business.  The ward is rallying around her and doing what they can, but she probably lives in the poorest ward in Cusco so there is only so much they can do.

We are looking into setting up a GoFundMe page.  If we feel it is something that will work, we hope our family and friends will support and help us raise some money for her.  It won't take as much as it would take in the states.  With the exchange rate around 3 soles for every dollar, your contribution of any size will go a long way.  Surely, we who have so much more than these people, can raise a sizeable amount to help this good lady out.  Keep your eyes peeled for more info on this.

Dave has gotten permission to use the full-time missionaries as facilitators out in the Sacred Valley district for the first set of workshops to hopefully get things off the ground.  The hope is that once members go through the course, someone from the group can step up and facilitate the next time.  Now we just need to find time to get the missionaries trained!

We took a trip to Abancay on Friday to do some training.  Finally! One of the warmer locations in the mission.  Truly, I think Abancay is my favorite place as far as weather goes.

The spectacular mountain peak that you see on the road to Abancay.  So many of the mountains here in this part of Peru are jagged and rugged, not gentle slopes like other places.

But you pay a price to get there.  The drive is windy with lots of dangerous curves.  On the way out things went well.  We lucked out and got a good, responsible driver.  What they do here is rent out a car with four passengers per vehicle.  You go up to a certain street and let them know you want to go to Abancay and they put you in the next vehicle in line to leave and if you are lucky, you can leave right away.  If not, you wait for more people to come to fill the car.  You take your chances on what type of driver you will have.

We have a pretty supportive leader for self-reliance in the district presidency there.  Out of all the districts, Abancay has the vision of self-reliance best.

We had to deliver certificates from LDS Business College to Abancay so they could present them to the nine members who completed the 12 week business course.  This is the first group to earn certificates!  They have also done their second Mi Camino meeting and are getting ready to start the next group of workshops.  No other area in the mission, has done a second Mi Camino yet.  So in many ways, Abancay is leading the way in the mission.

We also did a training to their leaders on the self-reliance committee approach to administering and directing the self-reliance work in their district.  Unfortunately, not many of the leaders made it to the meeting.  We had the full set of the district presidency, however, and they set a date for a future self-reliance committee meeting in August.  They are going to need to call some members to fill positions on the committee before then, so hopefully the next meeting will go better.

     
 
Abancay is at the bottom of a steep valley so the city is pretty hilly in places.  Your leg muscles get a good workout walking around town.

We spent the night in Abancay and headed home the next morning, on Saturday.  Holy cow, was that a nightmare!  This time we got a driver who thought he was doing the Indy 500 or something.  He took the mountain curves way too fast, he drove too close to the edge of the road (and we are talking deep, steep canyon drop offs), he would talk on his cell phone, open soda bottles, peel oranges, and munch on treats all while taking the curves way too fast.  Did I mention that already?  He would drive in the on-coming lane or straddle the dividing lines a lot.  Even when cars were heading in our direction, he didn't get completely over into his lane.  I started out counting the number of times the on-coming vehicles would honk their displeasure at him, but I lost count there were so many times.

We were scared to death!  We made it to the midway point, Curahuasi, where you can get vehicles to Cusco as well.  We asked to make a bathroom stop and planned to get out and hire a different car.  The driver acted surprised when we told him we didn't like his driving and we no longer wanted his service.  Then he had the nerve to demand we pay the full trip cost, which we weren't about to do.

Against our better judgment we agreed to stay in the vehicle if he would slow down.  He did slow down for most of the way back.  He had a few lapses and reverted back to his irresponsible ways, but we managed to get back in one piece.  We will probably take the bus next time to Abancay.  It takes longer and car sickness may be more of a reality but we figure the bus drivers surely have to be safer than this guy was (but that even is questionable) and when you hire a car you have no way of knowing what kind of driver you are getting.

We learned this week, that we are now under three different self-reliance managers.  Apparently what the church decided to do was divide up the Cusco mission area.  We still get to work with Carlos Hale when it comes to Cusco and the areas in and around Cusco, or the central part of the mission.  But we have a new manager over the Puno areas and a new manager over the Puerto Maldonado areas.  We now have to coordinate with three different people and we are going to have to learn how to work with two new managers!  Hopefully, they won't be too difficult to work with.  We have heard some horror stories though about other managers.

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  I was so touched by Pres. Uchdorf's talk in the Priesthood session this past April conference.  What a great message!  Here are some quotes.

"With patience and persistence, even the smallest act of discipleship or the tiniest ember of belief can become a blazing bonfire of a consecrated life.  In fact, that's how most bonfires begin - as a simple spark.  So if you feel small and weak, please simply come unto Christ, who makes weak things strong."
"God's promises are sure and certain.  We can be forgiven of our sins and cleansed from all unrighteousness.  And if we continue to embrace and live true principles in our personal circumstances and in our families, we will ultimately arrive at a point wher we 'hunger no more, neither thirst any more..For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed us and shall lead us unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes."
"But this cannot happen if we hide behind personal, dogmatic, or organizational facades.  Such artificial discipleship not only keeps us from seeing ourselves as who we really are, but it also prevents us from truly changing through the miracle of the Savior's Atonement.  We come to church not to hide our problems, but to heal them."
"This is our high and holy calling -- to be agents of Jesus Christ, to love as He loved, to serve as He served, to look after the poor and the needy,..."

Some have it and some don't

We started off the week returning from Juliaca.  Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until noon, so we had time to explore a bit of Juliaca.  Here is what we found.

 This statue and fountain (photo above) was across from our hotel.  Such a typical scene for the altiplano of Peru!

 We found a small plaza with this statue of General Bolognesi, one of Peru's famous war heroes.  There was this small church at the plaza as well.

We have flown out of Juliaca before and it is a very small airport with not a lot of traffic.  So we didn't leave ourselves a lot of time before the flight was scheduled to leave.  We were shocked when we arrived at the airport to find the line through security back up quite a bit and the lines for checking in luggage was outrageous.  We are in the midst of tourist season right now and boy were things different!  We truly got stressed.  There was a real possibility we were going to miss our flight.  I made a comment that we should maybe pray that the flight be delayed.  And guess what happened?  The flight ended up being delayed, by more than an hour.

This made me almost late for the piano lessons I had scheduled Monday afternoon, but I made it back in the nick of time.

Since we had no computers in the Self-Reliance center this week, we figured we'd have time to catch up on other projects.  We told our volunteers to take the week off.  We weren't sure what they would be able to do without computers.  It turned out we kept having members stop in asking for information on the Perpetual Education Fund.  That was something we could do without computers.

It did give us a chance to slow down a bit and recharge.  I was also able to work on typing up instructions for all the supplemental activities we have developed to go along with the Daily Dose classes, so the missionaries throughout our mission and in the Arequipa mission don't have to reinvent the wheel and have a number of resources at their disposal when presenting the classes.

We finally found a member with good English skills and who is interested in teaching English to the doctor who contacted us about classes.  It is Joshua & Stephanie Guerra, the adult children of Henry Guerra who helped us get settled in here in Cusco.  Henry speaks very good English and taught his children since they were young how to speak English.  They have very good pronunciation and understanding of the language.  Stephanie is 20 and Joshua is 17.  Dave took them over to meet the doctor on Friday and discuss arrangements for the class.  Finally, things are moving forward with this project.

Lo and behold, when we showed up at the center on Friday morning, we found computers being set up in our office.  The Cusco stake had approved moving over the computers in the Family History center to our office as it is a bigger room and we would share the use of the computers.  As our center is open during the day and the family history center is only used during the evenings and Sundays, it made for a win-win situation.  They have two desktop computers.  So we now have something to work with, but nothing like the 2 desktops and 6 laptops we used to have, but we are not going to complain.

We did have two meetings set up with stake self-reliance committees this week.  One didn't happen and the other did.  The Cusco stake leaders didn't show up Friday night and we were so disappointed.  With the model center closing, it is really important that the Cusco stake leaders step up and get the ball rolling on a stake level and there is so much that needs to be discussed. But the Inti Raymi stake did hold their meeting Saturday night and we were blown away with how productive a meeting it was.  It was a good pick-me-upper after the disappointment of Friday night.

We did take some time on Saturday to tour the cathedral Santa Domingo that was constructed on top of the Inca emperor's palace, Qoricancha, by the Spanairds once they conquered the Incas.  We walk past it all the time as it is only a few blocks from our center but we have never had time to go inside.  It was fun to finally see it on the inside and we were able to walk on the old Inca walls (where they just held the Inti Raymi celebration on June 24th).

 Qoricancha with the cathedral, Santo Domingo.  Below a close up of the original Inca stonework that the cathedral is built on top of.

Spiritual Thought for the Week: "Conversion means consecrating your life to caring for and serving others who need your help and sharing your gifts and blessings...Every unselfish act of kindness and service increases your spirituality.  God would use you to bless others.  Your continued spiritual growth and eternal progress are very much wrapped up in your relationships -- in how you treat others.  Service to others is what the gospel and exalted life are all about."  -Elder Robert J Whetten

The end has arrived....

Let's start this blog off with Sunday, June 28th.  I finally got to use my piano playing skills to accompany some singing groups and I did double duty on Sunday.

First I started off accompanying two sister missionaries who sang The Olive Tree, a Spanish version that I translated in my spare time while waiting for piano students to arrive.  These two sisters, Hoskins & Miceli, both have beautiful singing voices and they were companions in our ward!  Since this Sunday was just before changes, they needed to perform the song today.  Since they are both good singers they didn't need much practice and since Peruvians really don't know how to sing very well nor in harmony, the members thought they sounded like professionals.  I thought they sounded like angels.

As soon as I was done playing for them, I had to take off and head over to another chapel to accompany a group of missionaries who were singing the EFY medley - As Sisters in Zion and Army of Helaman.  The two sister missionaries were companions, and Sister Valenzuela was finishing up her mission on Tuesday.  She speaks very good English and her companion, Sister Hollingshead is an American so they sang their part in English.  The Elders in their district sang the Army of Helaman part and they sang in Spanish, then when they combined they sang both English and Spanish until the chorus and they sang all in Spanish.  This number took a lot more time to practice and get sounding good.  But I have to admit, it sounded quite nice the day they performed.

The Villa Union/Santiago district singers L-R:  Elders Salas, Flores, Zerillo, Sisters Valenzuela, Hollingshead, Elders Kotter, Mann & Largent

Early Sunday afternoon we headed out to Sicuani for a training meeting to their stake self-reliance committee members.  There had been some confusion and miscommunication so it wasn't until the last minute we knew for sure we were going.  Then when we got there, we found out the hour set for the meeting was during the self-reliance workshop meetings and the two facilitators are part of the committee.  So we joined in the workshops and participated in those and ended up having our training meeting start about 40 minutes late.  It was very disorganized and observing the workshops we could see the facilitators really need some direction and training as well so we hope we can get out to give them some training soon.  But we walked away with a following date for the committee to meet for their first meeting.

We had to spend the night in Sicuani and it was cold!  Bright and early Monday morning we headed out back to Cusco, only getting back in time to give the afternoon students their piano lessons.  Monday night we were preparing for the next day's returning missionary training.

Tuesday we had a small group to train, only 10 missionaries about evenly split between Elders and Sisters and Gringos and Latinos.  This was the first time we presented the new recommended outline.  We had to make a few changes to what we were doing before but not too much.  They do want us to spend more time talking to them about the importance of education and learning English and make sure they know about BYU-Idaho Pathway and PEF options.

 An all day training session on the last day of your mission.  Not sure it is the funnest way to end.

Here is our group photo.  Sorry it is blurry.  The member who took the photo had a broken wrist apparently and couldn't seem to hold the tablet steady.  This is the best out of three tries.

Hnas.  Baker, Valenzuela, Quezada, Burgos, Rhoades.  Elders  Kotter, Rhoades, Javier.  Back row - Elders Thompson,

After giving this presentation we realized that we only have four more times to present this training and we will be going home with the last group.  Wow, that hit us like a ton of bricks.

We've started our second semester of teaching the English Book of Mormon class.  We only made it through First & Second Nephi, and Jacob during the first semester.  I have appreciated the opportunity to teach as I have studied more in depth these writings and I have learned to love Nephi and Jacob more and it has become even clearer to me how The Book of Mormon truly is a testament of Jesus Christ.

Wednesday evening we had our first self-reliance committee meeting with the Inti Raymi stake.  Everyone was in attendance.  Yeah!  We did a bit more training to help them understand their role and we talked to them about the need for setting up their own center and getting these workshops offered to their members and not just a select group.  They set up a follow up meeting for July 11th with the objective to plan a presentation to give to the bishops at their bishops council on July 18th.
We like what we are seeing with the leaders of the Inti Raymi stake.

In the Friday morning English class for the Inti Raymi zone missionaries, we celebrated Elder Powell's birthday, which was actually July 2nd, the day before.

Elder Powell has been serving in the same area (Tihuantinsuyo which meets in our chapel) since before Christmas so we have gotten to know him quite well.  He is a good kid and tries to be a good missionary.

Friday night the leaders of the Cusco stake were supposed to meet.  That meeting ended up being postponed.  It was disappointing particularly since that very day, our model center was dismantled and died.  We no longer have a self-reliance model center in Cusco any more.  We had been warned about it happening and it actually took a month longer than we had first been told, but it was still a very sad day.

So very sad to see empty tables with no laptops on the desks.

We understand the rationale we've been given for why they are closing the model center, but it is still hard to not feel like all our hard work and progress will be lost.  Each of the stakes and districts are supposed to provide their own services to their own members.  Our role now is to train and help these stakes and districts get organized and up and running, so our emphasis is on training.  Please pray for us as this is going to be a very challenging task.

Saturday we were off traveling again, this time to Juliaca for a Sunday evening fireside with their stake.  But as we didn't have commitments with them until Sunday evening, we headed down to Puno to try to hook up with the self-reliance committee members in the Puno Central stake as they are not meeting regularly and need some guidance.

This was our first trip traveling on our own and are happy to say it all went swimmingly.  At the airport in Juliaca you can catch a shuttle service down to Puno that will drop you off at the door of your hotel.  We arrived with time to check in and do a bit souvenir shopping at the Saturday market.  We ended up buying too much as we had only brought our two backpacks and didn't have a lot of spare packing room.

When we got to the chapel for our training meeting, much to our surprise, no one was there.  We learned that our priesthood leader was out of town, in Cochabamba, Bolivia (the nearest temple for the members in Puno)!  Somehow, something went wrong with the planning apparently.  We were discouraged.  We did managed to talk to the full-time missionaries who teach the English classes.  They happened to be at the chapel waiting for their ward council meeting.  We gave them a bit more guidance and answered some of their questions.  So it wasn't a total loss, but it wasn't what we had hoped to accomplish.

Sunday turned out to be another story.  We truly felt we were guided and miracles happened.  As we had brought down some items for the Puno Central leader that stood us up, we decided to attend his home ward so we could leave them with his wife or bishop depending whom we saw.  His ward building turned out to be outside of the main part of the city but we managed to find it.  It just so happened that the stake president, Pres. Soto was attending this ward.  We managed to speak to him and left the items with him.  We learned from him that there are three PEF applicants that have gotten discouraged because the process has not gone smoothly for them.  We were asked to help.  We told him to send us their names.

After Sacrament meeting we decided to head over to the Bellavista stake building in hopes that we might run in to the stake leaders we need to talk to as we have not had any follow up from them since we gave training to them a month ago.  We walked in to the tail end of a sacrament meeting and lo and behold on the stand were the Stake President and also his counselor in charge of self-reliance.  We spoke to the counselor first and not much was happening.  Then the stake president joined us and he made things happen.  He introduced us to the facilitator for the education workshop, and the business workshop and said he wanted us to come and train them and do the Mi Camino fireside to kick things off as soon as possible.

We checked our calendar and found we had July 19th open so boom before we knew it, we were committed to come back July 19th.  Caramba, something had lit a fire under the stake president!  It was far more than we had hoped to accomplish.  We truly felt like we had witnessed a miracle.

From there we had to head back to Juliaca for our facilitator training at 4:00 pm and the Mi Camino fireside at 5:00 pm.  Everything went off smoothly with that and we had pretty good attendance.  We handed out 42 booklets and we had a good amount sign up for the workshops afterwards.  Juliaca is up and going now!  Yeah.

Oh and yeah, it was FREEZING in Puno and Juliaca.  I had to wear my thermal garments, a warm outfit, my overcoat and my gloves all while presenting the workshop at 5 pm, not 7 pm.  Thank heavens for heaters in the hotel rooms and look what was heating the lobby!

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  I read the conference talk "We'll Ascend Together" this week.  I like it on so many levels.  In particular, one of the self-reliance spiritual principles is unity and this talk spoke to that.

"Thee life me and I'll lift thee, and we'll ascend together"

"In this long eternal quest to be more like our Savior, may we try to be 'perfect' men and women in at least this one way now -- by offending not in word, or more positively put, by speaking with a new tongue, the tongue of angels."

"I know that through the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and our faith in Him, we can do it.  I pray we will put our trust in Him to help us help each other live happily and eternally as we ascend together."

--Linda K Burton

Exciting Events Here in Peru

This week started out with the much anticipated temple dedication in Trujillo.  Trujillo is in the north of Peru and this marks the second temple for the church members here in Peru.  The first one is in Lima.

They held three dedication services, at 9 am, 12 pm, and 3 pm.  They broadcasted the services into all the stake centers throughout the country so our chapel, Tullumayo, became an extension of the temple for the day.  Elder Uchdorft presided and Elder David Bednar accompanied him.  The area presidency were in attendance.  The temple president we met when we first arrived in Peru.  He and his wife were serving a mission in the area offices at the time.  It was a very beautiful, uplifting experience and the first time we have attended a temple dedication in Spanish.  Hopefully, it won´t be the last.

Embroidered white handkerchief given to us as a gift with the design of the temple and the dedication date embroidered on it.  What a great keepsake!

Sunday evening we hosted a pancake dinner.  We invited the couple with the new restaurant over to taste our pancakes and discuss business ideas.  We also invited over the sister missionaries and elders assigned to our Tullumayo ward, which are the zone leaders.  Three of them are gringos.  We figured not only would they enjoy the dinner but they could give some honest feedback to these members.

I also made a batch of brownies and they turned out perfectly!  I was so excited and they tasted so wonderful.  We had a great time and the members walked away with a lot of good ideas for their business.

Here we are - the Farfans, the restaurant owners, Hna. Rhoades, Elder Gonzalez, Elder Day, Hna. Miceli & Hna. Hoskins.

Monday, Cusco members were all excited as Elder Uchdorft came for a visit and held a meeting with the members.  This was the first time a member of the first presidency has EVER visited Cusco so it was a historic meeting for the members.

We managed to get our inactive friend, Empe Dolmo, to go to this meeting.  Pres. Uchdorft spoke simply and emphasized not to be ashamed of the gospel and standing up for our beliefs with those around us.  He counseled the members to keep the commandments and to trust in the Lord and all would be well.  His daughter accompanied him as well as his wife and they both spoke as well.  The members were speaking about this experience for days afterwards.  It is something they will remember forever.

Out of the blue we had this doctor contact us about teaching him and 3 of his coworkers the Daily Dose program so they can become fluent in English.  He had provided physical therapy to Sister Sanchez after she had her knee surgery and apparently Sister Sanchez had told him about our English class.  We told him we could not do it, but we would work on getting one of our students to do it.  We hope we can find someone that can benefit from this and make some money as well.

Wednesday, June 24th is a BIG day here in Cusco.  It is the winter solstice, but the Incas traditionally held a great celebration that day called Inti Raymi.  Inti is Quechua for Sun and Raymi means Celebration or Party.  It was considered a sacred religious ceremony to the Incas.  All of Cusco celebrates this with a great re-enactment of these ceremonies and people from all over the world come to attend and watch this theatrical re-enactment.  So of course, we can´t live here in Cusco and not attend.

WARNING:  We walked away with hundreds of photos, so even though you will see only a small sample, there are still A LOT of photos ahead.

They hold it in three stages at three different locations.  The first one is Qorikancha, which is only a few blocks from the chapel where our office is located.  The crowds were incredible and we had to get there early and still didn't get the best spot.

Qorikancha is the field and building set on the hill.  If you enlarge the photo you will be able to see better how there are people EVERYWHERE!  The best spot was probably in the open balconies of the yellow building in the background.

 The performers came in from all sides.  They marched down the street right through the crowd.  Above is the conch shell blowers, and below are Inca warriors.

The photo below was taken during the ceremony.  If you enlarge it you will be able to see past the crowd in the foreground and see the performers on the field and on the wall of Qorikancha.

 What follows are some close up photos of this part of the ceremony.

Above is the Inca ruler welcoming everyone to the Inti Raymi festivities.

 The daughters of the Inca ruler walk down the stairs (above) and below are the soldiers and servants.

Sorry about the quality of these photos.  There was a haze and the sun was not conducive to good lighting where we were standing.

After all participants filed in (which took a while) a brief welcoming ceremony with dancing took place.  The whole program is done in Quechua, the native language of the Incas, so you have to read your program guide to get the gist of what is going on.

When this part finished up, the second part took place at the Plaza de Armas.  The crowd and the performers all walked up to the Plaza which is about a half a mile from Qorikancha.  Here was where the crowd was the worst!  Apparently, while the ceremony is taking place down at Qorikancha, people are saving places at the Plaza.  So the Plaza was already crowded to start with and then came all the crowd from Qorikancha.  The best spot would have been on one of the balconies, and we had a chance to do that but the price for a seat there was pretty high and we had not brought enough cash with us, but we would have gladly paid the asking price to be able to watch in comfort.

View of the Plaza from our corner

We ended up finding a spot that was in one of the four corners of the Plaza.  It turned out to not be a good choice as we were jostled and pushed constantly since the spot was right where bystanders were coming and going.  The one benefit was that again, the performers came in from all sides and that meant they came right in front of us.

 Here's a close up of one of the actors that filed in from our corner.  By the costumes they wore, they obviously represented the jungle area of the Inca empire.

The Inca empire was called Tihuantinsuyo and was divided up into four regions, so the performers came in from the four corners of the square and each group represented each area of the Inca empire.
Here are some photos of the performance at the Plaza.

 The performers filing in and taking their spots for the ceremony that would be reenacted once the Inca ruler arrived.

We did not have a good view of the center part of the enactment which was where the fountain usually is, but they turned it into a stage.  The photo below we took later in the day after the festivities had ended.

The Inca statue is usually at the top of the fountain.  Now it appears as if he is standing on rock walls.

Each of the four regions brought in a statue (or should I say idol?).  The first three represent the trilogy of animals that the Incas attributed sacred powers to.  The puma...

 The snake...

 and the condor...

 For the last corner they had this Inca mummy, which probably represented their ancestors.

Below are photos of some of the memorable characters in the performance.

 Above is Dave's favorite character.  He represented a deer.  On his back was a deer skin.  His hat had antlers and he pranced around and acted like a deer throughout the whole performance.

Above is a jungle medicine man.  Below is the Inca emperor and his wife. 

We got tired of all the jostling at the Plaza de Armas and decided to leave by way of the back streets.  So we circled around and as we were coming back to the Plaza, we noticed people lining the street we were on.  So we joined in.  It turned out that the performers all exited the Plaza down this street to buses that would take them to the next act of the ceremonies, Sacsayhuaman.  So we got some awesome photos as they filed past.  Here are just a few.

The last stage is done right at Sacsayhuaman, one of the coolest ruins here in Cusco, just outside of town.  We had reserved seats for that so it was nicer to watch.  It reminded me of the Hill Cumourah Pageant as the performers ascended down the ruins and for most of the performance the ruins provided the backdrop.

It started off with a bang, or should I say, smoke bombs.

They re-enact a number of Inca ceremonies.  The first one being the ceremony of the chicha, which is the purple corn drink they all love here.

 Anciently the Incas fasted for three days prior to this celebration, only eating very limited items and in very small amounts.  To break the fast, they bring the Inca emperor a drink in a gold goblet first and it is then passed around to all those present.  The priests then pour some out on the ground in an offering to the gods to bless them with a good harvest.

The next ceremony is the fire ceremony.  Anciently apparently, the Incas were not allowed to light a fire for three days prior to this ceremony.  Nor were they allowed to sleep with their women for those three days either so they couldn't light that kind of fire either!

After lighting a fire, using the reflection of the sun off a gold bracelet, they send torches out to light various bonfires around the field.

The third ceremony is the sacrifice of a llama.

 The priest would cut out the heart and hold it up for all to see.  If the heart continued beating after it had been cut out of the llama, that was a good omen for a prosperous year ahead. (The killing and the heart were all staged, so don't fear animal lovers)

In between each of the ceremonies there was dancing.  Plenty of dancing.

At the end all the performers paraded around the perimeter of the field which gave us a chance to get a good look at all the costumes and take some great photos.  Here are just a few.

 Interesting band attire and instruments

 This was surprising to see.  Apparently the dancers use pig legs to dance with.

After the performance we decided not to return with the tour group since we live in Cusco and know how to find our way around.  We wanted to look around the ruins.

 The llama pen with the cute llamas and the little old lady making sure I paid her for the photo we took.

See how huge these rocks are?  It is a mystery how they managed to stack such large rocks on top of one another.

And so now we are at the height of winter here in Peru while you guys roast up there in Utah.

All week long our apartment building was being painted.  We no longer live in an dingy yellow building.  It is now a bright white with grey trim.

Top floor the left two windows constitute our home sweet home.  We go in the brown doors on the right.  The ground floor is rented out to a couple of businesses.

During all these festivities, the Johnsons were manning a family history booth at the local fair, the one that kept us up our first few nights we were here in Cusco last year.  We took time on Friday afternoon to stop by and see how they were doing.  Since they don't speak a lot of Spanish, they utilized the full-time missionaries to do the contacting, which they would have needed to do with or without Spanish.  They worked in shifts and did an amazing job collecting referrals by using family history as the springboard.  It makes sense in a city that has such historical significance and background that family history would resonate with many.  By the end of the fair, 10 days total, they had collected 1151 referrals that now need to be followed up with and hopefully harvested.  Surely, we will see a number of baptisms from that many referrals, but it will definitely keep the missionaries busy for awhile.

The fair was a lot like a good ole state fair.  With a lot of booths showing off agricultural products, vendors hawking their wares, farm animals to look at, and even a few amusement park rides.

 This disgusting paper mache cuy, or guinea pig, was a popular item to take photos with.  No, thanks, I'll pass on that.

 They had a food court area where they were BBQing sides of pork and other meats.  We were given a sample and it was scrumptious.

 This table of different varieties of potatoes went on and on.

 Also to my amazement was the variety of corn they displayed as well.  I didn't realize there were so many.

 And to try to fit in, we took a photo of us holding choclo with the Andean Mts. in the background.

 Below are cocoa pods, from which the cocoa beans come from.

 And large paper mache figures were pretty common.  This one is of a frog.  A bit more appealing than a cuy.  At least you can hope he turns into a handsome prince.

And can you believe it, we forgot to get a photo of the Johnsons at their booth.

I was also busy practicing with some of the full-time missionaries for a special musical number on Sunday.  Two groups of missionaries wanted to sing and recruited me to accompany them.  Luckily, their meeting times did not conflict so I was able to play for both of them.  More about that in the next post.

The rest of the week was busy preparing for Saturday.  We held our third English graduation for the students who completed level 3.  Only a handful have graduated from all 3 levels.  The members pictured above have completed all 3 levels.

 Karolayne Enfante Dolmo

 Empe Dolmo

Marcia Pinto Garcia

We taught them how to play Yahtzee, presented certificates and feed them a typical 4th of July picnic with hot dogs, chips, watermelon, soda and s'mores, or at least the Peruvian version of s'mores.  They have these chocolate covered soda crackers that we used so we only had to put a roasted marshmallow in between or they could use a small cookie similar to the Keebler fudge stripe cookies with their roasted marshmallow, but they all enjoyed learning how to make and eat s'mores.

 Group photo.  We had about 15 students earn certificates.  Below is a photo of the BBQ where they roasted their marshmallows.

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  John 8:12  "Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world:  he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."