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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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