¡Hola desde Idaho! (Hello from Idaho!)
Yay! I (LeAnn) had a “real” missionary moment this week. A
little background: As part of our weekly assignments, Lane and I attend (via
Zoom) an Area social media meeting. Our Area consists of Venezuela, Colombia,
Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, and it’s always amazing to me to see the many
missionaries from these different countries each week. The meeting focuses on
how we can all learn from each other and use social media – mainly Facebook –
more effectively as missionaries. In addition to the weekly meeting, we also
joined the group’s WhatsApp message stream. The downside to this is that it is
a very active stream at times; i.e., we get inundated with messages, most of
which do not impact us at all.
Anyway, on Wednesday, I noticed that Maggie – one of the
Area social media specialists – had sent a new message which contained a bunch
of self-referrals from social media that didn’t have addresses connected with them.
Apparently, these referrals had come in response to a Facebook general conference
post made by the Area. The referrals contained names, phone numbers, and
country of residence. As I scrolled through the message, I saw that most of the
referrals were for Venezuela; however, there was one listed for Lima, Peru.
When we met with one of our office elders later in the
afternoon, I asked him about this referral. He said, “Well, let’s call him and
see where he lives so we can figure out which missionaries are covering his
neighborhood.” There are 4 or 5 missions in Lima, Peru; if he doesn’t live in
our mission, we can forward his referral to the proper mission and
missionaries. So, Elder C. made the phone call while we watched him via Zoom.
And guess what…….this man lives in our mission! He said that he had watched our
general conference and had appreciated the messages and wanted to learn more.
We were excited that we were able to put him in touch with those who can teach
him more about Jesus Christ and our purpose on earth.
Thought: As I was reviewing some of my favorite scriptures
this week, I came across 2 Nephi 9:39. The last phrase of this scripture says,
“…Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life eternal."
The
last five words of this scripture remind me to SMILE: Spiritually-Minded
Is Life Eternal
I wondered what these words (“spiritually-minded is life eternal”) translated to in Spanish (using Google Translate): “…Mentalidad Espiritual Es La Vida Eterna.”
These letters can be broken into the following words: ME EL VE.
This phrase translates back into English as: He sees me.
So, when we’re spiritually-focused, we feel happy and smile and God sees us!
¡Que tengan una semana
fabulosa! (Have a fabulous week!)
Love,
Lane & LeAnn
of "over-hugging" the concrete!
¡Hola a Todos! (Hello All!)
To begin…Happy 88th Birthday to my amazing
father! He is the best dad in the world and my hero. He is intelligent, spiritual,
rational, generous, calm, and a life-long-curious learner. I gained my love for
peanut butter, mathematics, and reading from my dad. He and my mom would read
us scriptures and books before bed, and it was the best.
Our week went well…a lot of Zooming with the office elders
and observing the procedures needed to get incoming missionaries set-up. It’s
quite a process: Arrange pick-up and travel from the airport (often the mission
president and his wife do this – especially the 1:00am pick-ups!), arrange
appointments for each missionary to meet with government officials to receive
their Peru ID card and to receive a residency extension (since the incoming
American missionaries’ VISAs will expire soon after arrival), pay the necessary
processing fees (a different site than the government residency site), file the
necessary paperwork for all of this, and now with the pandemic, set up appointments
for Covid antigen testing within 24-48 hours of arrival in Lima. It’s a little
crazy and the government “rules/requirements” seem to change from day to day.
The good news is that two more American missionaries were
able to return to Peru to finish their missions after being evacuated because
of Covid-19 in 2020.
The bad news is that Peru is going into another “lock-down”
from Monday, April 19 to Sunday, May 9. Hopefully, this will help get the Covid
numbers under control a little more.
This week in my (LeAnn’s) Spanish tutoring session, my tutor suggested that keeping a gratitude journal – where I list (in Spanish) 3 things to be grateful for – may be a good exercise. And it is! Acknowledging my blessings in a written format helps me feel better. It’s not “toxic positivity;” it’s a reality check for me.
As the song says:
“So amid the conflict, whether great or small,
Do not be discouraged; God is over all.
Count your many blessings, angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.”
¡Que tengan una buena
semana! (Have
a great week!)
Love,
Lane & LeAnn
LeAnn's family ~1983. My dad didn't waste money at home or at work. He would pack soda crackers and a jar of peanut butter in his suitcase to eat while on work trips. He worked for the federal government and didn't want to waste taxpayer money on his meals, even though he had a food allowance. Occasionally he would splurge and buy a McDonald’s hamburger!
¡Hola a Todos! (Hello
All!)
Highlights
of the Week:
Apartment checks: We
finished up the missionary apartment checks on Monday and are now working with
the office elder responsible for housing to arrange the collection of broken
items, delivery of needed items, and scheduling of necessary repairs. We wish
we were in Peru to do apartment checks in person and to help follow-up. Hopefully
we’ll be there soon.
Teaching English: The church,
our mission president, and his wife have felt strongly about helping the
missionaries learn and improve their English speaking skills. Having this
ability increases their opportunities in employment and education after their
missions. So, on Tuesday, we began teaching English on Zoom. Thankfully the
church has created lots of great resources for teaching and learning English! LeAnn taught, and Lane assisted with
technical backup!
More Zoom meetings with the office elders: The
office elders are super helpful and such good sports to let us “watch” and
learn what they are doing. It is amazing
to us that there are so many things to take care of in the office to run the
mission, and that there are only two elders in the office right now doing it
all!
American missionaries are returning to Lima: Peru is
allowing American missionaries to return to Peru, if they already hold the proper
visa. One elder who was called to serve in the Peru Lima North mission in early
2020 was finally able to enter the country this week. He’s been serving in
Washington D.C. for over a year. More American missionaries are scheduled to
arrive this week. Now if Peru will just re-open the visa process …
Thoughts: On Thursday evening this past
week, we had the unfortunate experience of having one of our bathroom tub/shower
water valves break, leaving us unable to turn off the water. Of course this
happened right as Taylia and Izzy were packing up and getting ready to leave
for a trip… and it was also Izzy’s birthday! Thankfully, Izzy had recently
cleaned out the bathtub drain so the water just flowed down the drain! We had
water pouring full-force into the tub for over an hour while Lane and Izzy
tried to figure out how to fix the situation, which ultimately required a trip
to Home Depot to cap off the shower head, and then another trip to purchase a
new valve. At the time, this seemed like such a disaster, but now, a few days
later with everything fixed, it’s a mere memory…almost funny. The counsel
President Eyring received from his mother when he was a young boy weeding the
garden has played through our heads:
“The harder I tried, the more I fell behind. ‘This is too
hard!’ I cried out. Instead of giving sympathy, my mother smiled and said, ‘Oh,
Hal, of course it’s hard. It’s supposed to be. Life is a test.’”
¡Que tengan una buena semana! (Have a great week!)
Love,
Lane & LeAnn
¡Felices Pascuas! (Happy Easter!)
And happy general conference weekend! We loved
listening to inspired messages from our prophet and other leaders AND
celebrating Easter AND celebrating our youngest daughter’s birthday. However, we
must have passed some sort of life marker … this is the first year, since
having children, that we haven’t bought any Easter candy. The only children
around are too little to really eat candy.
This week was filled with more apartment check video-calls,
Zoom trainings with the office elders, learning more about the church’s
internet mission office system (IMOS), and language study. But our big event
was getting our second Covid shot. Hopefully this will help open the door for
us to actually go to Peru. So far the only missionaries entering Lima are ones
who already had their VISAs before the Covid shutdowns. Fingers crossed that
things open up!
Spring is here bringing new life and hope!
“… he is risen, as he said.”
~Matt. 28:6
¡Que tengan una buena semana! (Have
a great week!)
Love,
Lane & LeAnn
Now just waiting for Peru to open up and give us a travel visa!
A large marshmallow in the center melts during baking to create the empty tomb.
Elizabeth made him a deal that if he would do an extreme haircut or extreme color, she'd start running with him for two months. And if he did both, he could train her for a 5K or 10K run, even though she hates running. He did both! You think they are both having second thoughts??!! 😂
