Back to Normal

So we started the week going to church with Cathy & Charlie one more time.  We had a special area broadcast by satellite for all members in Peru & Bolivia.  The broadcast originated from Salt Lake.  The fun part of this was the general authority directing the meeting was Marcus B. Nash, who we knew growing up in Seattle and whose father was our stake president for a time.  His Spanish was excellent as he served his mission in El Salvador just like I did, but a bit before me and he has also served as the area president for South America Northwest area (this area where we are at) for five years and just before the current area president, Juan Uceda replaced Elder Nash.

Marcus B. Nash  of the Seventy

We also heard from Neil L. Anderson, one of the 12 apostles.

 I was quite impressed because he gave his talk in Spanish rather than have someone translate for him.  He served a mission in France so he speaks French and from time to time his pronunciation suffered from a French and/or English accent, but he did quite well.  It made me think of Elder Rhoades at times, but I think it should give Elder Rhoades some encouragement in his efforts to learn the language.

After the conference we had time to fix a nice meal for them to eat before we sent them back to the airport hopefully for good this time.

They did have some delays en route home and it took them way too long to get back, but mission accomplished, home sweet home for them.

It was a good thing because we had missionary work to do Sunday evening.  It would have been hard to come to their rescue again.

We no sooner got them sent off, then we had to head to the Tullumayo chapel for the rest of the day.  We had our business workshop meeting.  This group is going well as the facilitator is responsible and comes early and regularly and so are the members of the group.

We also had a Mi Camino scheduled with the Tullumayo ward.  The bishop had come to us asking us to help them hold this meeting with his members.  What we really liked was that he asked us to meet with him and his counselors in advance and train them in what they needed to do, so we were able to assign most of the presentation to the ward leaders, which is always the better way to go.

They had good attendance and we ended the night with two new self-reliance groups, a business and an education.  We had three people show interest in the Job Search workshop that will need to be incorporated into other groups.

Monday we started the week taking some time to attend to some housekeeping chores.  Elder Rhoades has become speaking partners with quite a few Pathway students and we've added a return missionary, Luis Alzamora, from the Cusco mission who lives in Trujillo to our list of skyping partners as he is trying to prepare himself to sign up for Pathway in January.  We now skype on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays with people related to Pathway.

We held our English classes and piano lessons like normal, only the piano students are starting in on Christmas songs, because our next piano recital will be December 4th and of course, they need to play christmas songs!  It takes them longer to polish up a piece of music so normally I don't like started so early, but they won't be ready if I don't.

Our religion classes continue to be a highlight of our week, particularly the Pathway group.  But Tuesday night has become just a read out loud verses from the Book of Mormon class as those attending really have limited English ability.  We figure the best thing we can do is read with them and help them to understand what they are reading.

The Pathway program has some great activities programmed into the course work and the students do the presenting, which works great most of the time.  Here are some photos from this week's Pathway group meeting.  Don't you wish your college course work was this fun?

The Pathway students participating in one of the group activities for the lesson.

Friday and Saturday night we held Education classes.  It's nice to have more than one group going at a time, especially when the members are doing the facilitating.

Saturday was Halloween, last day of the month.  We had a pretty open schedule until the evening, so we decided we needed to check out the Catholic cathedral, San Francisco.  We walk past it all the time and we had heard that there were skeletons in the basement so we figured October 31st was a good day to finally visit.

Now those are some doors!

Welcome plaque to the church.  Translation:  The Lord bless you and keep you.  Show you his sacred faith and have mercy on you.  Turn his faith to you and give you peace.  The Lord bless you.

Here are the skeletons on display.  Pretty gruesome.  

Entrance to the basement display of skeletons and bones.  We were told they were bones of benefactors and monks & priests

They didn't allow us to take many photos and it was too bad.  It has some awesome artwork in this cathedral, some of the best I've seen here in Cusco and Peru.

So November 1 is Day of the Dead when the Latin people remember their dead ancestors by taking flowers to the grave.  It reminds me of Memorial Day.  The custom is to make sweet breads in the shape of horses for the boys and in shape of dolls for the girls and they give them to their kids.  I bought one just to try it out, but a much smaller version.

Spiritual Thought of the Week:  2 Nephi 2:6:13, 17

Wherefore, they that fight against Zion and the covenant people of the Lord shall lick up the dust of their feet; and the people of the Lord shall not e ashamed.  For the people of the Lord are they who wait for him; for they still wait for the coming of the Messiah.

But thus saith the Lord:  Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for the Mighty God shall deliver his covenant people.  For thus saith the Lord; I will contend with them that contendeth with thee --