Week 27 ~ "We learn by repetition"

Joe is busy teaching an English class to many of our office workers and also teaching Spanish to many of the senior missionaries. As part of the challenge to read more, We had the great idea to go to the library and get some simple children’s books to pass around. We Googled for public library close to us so as not to be confused with the many school libraries dotted on the map. We found a big library close to us, so Monday we took the bus about 20 minutes to the big national library. Great idea gone awry. When we got there, we had to go through a security gate and a guard house with well-armed guards. We thought wow libraries must be very important in Lima.  Joe said "maybe they have to have heavy security because of all the wild children who may try to leave with a book in their backpack."   He told them we had come to see the children’s books. They looked at us kind of funny and said “well, we have a few children’s books. but not many”. They politely directed us to the information desk where Joe told them, “we have come to apply for a library card and would like to “prestar" or check some children’s books out.  They smiled and politely said we could look but had to make a special appointment to do so and would be accompanied by a guard.  we thought, “wow, they really love their books and want to make sure we don’t have crayons with us to color in their books.  We were asked what kinds of books we were interested in and we said “children’s books”.  After conversation they replied….. guess what?  “We have a few children’s books but no many”  It suddenly dawned on us that this was a different kind of library.  Joe said, “this isn’t a public library where we can borrow books and take them home is it!”  They laughed, yes actually laughed and said we could try and take them home but would be chased by about 35 policeman.  This library is THE National Library of historical books and records.  We just laughed out loud.  Bet they really thought we were crazy gringos.  Only in the U.S. can you borrow books, take them home for a few weeks and then bring them back.  Not so in Peru. The few library here are only to read books at the library or use a computer. We are so blessed to have a wealth of information and books available at the local library.

Thursday evening we went to the circus! All the senior missionary couples loaded a bus to go downtown Lima. Cesar Aedo is in our ward and is the circus owner/manager. He was the comedy relief clown for the show and man, was he funny . . . and an excellent mime artist. We saw incredible acrobats and strength talent. Cesar’s son did a fabulous fire dance routine. There were no animals involved but lots of balance, strength, and, oh my goodness, limber bodies with bones that bend! We didn’t get home until after midnight that night. 

The taxi picked us up at 4:30am to travel to the Lima airport to meet the new missionary couple arriving from Wenachee, Washington, Roy and Mary Merrill. They will be serving a humanitarian mission, working with five areas: wheelchair distribution, vision, well baby care, emergency response and sustainable clean water service through wells, traveling a lot to the different areas. Tuesday about 2:00, we picked up the Merrill’s to introduce them to the office staff, show them around and have them meet the other senior missionaries. We had dinner with them, along with four other couples, at Don Mamino’s. A good chance to visit and get to know them.

Thursday we were privileged to have Elder Bednar in our office for a devotional. He has been in and out of the office for two days causing some excitement, and then he spoke to us. His message was clear, “we learn by repetition!” It’s okay to hear the same conference talks over and over, to repeat the same lessons on Sunday. When all the members are paying a full tithing, then they won’t talk about tithing any more. When all the members obey the Word of Wisdom, we won’t need to hear about it anymore. He also discussed the current condition of the Quorum of the (10) J and mentioned that another four members of the Quorum are in their 80’s. When asked about lessons he had learned, Elder Hales stated, “When I can no longer do everything I have always done, then I will do the things that matter most.” We will see a lot of change in the next few years.

The same day Elder Bednar was at our office, there was a very large police eviction happening across the street with armed guards and creating quite an excitement. Turns out it was an eviction of a group of people from the premises. All their belongings ended up on the street, they were escorted out and the gate locked.  No, those people in yellow shirts are not "Mormon Helping Hands".  The shirts actually read " Equipo Desalojo de Molina" or eviction team of Molina.  Guess this is their version of "Helping Hands".  Evictions of so many people (who are actually squatters) sometimes are nasty, thus the reason for so many police. 

Week 26 ~ Don't burn the beans!!

I started cooking the black beans in the morning after soaking them all night and then went to the office! I forgot to turn off the beans! Very fortunately, Joe came home after the English class to meet a man installing an upgrade to our internet service. When he opened the door, the smoke was so thick it looked like fog. He found the pot still on the stove, the beans were ashes and the pot had seen its last day! He opened all the windows and using fans tried to get the smoke out of the apartment. When I came home, it was still so bad! I cooked bacon, sausage, potatoes and onion to try and get the smell down or at least covered up, but no! We should have gone to a hotel for the night because it was making us sick to our stomach and headache to be in it. I got up in the middle of the night because the smell was so bad. All day Saturday, we washed all the bedding, sprayed vinegar on the drapes and couch, ran the fans, and then today another missionary gave us an 0-zone diffuser that is filling the apartment with an orange smell. Our lesson to all . . . DON’T BURN THE BEANS!!

WEEK 25 ~ Maestro Cheney

Hello to all,
We enjoyed another very busy week in the office.  Every minute of our day is full and rewarding.  A few weeks ago our co-workers approached Joe and asked him  if he could teach them an English class.  Some of them speak a little English, most do not.  They agreed to spend an hour overlapping lunch for the class three days a week.  Joe decided to use some of Blaine Ray's TPRS, translating his Spanish power points into English for the class.  It has been a hit, very tiring for Joe but still very rewarding. We also decided to offer a Spanish class for the senior missionary couples who want to practice their Spanish.  Joe is teaching two days a week using the same TPRS program.   We are having a lot of fun and hopefully learning too.

Yesterday we were invited to an exclusive regatta club in Lima. We met this cute young couple at our jungle trip to Iquitos who were included in our group. They live right here in Lima so it was fun to get together with them again. The resort is really a mini town but very tight security and membership rules. They conduct many sports events and competitions, rowing, regatta races, beach volleyball, basketball, badminton, tennis, squash, and a huge Olympic pool. The Club is located right on the coast with three private sandy beaches, nice clothing and sports shops, video game arcade, a huge play structure area and lazy pool, and many fast food and high-end restaurants. We sure enjoyed just walking around and enjoying a fabulous lunch. I bought two scarves :).The weather, though cloudy, was very mild and comfortable. The Club was right next to the fishing pier and it was delightful to see the brightly colored fishing boats bringing in their catch, the dozens of pelicans wanting their share, and the open-air market selling the catch of the day. Oh, it made me smile to hear the waves and seagulls and to smell the salty air!! We even thought it might be worth it to have our own membership BUT, alas, it’s about $40,000 USD in addition to a monthly fee.

     The temple here has been closed for a few weeks. They replaced a lot of the stone on the front of the building and some other stuff. We’ve missed not attending but will start up again on our weekly schedule this week. We have five new missionary couples this month and it’s fun to get to know them. One couple, Craig and Lesley Raeside from Australia, have the cutest accent! It’s great to hear them speak Spanish! Also the Burtons from Utah, Blunts from Medford, Oregon and Merrills from the Seattle area are coming in this week and Mike and Marilyn Woods arrived a few weeks ago. That makes us one of the old timers. It makes for a fun bunch to have activities and Saturday day excursions.

We are loving our mission and realize more each day the tremendous challenges and rewards found in this area. 1,299,577. Only Mexico has more members at 1,344,298.  It also contains the 4th largest number of congregations at 1,874 all of which we monitor and are intimately involved with in  the bi-annual financial auditing process. It certainly keeps us very busy and we have a great office support team. We are so blessed to be here.  

It is missionary "rich", meaning the hearts of the people are opening more and more to the message of the restored gospel. The other day we took this picture of all the missions in our area, the South America Northwest Area. We didn't realize that this area has the second largest membership of any area in the world.

Week 24 ~ More of the Amazon Experience

    Our stay at Ceiba Tops was delightful.  The idea for the resort/jungle experience was was conceived by an American, Peter Jensen, some 60 years ago.  He wanted people to come and experience the Amazon River and Jungle and yet he did not want them to be completely uncomfortable to do it.  He located some land along the river and began building simple huts that provided adequate shelter and protection from the daily down pours and copious mosquitoes.  Some years later a lodge/mess hall was added, then more huts, a swimming pool, and finally modern air-conditioned-hot water cabins.  Ceiba Tops is far from being a luxurious 5 star resort "play ground."We were glad it wasn't, but it was comfortable, and very well planned, nestled unobtrusively just off the river and into the jungle with the actual feel of the jungle with all the night sounds and glowing in the dark eyes of the cayman, tapir and who knows what else kinds of animals.  The food was delicious and the workers incredible.  It really was the only location on the Amazon with electricity, kind of like an oasis in the jungle.....  Can their really be an Oasis in paradise?  Anyway. We loved it!

 The second day we had several options, rest and enjoy the jungle around the lodge or go fishing.  I opted for the latter, Diane stayed at Ceiba Tops and took a hike into the jungle.  The courageous Amazon "fishermen" took some small skiffs and ventured into some of the Amazon tributaries to look for the ferocious, and voracious flesh eating Piranha.  We were given a little stick for a pole, some fishing line, a hook, and cut raw meat.  It took a while but I finally got the hang of it and pulled in two Amazon catfish and two "dangerous" Piranha that became part of our dinner later that night.  They don't look so scary or dangerous now, do they!!

We also went to the native village of the Yagua. Joe learned how to blow a dart from a blow gun and hit the target several times. They also did a little jaunt in a circle to the beat of a drum. The (actor) natives were dressed in the traditional skirts and grass headdresses and the women were topless except for the grass around their necks. I had brought some little candies and toys for the children and giving it away was the highlight of our visit there.

We visited the little villages of Indiana and Mazan, really unique interaction with the locals in the motocars and markets. The fish loaded on the tables fresh out of the Amazon, some still breathing.  I loved to see the children. I brought some candy to share with them and bring a smile. We drove the motorcar from Mazan back to Indiana where we had a boat ride back to Ceiba Tops. The ride was an incredible experience seeing the back country of the rain forest. We saw a lady washing her clothes in the Amazon, the rain coming down enough to flood the road. The road, well, it was more like a sidewalk just enough room for the motorcars. There were houses on stilts with thatched roofs, no glass windows and no electricity, often no furniture except for some lounge chairs. There was one man who was cutting the bananas from the tree and loading them onto his little buggy. It was a great ride back to the boat. Since it was a national holiday, the children were everywhere. It poured rain every day but only lasted for an hour or so.

We've had a number of opportunities to travel throughout the South America Southwest Area.  We've been to the high mountains of Peru, visited a cacao finca in Ecuador, enjoyed the beauty beneath the shadows of majestic volcanoes, but our most memorable and interesting experience thus far was our little jaunt to Iquitos Peru and the humble, simple life along the Amazon River.

Week 23 ~ An Amazon Experience

Well the past week was one of those kinds of July weeks that just wraps itself around your mind and stays there for as long as you want it to.  Diane and I decided to go to the Amazon jungle (the Selva).  We had heard so much about it and ever since childhood, stories of the “jungle” intrigued and excited our minds.  We left last Saturday and flew to Iquitos, with a short stop in Pucallpa and then on to Iquitos. Iquitos is the largest Peruvian city in the Amazon jungle. We enjoyed a few days in the city attending church, walking the streets and walking along the riverfront. Iquitos is the center of the mission.  People seemed to know of the Mormons (in a very favorable way) wherever we went. There are three stakes in Iquitos and we saw several ward meeting houses as we rode about.  We heard from one missionary there are about 80 missionaries in the surrounding area, towns, and in Iquitos itself, a city of about a half million people. The sun was just setting and the sunset was beautiful on the Amazon River. There were some little tourist shops where we bought a few bracelets and trinkets. 

Some of the pictures below: left column the riverfront, us with the Amazon behind, Joe buys a t-shirt and a little girl playing princess outside. The middle is the plaza where our hotel was and the right column, the perfect picture while we were stopped at an intersection (love this picture of an elderly man leaning against a post), in a motocar going to church and the national guard getting ready for the Independence celebration in the plaza. The bottom five, the iron house created by the same man who designed the Eiffel Tower in Paris (his practice project I guess), another picture of the plaza from our hotel window, a typical neighborhood, and our friend we met, Gerald Mayeaux, originally from Texas now runs a restaurant/bar called Yellow Rose Texas. It was completely full of sports memorabilia since he played professional baseball for Texas.

When we arrived in Iquitos at the airport, not realizing motor taxis and motorcycles are the primary mode of transportation (very few cars and buses) we opted to take a regular taxi.  It would be our last since regular car taxis are just so scarce.  The streets are full of motor taxis, morning to night, circling the streets and the city square, like massive group of motor cycle gangs,  putt putt putting along, with one or two cars in the mix.  When we landed and had gathered our luggage, we were immediately “assaulted” or a better word, swarmed by taxi drivers.  We quickly realized that 95% were “motocars” or motorcycle taxis.  These are a made to order (mostly made by Honda) combination of a motorcycle and a buggy, with a seat that holds 2 comfortably, 7 or 8 if you’ a Peruvian family) with a canopy covering the top to protect against the sun and the rain. They don't know what a seatbelt or helmet is. One site we saw was a man driving with his two-year old daughter behind him and then his wife, nursing her little girl. We saw the same lady a few minutes later with the baby on her hip talking on a cell phone. 

We also visited the Quistococha Lagoon and zoo. The zoo was not much to look at but the big cats were the best. We felt bad about the animal habitats that were not very good. The zoo is part of the Quistococha Lagoon so we walked down by the beach and found the locals just hanging out there, families and sweethearts. There were several open-air eating places with the fish to cook on the table. So we sat down and put in an order and enjoyed the best grilled fish ever, eating until only the fish skeleton was left!