¡Hola desde Perú! (Hello from Peru!)
It felt like this week flew by! We’ve been “shadowing” the
office elders to see what they do on a day-to-day basis, (which you would think
that we’d know by now). But, now that we are actually here in Peru, we see that
there are many things that we still need to learn!
We’ve also spent some time this week looking for an
apartment closer to the mission office. So far, we’ve been staying in the
mission home which is about a 40 minute commute in good traffic. Since we don’t
have a car, we’ve been learning the taxi/Uber system and we’ve done a little
walking as well. We walked to Jockey Plaza (a huge mall and shopping district),
ate dinner (tried the Peruvian McDonalds), bought our groceries, and then
flagged down a taxi to drive us home.
One “plus” to the long traffic commute this week was the
opportunity we had to see the Los Olivos Temple which is under construction not
far from the mission office. Our driver detoured off the regular route when he
saw the traffic jam on the freeway and drove past the temple. That made us
smile!
It almost seems surreal to be here – over 4,200 miles from
home. On one hand, things seem very different – the housing construction, food,
language, etc. And on the other hand, things seem very familiar – people we
pass on the street smile and say, “bien dia,” we’ve found familiar food, and God’s
work keeps moving forward. We love this quote from Elder Uchtdorf (October 2020
General Conference):
“Our best days are ahead of us, not behind us. This is why
God gives us modern revelation! Without it, life might feel
like flying in a holding pattern, waiting for the fog to lift so we can land
safely. The Lord’s purposes for us are much higher than that. Because this is
the Church of the living Christ, and because He directs His prophets, we are
moving forward and upward to places we’ve never been, to heights we can hardly
imagine!”
¡Que tengan una semana
súper fantástica! (Have a super fantastic week!)
Love,
Lane & LeAnn
Special American-style breakfast at President and Sister Packard's home in appreciation of the office elders and Assistants. We helped the Packards prepare pancakes, biscuits, eggs, bacon, potatoes, fresh fruit and orange juice!
The new Lima / Los Olivos temple under construction is not in our mission, but just down the road about 2.5 miles from our mission office.
We passed by it on the way home from the office one day when the main road was in a traffic jam -- took us 1.5 hours to get home!
Houses seeming to teeter on the edge of the narrow canyon of the Rimac River which runs through Lima. We pass this section driving from the Mission Home to the Mission Office. A little scary to live in one of these houses -- especially with young children!
Performers often present their talents or sell their goods at intersections when traffic is stopped. They then ask for donations from the drivers before the light turns green. At the intersection in front of our Mission Office, this fellow was mimicking / dancing like Michael Jackson. We've seen others juggling and balancing tall things on their heads.
Short video clip of the Michael Jackson performer!
In the small, inner-courtyard area of our Mission Office there is a lone fig tree that actually produces some figs! Couldn't tell it from this photo (but it's winter here now)!
Interesting to see the housing construction practices here. This support structure is being used in an apartment under construction above one of our missionary apartments. Sketchy? Hope the missionaries are praying hard!
We liked this unique tree. Don't know the name, but it looks like a regular tree trunk with cactus-type branches! Zoom in to get a closer look.
Overlooking Lima from the balcony of the Mission Home.
First visit to a Lima McDonalds! We struggled with understanding the ordering process and figuring out how to get our food, even though its similar to in the U.S.! They made us beg for ketchup... Almost had to do a Michael Jackson routine to get it...
LeAnn hit the jackpot at the grocery store one evening! Her love of peanuts equals Lane's love of his special chocolate-chunk-oatmeal-coconut cookies!
