Tender Mercies

The week started with us in Abancay.  We attended church where the full-time missionaries, who were the sacrament meeting speakers, finished their talks a full 15 minutes early.  The next thing we knew we were being invited to bear our testimonies.  Dave was able to get up without any preparation and speak for 5 minutes!  Now that is something he could not have done a year ago.

We had to then jump into a taxi car and head back to Cusco so we would be back in time for a return missionary fireside in the Cusco stake and a leader training with all the bishops and the stake presidency for the Cusco stake.  

We wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to get back due to road construction closures.  

 Here we are waiting for a chance to get past the construction site.  We had about a 20-30 minute wait.  The first tender mercy we experienced this week.  The wait could have been much longer or we could have missed the opportunity all together if we hadn´t arrived on time and it would have made us late for our meetings that evening in Cusco.

Our driver was also taking his wife and 10 year old daughter to Cusco to visit family so we shared the car with them.  Along the way, they stopped to buy some chicharrones (fried pork pieces) at a roadside diner, which the Peruvians seem to just love.  We snapped a few photos while they bought their lunch.

Here are a few of the prettier sights we saw along the way.  We are heading into spring here and we are once again starting to see more greenery and flowers.

We got back just in time for our RM fireside.  Our boss, Carlos Hale, was here and the main speaker.  He spoke to them about self-reliance and basically got them enthused about the new workshops.  Our job was to get them signed up after the meeting and to provide the follow through.

Carlos Hale also met with the bishops and helped them to understand the self-reliance program better.  We attended as support and also to help answer questions as well.

Monday we took a day off and enjoyed an outing with the other senior missionaries, Johnsons and Haslers, and the mission president and his wife.  We all went off to visit the last remaining Inca rope bridge.  Apparently, they were a common thing during the Inca empire.  It was their way of constructing bridges using ropes and sticks and they were quite strong and could handle plenty of weight.  Now, there is only one place that keeps the tradition alive and it is within our mission boundaries, about a 2.5 hour drive from Cusco.

We enjoyed visiting with each other on the drive to and from.  We also enjoyed the views and experience of walking across the bridge and walking back in time in our minds.

 The old fogies of the Cusco, Peru mission.  L-R:  Back row - Sister & Elder Hasler, Sister & Pres. Harbertson.  Front row - Sister & Elder Johnson, Sister & Elder Rhoades

 Elder Rhoades with the gorge in the background.  Photo below is looking down on the rope bridge from above.

 Here are some good photos of the bridge.  It shows how the ropes are anchored.

You can see the sticks that made the walkway.  They were laid across the 4 thick rope cords.  That is all that held us up as we walked across the gorge over the bridge.

On the drive home, as we were still driving through the back roads, we experienced a tender mercy from the Lord.  It was a warm day and we had the van windows down.  I was sitting in the front seat next to the passenger door.  A country woman was herding her sheep right through the area we were driving.  Her sheepdog saw our van and took off to chase us down.  She apparently, in an attempt to stop her dog, slung a rock in the dog´s direction.  However, it ended up hitting our van with a pretty hefty thud.  Our driver stopped the van to inspect the damage.  To my surprise, the rock had hit a plastic covering that ran along the top of the front passenger window.  You can see the damage below.

That meant that plastic covering had saved me from serious injury.  I was just centimeters away from having that rock hit me on my right temple or side of the head.  And with the speed and force it was flying through the air, I could have been like Goliath... dead!  Second tender mercy of the week.  This one was a big one!

Tuesday and Wednesday we did our normal schedule, English classes, Self-Reliance workshops and we were preparing for our first Pathway gathering meeting on Thursday night.

Dave´s brother Jim arrived on Thursday in time to participate with the Pathway group.  We are teaching the religion part, Book of Mormon in English.  It is a class of 90 minutes.  It was good to see almost all the students arrive on time.  Apparently, our warnings they took seriously.

We each took 30 minutes of the 90.  The spirit was strong in the room as most of the participants are returned missionaries and very active in the church.  Those who are less active will benefit from their participation in the class I think as they feel the spirit each week.  Jim shared with the students his experiences in Peru when he served 46 years ago back in 1966-69.  They were very fascinated with his stories.

After our Book of Mormon class in English, the students stay for another 90 minutes of Pathway studies.  Below is Franz Guerra going over the materials for the night with the students.  The first gathering was pretty much housekeeping items so that the students know what they need to do and how the course is going to work.

The rest of the gathering meetings will be presented by the students themselves.  Each week there is a lead student who leads the group through the learning activities.  There is also an observing student who gives feedback to the lead student's performance and learns by watching the lead student because the following week the observing student becomes the lead student.

This is a great method of teaching.  The students gain valuable leadership skills and whenever someone teaches, they learn the material much better than they would as just a mere student.

Friday, Dave's other siblings, Merlyn and Carol arrived early in the morning.  They took it easy, resting up from their trip, exchanging their money. checking into their hotel, and visiting.  We put Jim to work helping us with our Daily Dose English classes with members and missionaries.  Given the fact that he has worked for the last 7 years with Daily Dose in St. George, we would have been foolish not to tap into his expertise.

Jim, very much, wanted to revisit Juliaca, one of his areas in his mission 46 years ago.  He and his companion were the first missionaries to proselyte in Juliaca, opening up the area for the church.  So it was decided that Dave and Jim would leave Saturday morning and travel by bus to Juliaca.

We managed to set up some training with the leaders in Juliaca so that Dave could do some missionary work while he was there.

They headed out early Saturday morning so they could arrive in time for a 6 pm training.  What we didn't know was there was an area training for all stake presidents being held in Juliaca that day and that the area seventy, Elder Costa was heading up the training.

As Dave and Jim were waiting in the hall for their training to start, our mission president walked by.  He had heard about Jim's visit and how he had opened up Juliaca so he introduced Jim to Elder Costa and told Elder Costa Jim's background.  This led to a conversation between the two about Jim's missionary experience in Juliaca.

This also led to a conversation between Jim and an older gentleman who indicated he was one of the early converts in the area (1984, well after Jim was there).  When he heard that Jim had been the first missionary for the church in Juliaca, he teared up and profusely thanked Jim for his service.  He bore his testimony of how much the church had blessed the lives of his family since their conversion and how they are eternally grateful for what Jim did to bring the church to this area so they could become members and have their lives changed for good.  Tender mercy #3 of the week.

Jim had wanted to find a former missionary companion of his son, Jonathan, when he served in Chile.  This companion has gone inactive and Jim had hoped to encourage him to return to activity in the church.  They had been unable to locate his address.  They talked with some leaders who hopefully will extend the hand of fellowship to him.

Merlyn and Carol stayed in Cusco with me and I served as tour guide on Saturday exposing them to the Saturday market scene that plays out every Saturday in Cusco.  Now that was an entertaining experience.  So typical, so cultural and so interesting.

We first visited Huancaro market, the produce market we lived by the first five months we were here.  Here are some photos they took while there.

 The meat section of Huancaro market was intriguing, to say the least.

 There are rows and rows of vendors.  Carol and I walk down one of the rows with the Cusco hills in the background.

 Below is a jello vendor.  The Peruvians love jello.

Next we visited the San Pedro Market.  Here are some of their photos of that visit.

 There is a row of chocolate and coffee vendors.  Above shows the many brands of chocolate baking bars you can buy.

 Yes, this is caviar.  You can even buy caviar in Cusco Peru.

 The famous round loaves of bread made in Oropesa, just outside of Cusco.  The bread has a bit of a sweet flavor to it.

And here I am at our favorite San Pedro market vendor.  They sell all kinds of nuts and dried fruit.

After this we visited Isaias in Barrattio, the Saturday flea market that Dave loves to visit.

Isaias Marco and below is his book stall.  He sells historical books about Peru and its ruins.

After a brief return to our apartment to drop off our purchases, we headed out again and visited even more markets.  First the Saturday Tupac Amaru market.

One of my favorite things about this market is the dessert vendors.  There are rows of vendors selling mostly cake by the slice.  But there are a few cheesecakes as well.

 
But this market also has lots of crocheted items for kids, as well as hats, scarves.  They also sell furniture, plants, toys, pets and supplies.  This market has a lot of variety.

And of course they visited our local neighborhood market, Wanchaq.  Which is good that they took photos because we never go there with our cameras.  So here are some photos they took there.

 Above, the fruit section of the market.  Below, choclo for sale, their version of corn on the cob.

 Examples of stalls that sell a variety of items.  They always fill their space to the brim with products.

We took a breather from shopping long enough to eat some dinner before heading out for the Inti Raymi dance festival.  This gave them a chance to see some of the typical folk dances of Peru.

 The lady on the right in the foreground is one of our English students, Ruth Nay

 The woman on the right in this photo is Lourdes Roble.  She has helped facilitate an Education workshop for us.

 The gentleman on the left is William.  He is a convert of a few years.  His story is interesting.  Two days after his family was baptized his 4 year old daughter was hit by a bus and killed.  Many of his family, friends and neighbors told him that happened as punishment for him leaving the Catholic church.  His new ward members visited him and his wife every day for the next three months to fellowship him and support him during this time.  This helped him to not lose his faith and leave the church.  Now they will soon visit the Lima temple and be sealed as a family.  He just completed the Education workshop so he can study using the Perpetual Education Fund.  He wants to be a master chef and work for one of the upscale restaurants here in Cusco.  Apparently, he has quite the talent for cooking.

It was a full week and the fun has just begun.  Dave's siblings will be here visiting all of next week.  We will be tour guides and missionaries next week.  It's great to serve as senior missionaries.  We can have a lot more contact with families than the younger missionaries are allowed.  One of the perks that comes with age, I guess.  

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  A quote from Jeffrey R. Holland from the student manual for the Book of Mormon Institute course we are teaching.

The task of the children of God in these concluding days of the world’s history is to proceed with ‘unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save, to ‘press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men,…Feasting upon the word of Christ, and enduring to the end.  This is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God.’ (2 Nephi 31:19-21)

No other book helps us do this so well.  No other book was ever divinely produced and protected solely for that purpose.  No other book has ever been written with such a full view of the future dispensation to which that record would eventually come…

More travels, More meetings, More memories

We started the week off with a Pathway meeting for all those who had been accepted into the program.  We were concerned about three things.

1- Did they realize they were going to need to dedicate at least 15 hours a week to their studies?  We kept hearing these people talk about classes in the university, jobs here tend to be 6 days a week, 10 hour days.  We felt we needed to be very clear to them about the time commitment this would take.

2-Did they realize there was a required, obligatory meeting every Thursday night during the semester that went 3 hours for those under age 30 and 1.5 hours for those over 30?  We had mentioned it every time we talked with them, but we kept having people asking us if that was required or if it could be changed.

3-Were they getting their emails and doing the follow up activities that BYU-Idaho was asking of them?  Some of these people are not tied to technology as much as in the states.  The younger members are more and more but some of the participants are older.

So we decided to have a get together with them all and educate them about the program once more and answer their questions. Dave started the program off with his own unique style.  He came in trying to imitate Cosmos by wearing his llama ear headband and Orem football jersey (since it was blue & white) and using his sling shot ropes for a tail.  I would have taken a photo except we were in the chapel.  I'm not sure how many understood what he was trying to do, but a few did.

Most of those enrolled showed up and were very excited to be part of the group.  We did part of the program and then had Henry Guerra do part of the program and he and his daughter, who has already gone through the Pathway program fielded questions.

 Above they are working on their scheduling activity we had them do to help them determine if they really had the time to commit to Pathway or if they were overbooking themselves.

Henry Guerra as he explains aspects of the program.  His daughter, Stephanie is seated on the stand waiting to answer questions.

We even celebrated with a cake for refreshments.

We don't know if it was the fact that the meeting was done entirely in English or if their own personal realities set in but we sure had a fair amount of turn over on our enrolled list throughout the week as we got closer and closer to the first day of class the following Monday.  But as people dropped out, there was always more names to take their place.  So we had plenty of people on the waiting list.

We had people coming into the office asking for help in understanding how to navigate within the BYU-Idaho learning website, how to pay their tuition and completing the other assignments.  We are learning a lot about Pathway and we continue to be grateful that this opportunity has come to the members here in Cusco.

 Monday we had a lunch invite with Miguel Cornejo and his family.  He lives with his elderly mother, who is just a sweetie.  She went to a lot of trouble fixing us a wonderful lunch.  Of course, they feed us as if we were lumberjacks, more food than we could handle.

 Miguel Cornejo, Elder Rhoades and Mrs. Cornejo, Miguel's mother.  Below we are joined by one of Miguel's neices.

We really like Miguel.  He is a very soft spoken shy but intelligent man (he is an engineer), who is going through family problems right now.  He is separated from his non-member wife and his 16 year old daughter.  His wife does not support his activity in the church now that he has come back from being inactive, but Miguel is determined to not turn his back on the church again even if it means his marriage will be over.  We actually hope he can start over with a new wife who is a dedicated member of the church because we are sure he could be of great service here in Cusco, probably a future bishop.

Miguel's house had an unusual feature, something we haven't seen here in Peru.

Mid-week, on Wednesday, we hit our 15 month mark.  For some reason the fact that we are looking at only three months left in our mission stunned and alarmed me.  It made me realize we need to start thinking about the "after-mission life".

Now with Pathways here in Cusco, we will probably extend our mission until the first semester ends on December 17th, which still gets us back home in time for Christmas with family.

We ended the week traveling out to Andahuaylas and Abancay.  It is our least favorite route to take.  We have gone often enough that we are now pretty familiar with the landscape, but the amount of curves and mountain climbing that has to be done is taxing.  And to make things more complicated they are currently doing repair work on the road, which requires that they shut the road down for long stretches of time and vehicles are only allowed to pass during certain set windows of time and if you miss a window of time you are stuck waiting until the next one.

We had to travel out to Andahuaylas all in one day.  In order to give ourselves plenty of time we left early, at 7 am.  Sure enough we had to wait at the road construction area, but we only had about a 20 minute wait.  This put us in to Abancay around 11 am.

The cars let us off just around the corner from the chapel so we thought we would try to see if it was open for a free bathroom stop.  We were in luck and also ran into the missionaries leaving their English language study class.  So we visited with them for awhile and even took a couple of them to go eat lemon pie.

After about an hour break, we hopped in a combi van to head out to Andahuaylas which is another 3-4 hours away depending on how many stops the combi makes.  We pulled into Andahuaylas around 5 pm, so it was an all day trip.

Our meeting was at 7 pm.  We had time to check into the hotel and grab something to eat as we were pretty hungry.  We just don't eat a lot when we travel this route to avoid getting car sick.

We were very happy with our Mi Camino fireside in Andahuaylas.  The group was on the small side, only 17 members, but it is a smaller district.  The district president presided and helped present part of the fireside and he did a great job.  He even started the meeting on time!!  Shocker for Peru.

 Here is our Mi Camino group  in Andahuaylas.  The stake president is the one on the right.

We formed a business workshop group and got a facilitator chosen, Victoria, who we are really impressed with.  She has only been a member of the church for 5 years but she has a great vision of gospel principles and a strong testimony.

We also formed an education group, but it was smaller number.

Saturday morning we met with John Mamani, the member of the stake presidency over self-reliance and Victoria our new facilitator and gave some training to them before we took off to return to Abancay for a meeting Saturday night with them.

One of my favorite view of this trip.  Coming down off the mountain looking across the valley at the city of Abancay.

Our meeting Saturday night with the Abancay leaders was productive.  It wasn't the meeting we anticipated.  We asked to meet with the self-reliance committee but we got more than we bargained for.  We had all the branch presidents but one there, a representative from the district relief society presidency and Brother William Teves, who is the member of the district presidency over self-reliance.  They still do not have a self-reliance specialist.

We opened up the meeting to any of their questions.  We told them they are doing a great job offering the workshops to their members.  We then explained the area presidencies goal for every district/stake to have a functioning committee and self-reliance center.  We encouraged them to work towards that.

We then talked to them about Pathway and asked if we could come give an informational fireside to their members as they are within driving distance to Cusco for them to attend the Thursday night meetings.  It would be a long drive (3.5 hours) but someone who is motivated could do it.  So we set up November 15th for that meeting.

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  Faith is a principle of action.  A new video we've been using as we talk about self-reliance is one that shows Elder Bednar speaking of this principle.  He uses the story of the children of Israel with Joshua as they prepare to enter the promised land.  The Lord tells Joshua ...

"Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man.  And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest IN the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap..."

The priests had to take action and step into the water before the Lord would part the waters of the Jordan river.  After they took action, the Israelites were able to walk over on dry ground.