Party Season has arrived with Corpus Christi kicking things off

June came in with a bang.  The first part of our week was pretty routine with all our classes and the self-reliance center activities.  But the whole week was party week here in Cusco because of the Catholic celebration of Corpus Christi.  The members have warned us that June and July is one party after another.  Thursday was the official day and it was an official holiday with businesses closed and all, I It did impact the attendance to our English classes that day.  So many of the celebrations and holidays are linked to Catholicism.  But much of it is viewed more as a cultural event than a religious event.

We were told we should not miss the celebration so we headed up to the Plaza de Armas and spent about 3 hours there as we joined the Cusquenians and I'd have to say there were A LOT of people there.

Above is what the Plaza de Armas looks like normally.  Below is what the Plaza looked like for Corpus Christi -- solid people.  I'm not sure I have ever been somewhere more crowded than this.  At one point we were smooshed by the crowd as one of the saint statues passed by really close to where we were standing.

 Below is looking from Plaza de Armas down towards San Pedro market.  Solid people as well.  We've been here for almost a year and visited both places often and have never seen this many people in the streets like this.

It was like waiting for a parade.  Many people had come hours before to save seats to see the procession. 

And there were plenty of concessionaires, hocking their treats.  Just take a look.

Peruvian version of snowcones  and below regular popcorn and the pink version is like kettle corn.

Above, fried pork. They love this stuff! Below - cotton candy!

Police and fireman were there for crowd control and emergencies.

Basically, what they did was bring in all the patron saint statutes from each of the main "barrios" of Cusco to be paraded around the Plaza.  Each community accompanied their saint statue with a band or dancers or both and other community or church dignitaries.

They presented 15 saints in all.  We were there 3 hours but still didn't see all the statues parade around.  It was a very slow process, mostly due to the heavy crowds, I think.

Here are some photos for a sampling of what we saw.

Parade Banners

 Some are very elaborate.  They usually announce the saint or the community coming up.

Bands

 Here is an interesting band above.  They blew conch shells.  Maybe you can make them out below.

Dancers

And the stars of the show, the statues of the saints.

The statute above was of San Jeronimo.  Below, if I remember right it is San Sebastian.

The photo below shows how they carry them around.  A group of men carry them on their shoulders.  These statues are VERY heavy.  There was usually a minimum of 24 men carrying each statute and they were usually huffing and straining while they did it.

Religious Dignitaries

There was a typical dish that was served during a few days of this celebration called Chiriuchu.  We tried a bit of it and it was very interesting.  It had a little bit of chicken, guinea pig, salted alpaca, roasted corn kernels, a cornbread type thing, and seaweed.  

It was one of the sister missionaries birthday, June 4th as well, so the English class decided to bring a cake and celebrate with her.  

 Here the custom is to try to push the cake into the face of the birthday girl/boy.  They get a big kick out of it.  Her companion really caught her off guard and got in a good shove.

Friday after our English class, they were showing the Testaments movie in the cultural hall so we caught the tail end of that.  The good thing was we were able to talk with the Inti Raymi stake leader and set up a meeting to train his committee next Saturday while our manager Carlos Hale will be in town.  We already have Friday night set up with the Cusco stake for training so we are going to be busy next weekend.

Saturday we had a nearly perfect day.  We started it out with a workshop in the morning for the perpetual education fund that was taught by Zoila and Lourdes Roble.  We had 5 people there and our facilitators did a great job presenting it.  We only had to be in the background for support and back-up help if needed.  The only thing they needed help with was using the computer to show the videos.

Then we went out to Sacred Valley to meet with the district president to set up a leader training.  It was the first time we traveled somewhere all on our own.  We took what is called a "combi" out and back, which are glorified mini-vans.  It looked like we almost were going to be stood up, but he finally got there and we held a very abbreviated meeting with him but walked away with a date set up to train his other leaders - June 20th.

We then rushed back to Cusco to hit up the Saturday evening workshop for the PEF being held in the Inti Raymi stake and facilitated by Miguel Farfan.  We arrived late but walked in to find 11 people in attendance!  And Miguel did a great job as well.  He didn't stay within the time frame but he held the youth's attention the whole time and made some very powerful points with them.  He allowed us to make a few comments as well.  However, the great thing is the members are taking ownership of these programs and running it themselves.  We are working ourselves out of a job!  Yeah!  That is what self-reliance is all about I think.

Sunday we met a new volunteer who has been called to help us out.  Hopefully this one will come through for us.  We'd really like to get the center off our plates and onto the plates of the members.  We have so many other things we need to be focusing on in our last six months of our mission.

Spiritual Thought for the Week: Dallin H Oaks said the following:  "Last week I was talking with a member of the Quorum of the Twelve about comments we had received on our April conference talks.  My friend said someone told him, 'I surely enjoyed your talk.'  We agreed that this is not the kind of comment we like to receive.  My friend said, 'I didn't give that talk to be enjoyed.  What does he think I am, some kind of entertainer?'  I speak of these recent conversations to teach the principle that a message given by a General Authority at a general conference - a message prepared under the influence of the Spirit to further the work of the Lord - is not given to be enjoyed.  It is given to inspire, to edify, to challenge, or to correct.  It is given to be heard under the influence of the Spirit of the Lord, with the intended result that the listener learns from the talk and from the Spirit what he or she should do about it."  CES fireside for YA May 1, 2005.

Into New Territory

So the week started off with Cindy giving a talk in sacrament meeting in the Tullumayo ward.  They didn't have time to have both of us speak, so they asked Cindy to talk.  They said they would get Dave some other time.  We'll see...  She spoke on self-reliance, of course, but based her talk around the scripture, Moses 7:18  "And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them."  Wouldn't that be great!  No poor among us.  It's possible in Zion.  Of course, she didn't mention that it took them hundreds of years to achieve.

After Sunday she promptly began to get sick and so the rest of the week she had to take it rather easy and stay at home in the evenings so she would feel up to traveling on the weekend to Juliaca & Puno where it tends to be even colder than Cusco.

Dave had to teach the Book of Mormon Institute class by himself and do some of the English classes on his own as well.  He has decided to turn the missionary English classes over to the missionaries more as we will need to travel more in the next few months.  He talked to the missionaries in the Inti Raymi zone about it and handed out a set of our posters for the first level to them.

He also met with the missionaries in Juliaca and Puno while we were there this weekend and trained them and handed out material to them as well.  He's a man on a mission when it comes to these English classes.

Our Job Search class bombed this week.  After having good attendance last week, not one single person showed up for the second class.  Wow.  Talk about discouraging.

Our second group for Education was discouraging as well.  We had 11 people signed up and only 3 showed up.  And that was with scheduling it on Saturday, the day they said was more convenient for them.

What can I say?  "Many are called but few are chosen"  seems apt in this situation.

On a positive note, one of my participates got her PEF loan approved in only 6 days!  She was so happy.

The self-reliance group being run by the leaders in Inti Raymi started this week and they had 12 in attendance!

The self-reliance groups in Abancay have completed their first set of classes.  We are trying to set a date to go out and present the certificates to the few that stuck it out for the full 12 weeks of the business workshop and did all the assignments.

Also, we have been given the name of a couple who have been called by the Ttio bishop to be self-reliance volunteers.  We were so excited to hear that.  However, we tried all week to reach them and visit with them and we couldn't get through to them.  The bishop told us they will be traveling the month of June so it won't be until July when we will be able to use them if they don't fall by the wayside.

Dave attended a Chamber of Commerce gala on Wednesday night with Javier Caseres.  To his amazement, Javier was called up on stage and recognized for the church's contributions to the business community in Cusco.

Javier & Dave hold the certificate presented to the church (ASPERSUD, the church's legal entity here in Peru) at the Chamber of Commerce gala May 27, 2015

 Dave hobnobbed with some of the rich and powerful that night.  He said they were passing around free champagne and cavier and women were dressed scantily.

It wasn't held here.  This is a photo of a casino called Babilonia, which in English is Babylon, but that is where Dave went Wed. night, into Babylon.  Side note, this photo shows below the name of the casino, "tragamonedas" which I find funny because the literal translation is "traga" - swallow and "monedas" coins.  I think it is referring to slot machines, but when you realize they are being called swallow coins, why would you go there just to let a machine swallow your coins?

He did say he had the chance to meet and talk with the owner of a chocolate factory here in town, Sol Naciente.  They gave everyone free samples of chocolate.  He thought it was eating chocolate and was disappointed to find out it was the baking chocolate with no sweetener added, very bitter.  I promised to use it to cook brownies when I have some time.

Despite not feeling 100%, we managed to visit some museums on Friday afternoon.  We visited the Museum of Popular Art, which was actually more interesting than we expected, the Museum of Natural History, which is housed in the building that was Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's house, a famous Peruvian writer back in the 1500's,

  and the Museum of Contemporary Art, which was a bit of a bust and not worth visiting except that it is housed in the Municipal Building which has a very pretty center patio and fountain.

Here are a few pieces of art work from this last museum.  The others we weren't allowed to take photos.

 Above, an oil painting of a typical Peruvian mountain landscape.  Below an interesting design for a table.

 Below, I think Dae found a long lost cousin or something.

The end of the week we traveled to Juliaca and Puno to do leader training.  This was new territory.  We have never worked with the members or leaders in Juliaca, which is a town about an hour before you get to Puno from Cusco.  And the leaders we worked with in Puno are from the other stake, Bella Vista, that hasn't done anything with self-reliance either.  Hard to believe we are almost to our one year mark and just now are starting to work with these two stakes.  But on the other hand, it is great to see the ball finally starting to roll with them.

We met with leaders only this time and trained them on the new program and their roles and responsibilities with it.  In Juliaca it was only 5 people, the ones that form the stake self-reliance committee and a few facilitators.  In Puno, the stake president wanted all his ward leaders there so it was a full meeting.  The attendance was good.

 Above is the leader meeting, early into the meeting.  It was even fuller by the time we finished.  Below is the stake presidency for the Bella Vista, Puno stake.  The man closest to the camera is the stake president.  The man standing up is his counselor assigned to self-reliance, Luis Oliviera.  I think we will be getting to know him well, at least I hope so.

What was amazing was most of them came for an hour long training and then stayed for another two hours for a meeting on PEF.  That was three hours.

The Bella Vista stake is really starting from scratch.  They don't even have all their members called to form their self-reliance committee and the counselor over self-reliance pretty much knows nothing about his duties so should be interesting to see where we go from here.

We set up a follow up time to do the Mi Camino charlar in Juliaca for July 5th so we will head out there again.  We were fortunate that the cold really wasn't bad that weekend, but it will be come July 5th.  We were not able to set a date with the Bella Vista stake.  They will need to get their ducks in a row before we can do a Mi Camino.

We flew to Juliaca instead of taking the bus.  What a treat.  It was a 55 minute flight versus an 8 hour bus ride.  It cost a bit more but it was well worth the cost.  I think our bus traveling days are over to Puno, unless the airfare costs skyrocket.

 Hotel lobby where we stayed in Puno on this trip, Conde de Lema.  Below is the view from our room.  You could catch a glimpse of Lake Titicaca if you looked to the left.

Below, Dave at breakfast at the hotel just before we left Monday morning.

The self-reliance leader in the Puno Central stake gave us a book about Tihuanaco, the ruins in Bolivia that we went to see.  Dave's all excited about it as it was written by a member of the church and talks about how the Book of Mormon relates to the ruins there.

 In Peru it is common to make xerox copies of books, so that is what this is.  Below is a graphic of the Wiracocha statue and what each part represents.

We were able to pick up our scripture bags we had custom made for us by a member that lives in Puno.  They turned out to be more like a small suitcase than a bag, but we love them anyway.  We ordered more items.  If any one likes what they see, and wants to get some as well, we'll take orders down with us in July.  They have a facebook page, Munay Art Puno where you can see a lot of samples of what they do.  They make scripture covers, ipad/tablet covers, bags & backpacks.  Take a look.

Not sure if you can make it out, but the left has the emblem of the Cusco Mission which shows MachuPicchu in the middle and around the edges it say, in Spanish, Faith, Obedience, Diligence, Charity.  Dave's emblem is the representation of the god Wiracocha that is found on the sun gate at Tiahuanaco.  Each of the bags have our names at the bottom.

Spiritual Thought for the Week: One of the attributes of the Savior we most appreciate is His infinite compassion.  My message to you tonight is that you can and must be an important part of His giving comfort to those who need comfort.  You can play your part best if you know more of how He answers those prayers for help.  Many are praying to Heavenly Father for relief, for help in carrying their burdens of grief, loneliness, and fear.  Heavenly Father hears those prayers and understands their needs.  He and His Beloved Son, the resurrected Jesus Christ have promised help.  You have seen such tests in the lives of good people you love.  You have felt a desire to help them.  We lighten the loads of others best by helping the Lord strengthen them.  Only God knows hearts, and so only He can say, in truth, "I know how you feel."  So I can only imagine, but the Lord, who loves [us] knows.  I can know only partially how much He feels joy each time you help Him bring a moment of peace and joy to a child of our Heavenly Father.  His love never fails, and we never will cease to feel in our hearts the urge "to mourn with those that mourn...and comfort those that stand in need of comfort."  Nor will the peace He promises ever leave us as we serve others for Him."  Henry B Eyring "The Comforter"  Ensign May 2015

So Many Gone

We started the week off with piano lessons, of course, as Monday is piano lesson day.  I'm amazed at how well they come on time, which is so non-Peruvian! and how consistent they are at coming, again not your typical Peruvian behavior.  They progress slowly as some don't have pianos at home and have to practice at the chapel.  I have a few of the more advanced students starting to play some simple songs with both hands.

As we were walking to the church to start the piano lessons, we were flagged down by a tourist couple.  Lo and behold, they had been senior missionaries in Guatemala Quetzaltenango (where Cindy served as a young missionary) and had been home only 3 months before coming down to visit Peru.  So of course we had to have lunch with them.

Ramona & Ivan Jones, from Portland, OR. having lunch with us at our favorite Chinese restaurant near the chapel.

We had quite a bit in common.  Ramona is a fantastic piano player and also taught piano lessons in Guatemala.  She gifted me a two CD set of her playing church hymns that she had arranged herself and they are gorgeous.  Ivan also had served in El Salvador & Guatemala in his younger days.  Quetzaltenango was their second senior mission.  Their first mission was serving in the area offices in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.  He was the executive secretary to the area presidency and she was an office secretary.  In Guatemala they were working as member & leadership support.  

Tuesday was our Returning Missionary Self-Reliance training. This group of returning missionary was one of our biggest - 23, 6 of them sister missionaries.  And it was also the group where we know and have worked with most of them.  There were only about 5 missionaries that this was the first time we had met them.  So it was difficult to see a lot of them go, as some of them we have worked with for many months. One of them, Elder Nichols, had been in the Cusco area the whole time we have been here, first in the office and then as the Cusco zone leader.

Just to give you an idea of how diverse the groups can be, here are photos showing the boards we have them fill out to give us some idea of what their plans are upon returning and where they are returning to. (you'll probably have to enlarge to read)

 I do most of the presentation at these meetings.  Dave is my wingman and makes things go smoothly for me.  This was the first time we had plenty of time to cover all our material as the other presenters cut their parts short due to other commitments.  It was nice not to have to rush through everything.

Below is our group photo at the end with the traditional shoe salute.

Back row (L-R) Elder Medina, Saunders, the next two didn't know, Elder Brown (a great missionary, zone leader for Inti Raymi zone with a good work ethic and a very fun personality) from Sandy, UT, Elder Nichols, from Tri-City, WA area, Elder Taipe, Vasquez, Becerra, and Elder Matekel, from Pullayup, WA.
Middle row (L-R)  Hna. Rhoades, Elder Flores, Elder Niera & Elder Chiriguaya (we didn't know these two before the mtg), Elder Richman, who had served as an AP, Elder Castro
Front row (L-R)  Hnas. Liza, Chipunavi, Giron (who was from El Salvador), Gonzalez, Hna. Jesperson (from Cedar Hills, UT), Hna. Valverde, Elder Vasquez & Elder Calle

Wednesday we started the first group taking the workshop My Job Search!  FINALLY.  We've been wanting to offer this workshop forever but we haven't had the time to facilitate and we've lacked volunteers, but we've recruited two older gentleman, Guido & Victor to team facilitate it under our supervision.  It is going to be Wednesday mornings at 10:30 to 12:30 during the office hours.  Dave will oversee the class while I hold down the fort in the office.  Except this time is not how it happened, I was the one overseeing the class and Dave held down the office.  The class had good attendance (about 7 people) and it had it's good moments, but it was also a bit challenging.  Guido did a good job facilitating and sticking to the manual on his part of the class, but Victor was a rogue and went way off course.  A number of times I had to step in and bring things back in line with the manual.  I hope Victor didn't get offended.  I haven't been able to talk to him about it since he hasn't come into the office at all since Wednesday, so I'm worried his feelings may have gotten hurt.  We also had a member of the class that I don't think is completely all there mentally and she kept asking off the wall questions and making weird comments that were hard to handle.  But there were a few times where good comments and participation was had by the other group members and it felt good to  be having this course.  I think (and hope) they will come back next week.

Wednesday afternoon we had the treat of meeting personally with the author, John Lund.  Dave loves his books on relationships, particularly "How to Hug a Porcupine", and we had also had the opportunity to read his book "Is This the Place", supporting his view that the Book of Mormon took place in southern Mexico, Guatemala, and parts of Honduras & El Salvador.  He had brought a tour group down and one of our volunteers knows him and his wife personally so she invited us to come with her to say hello.

They were gracious enough to visit with us for almost an hour.  Dave talked John Lund's ear off and they discussed many things about the Book of Mormon geography, etc.  He was even nice enough to let us get a photo with them

Author, John Lund with his wife and us in the lobby of the Palacio Inka Hotel in Cusco, Peru.

Wednesday night, we split up and I handled the English class at the Inti Raymi stake and Dave met with the stake counselor over self-reliance in the Cusco stake to give him some orientation about what his duties are and how things should be organized and handled.  I told Dave he needed to be the one to talk directly to the priesthood leaders as the Spanish culture is such that the men will listen and put more stock in advice coming from a man than a woman.  Dave's Spanish is much better now so that he can handle something like that.  He said it went really well and that it was an eye opening experience for the counselor.  He realized they are not doing any of the recommended procedures for implementing self-reliance in their stake and he left the meeting all fired up to change that.  Dave referred him to the church's website so he can review the training videos again at his convenience.

All week I worked on translating the Leader Guide for self-reliance so we can hand this out to the leaders as we meet with them.  This guide has not been translated into Spanish yet, but will be soon.  However, we are starting to meet with leaders now and want to have something to leave with them that they can study and refer to, so we should have that available soon.

Thursday & Friday we had an influx of new missionaries at each of our zone English classes due to transfers.  Both zones had good attendance (between 20-28 missionaries).  Cindy was starting to feel a cold coming on so she dialed down her activities to try to keep that at bay since she was scheduled to give a talk in the Tullumayo ward this Sunday.

However, Saturday was the first free day we have had in ages.  We managed to recruit Gladys to facilitate the Business workshop that was scheduled for Saturday evening.  We really want to have the members step up and take over that commitment.  We saw the Joneses again on Friday and they invited us to tag along with them to see some of the sights we recommended to them.  We were more than happy to as it was a good chance to preview some of these sites before Dave's siblings come down in September so we can be good tour guides for them.

We hired Henry Guerra to be our chauffeur for the day as he is now in the tourism business and bought a van just for that very purpose.  It was nice to have a private vehicle that was at our beck and call and not the other way around.  It was also a way for us to support him as he tries to get this business off the ground.  He provided wonderful service and his English is so easily understood.

We took them first out to Pisaq, a ruin site we've visited before that is one of our favorite places.
Going at this time of year, was very pretty.  So much greener than when we saw it last in October.

Take a look at this photo showing the Sacred Valley below.  As well as some of these views of the valley looking down from Pisaq in the photos below.

 The photo below shows the fields harvested.  We are in the fall, heading into the winter months and throughout the Sacred Valley we could see the people out working in their fields harvesting.

 

 Isn't that a gorgeous view of the valley?

You are pretty high at Pisaq.  See what I mean.  3348 meters equals 10,984 feet.

This time we took our time seeing it.  We stayed way too long probably (about 2.5 hours) so we were a bit rushed after that and didn't take time to have a lunch but just snacked along the way.

We've posted photos of Pisaq before so I am only going to post a few that show a different side of Pisaq from the earlier ones.

 The Incas built right into the side of the mountain.  If you didn't know there was a site up there you wouldn't be able to see it or pick it out as the stones blend into the mountain so well.

 This shows a good stretch of the hike.  It's a pretty fun hike to take, even goes through a tunnel at one point and sometimes up and down some pretty steep steps.

This time we took time to climb up to the lookout on the other side of the temple.  The photos below show the temple ruins from a different angle.

You can see that the temple was built in the tops of the mountains.

Once we finished at Pisaq we headed out to the southern tip of the valley.  We drove through fields and fields of quinoa that was ready to be harvested.  The quinoa stalks turn orange when they are ready to harvest and have this red plume on them once they dry out.

We tried to get some good photos but the glare from the car glass made it tough.  Here are a few but they really don't do justice to the colors of the quinoa stalks.

We stopped to see something we had noticed every time we have traveled to Sicuani & Puno.  I've been wondering what it is and hoping to stop some day to check it out.

 I found out that it is the remains of a huge structure that functioned as a wall to keep out non-Inca people from entering the valley and as an aquaduct for water that would be transported along the top.

In the photos below you can perhaps make out the channel at the top that would have carried the water.  It looks like the Rhoades and Stones are at it again.  This reception just seems to go on and on!

The rocks sticking out in a diagonal fashion were meant to be used as stairs for climbing to the top of the wall.

We headed over to Pikillacta next.   It is ruins of a pre-Inca walled city that existed sometime during 600-900 AD.   The stone construction is pretty rudimentary compared to the Incas, but it was impressive just for it's size.  Here are some photos to give you an idea.

 This shows a portion of the walls around the city and what a great view you have.

 Not sure if the photo can truly show how large this place was.  Below you can see the wall construction and how it is not as impressive as the Incas.

 The photo below was taken looking down on the huge field area that is enclosed within the walls.  You may be able to barely make out the walls just before the mountains.

Lastly we stopped at Tipon, just as the light of day was starting to dim.   We've heard so many times how interesting Tipon is in regards to water hydraulics so it was fun to finally be able to visit the site even if we did have to hurry.

It was a pretty big terrace complex for raising crops as well, but the interesting part was how the Incas had channeled the water from a natural spring at the top and controlled the flow down the mountainside.

 These terraces were in the shape of a U and started at the bottom and continued to climb up the mountain and back into the valley for quite a ways.  Both photos are looking back down the terraces.  The one Dave's in may help to give some perspective of how big the fields were.

 Above and below show the channels for the water.  The Incas tried a variety of ways to control the flow of the water down the mountain.  The bottom photos shows one of the ways to slow the flow was to not just have straight channels, but to zig-zag the canals periodically.  The photos don't show it, but also they had small steps integrated into the channels as a way to slow down the water as well.

Another method for slowing the flow was to divide the flow into two channels.  Here shows a section like that.  It was currently not being used when we visited.  

Below shows the source of the flow of water, a natural spring coming up out of the ground.  Here you couldn't see any movement of water.

But below is a photo of one of the channels near the bottom of the site.  You can see how quickly the water is flowing now.

The set up of the flow of water also had a symbolic meaning with the one original spring source referring to the god, Wirococha, the creator of the universe.

The Incas then divided the flow into two channels at the next level down.  The Incas believed heavily in duality as represented in the sun & the moon, man & woman and the conflict of good versus evil for example.

The next level down had the channels divide into three.  The number three was an important number to the Incas.  They divided the universe into three levels.  They also had three animal gods - the condor, the puma (or cougar) and the snake.

And lastly the water flowed down from four separate channels as you can see behind us.   Representing the four political sectors of the Inca empire.

This photo of the men, Ivan Jones & Elder Rhoades includes a good view looking down from the spring at the dividing water channels.

It was dark by the time we left Tipon.  We headed back to Cusco, which is only about a 20-25 minute drive from Tipon.  We were all very hungry so we finished up our trip eating a SALAD at Chili's!  We don't get to eat salads much here as lettuce is on the "do not eat" list, but at Chili's it is safe to do so.

We finished up the evening saying good bye to the Jones.  We did exchange emails and we will probably try to hook up with them once we are back in the states.  Portland is near to Seattle and we love the Oregon coast, so I'm sure we will get up their way at some point.

We stopped by the chapel to peek at the youth's dance festival.  It is that time of year again, apparently, and I think we will start to see more dance festivals for other age groups as well.  We caught the tail end of the program and saw three of the wards perform.

 Barrio Villa Union did this amazing jungle dance.

 Barrio Tullumayo did a dance from the northern part of Peru

 And Barrio Ttio did a cowboy dance

Oh, wait, I think Elder Rhoades is saying he would have liked to have seen this kind of entertainment at the Rhoades-Stone reception.  Maybe at the next Rhoades wedding?? Hmm, Emily?

Spiritual Thought for the Week: When talking to the member about self-reliance we try to emphasize the spiritual laws that must be obeyed that relate to self-reliance.  One of them is the Law of the Fast.  Here is what God has said about fasting through Isaiah who often writes very poetically.

"Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdesn, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?  Is it not to deal they bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?  Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward.  Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.  If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darkness be as the nooday.  And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not."  Isaiah 58:6-11