Early Thanksgiving

We started this week out in Abancay.  We attended church in the morning and then had to bide our time until our scheduled meetings in the evening.  We did discover a great new restaurant that probably served the best and most tender beef we've eaten here in Peru.

We met with the branch leaders and did some training with them first at 5:00 pm and then followed up with a Pathway fireside after that.

 Another full house.  There is always plenty of interest in Pathway.

 Below, is President William Teves, the counselor in the stake presidency in charge of self-reliance. He has been on the ball, despite his health problems.  We've enjoyed working with him.

 View from our hotel room.  We were on the fifth floor this time.  It was interesting to watch the clouds roll into the valley.  Abancay is a town that is all up or down.  I think the missionaries that work here must get really good leg workouts every day as they walk around the town.

 Abancay has the earliest crowing roosters in the whole mission.  It is not uncommon to hear roosters first thing in the morning as we travel around, but both mornings here, the roosters started crowing at 3:30 am!  It does get light early here, especially now that we are in the summer months, but what is a rooster doing crowing at 3:30?  We left Abancay early Monday morning exhausted.

Every time we travel to Abancay from Cusco we pass this part of the road where the cliff overhangs the roadway.  The photo doesn't do it justice, you can't really tell how much the traffic goes under the overhang.

The drive back did not include any roadside stops due to car sickness.  Thank goodness!!

Monday afternoon after taking a good nap, we sat down and planned out our calendar for the rest of the 5 weeks on the mission.

Monday evening we enjoyed a Family Home Evening at the home of Javier Caseres, Carlos Hale's sidekick for self-reliance.  He and his family have settled into their new apartment and we were given the grand tour by the 4 year old daughter, Alexis.  She did a great job pointing out all the features.  They really have found themselves a very roomy and modern place to call home.

We are down to the last two weeks of teaching English classes.  Due to our travel schedule in December, we didn't feel we could accomplish much good as we would only be in town sporadically.  We also felt we needed to give ourselves time to wrap up other items of business and prepare ourselves for our return to the states.

 Our morning English class plays a new game that has them practice spelling of the lesson's vocabulary as they work as a team to spell the word out first before the other team.  They really liked this activity.

Wednesday was Karolayne Dolmos birthday, Empe's daughter.  She turned 19.  She is preparing her paperwork to go on a mission.  We certainly hope her bishop will allow her.  He has a reputation of being rather strict about nit-picky things.  I gifted her a sweater and a blouse hoping she can use those as a sister missionary. 

We are starting to give away items that we no longer want to bring home so we aren't trying to do it at the last minute.  Elder Rhoades has given away a couple of his suits.  The problem he has is the people are so much smaller than he is, even if they are rather tall.  All of his suits require alterations so they will work for those he is giving them to.

I am preparing my piano students for one more piano recital before we go.  It is scheduled for Dec. 4th.  They are all learning a Christmas song, along with a simplified version of a hymn to present.  I do have one student who is trying to learn the full version of I Love to See the Temple.  I hope she can have that ready.  It will sound very beautiful if she can.

We have decided to buy a few electric pianos to gift to the most dedicated students to help encourage them to continue learning after we go.  The price is very reasonable and you can sometimes find used Casio keyboards.  The trick is going to be giving it to them without them trying to give us something in return.  The culture here is that a gift deserves to be reciprocated and we don't want them to do that as most don't have extra cash for something like that.

Helen Rodriguez Bravo presented the Pathway lesson this week.  She is the one I helped to prepare.  She actually did a pretty good job.  She came up with a clever way to keep the group on task and to quickly move from one activity to another.  She gave them 40 points to start out and then would tell them a set amount of seconds or minutes for each activity.  If they took more time, they lost points.  At the end of the lesson if they had 20 or more points, they were awarded with cookies.  They managed to finish the lesson with 24 points.  Chocolate No Bake cookies for everyone!

Her lesson was on work and how your attitude influences your ability to be successful.  It also talked about the difference between leisure and work.  I suggested to her she might want to show this video below, which she did.

Friday we celebrated Thanksgiving early as all the senior couples and mission presidency members and a few others gathered together for a nice homemade turkey dinner.  We had to work around the president's schedule and this was the only time he could make it work.  So during the day time had to be given to preparing the dishes we had signed up to bring.

Dave has been working on seeing if he can help Nilda, our member fighting cancer, with the repair of her motorcycle that she has.  It would help her deliver her laundry more effectively.  He tried to help her months ago, but it didn't go anywhere, so this time we thought we could use some of the donated money from our GoFundMe campaign to help with that.  We will give more of an update on her status in a future blogpost.  But Dave worked on that project while I cooked.

We know we have been in Peru for a long time because this dinner was extremely tasty and delicious.  More than last year's dinner it seemed we had died and gone to heaven.  It made us anxious to get home sooner and eat more of your typical holiday fare - turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, pies, homemade rolls.  We even had cranberry sauce as one of the Harbertson's daughters had just flown in with her husband to visit and of course whenever family visits, they act as couriers as well and bring requested items from the states.  The only thing missing was eggnog and pumpkin pie, but we did have pumpkin chocolate chip cookies as she had also brought down a can of pumpkin.  

 President Harbertson, his wife, Elder Hasler, a counselor in the mission presidency & Sister Hasler and Vicki, the employee that helps Sister Harbertson with household and cooking duties.

 Sister Johnson and across from her, Elder Johnson visit with Pres. Harbertson's daughter and husband whom live in their stake back home in Utah.

Elder Rhoades entertaining Sister & Hno. Regueati, counselor in the mission presidency and area institute director, with one of his stories, while Brother Keko, head of Operations & Maintenance for the Cusco area, who also serves in the mission presidency as secretary I think, takes a photo.

Saturday we took a trip to Baratillo one last time to look for souvenirs & gifts to take home.  We also hoped to find one more piano to gift out that wouldn't be too expensive.  We hit the jackpot and found a used Casio piano which will serve wonderfully.  

We also visited with Isaias and his wife, Juana.  She is frustrated because her emails to Carol, Dave's sister, have not been going through.  We invited her to come to the church tomorrow and we would help her make that happen using our computer that we have.  She talked a lot about wanting to save up her money and go to Utah for a visit next winter during her summer vacations from teaching school.  Her and Carol must have really bonded.

Saturday evening we helped with an Education workshop.  The facilitator is doing a great job and attendance is good by the group members.  We had a downpour just prior to the start of the class and yet most members arrived, some later than others due to traffic problems created from the storm.  We are reliving the rainy season as we watch the streets turn into rivers once again as the rain often comes down so fast and hard. 

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  Russell M. Ballard - October General Conference 2015 - "God is at the Helm"

"Thankfully, Christ is always near, waiting and willing to help us when we pray for help and are willing to repent and come unto Him."

I am grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ, for his Atoning power and grace that can make us better people and give us joy and happiness in our journey through this life and towards eternal life.