Yesterday, we were able to attend the Lima, Peru Temple with
a group of our departing missionaries. What a great experience … even in
Spanish! The temple brings us peace, hope, and renewal. I often think of the
following scripture when I think of temples:
“Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are
free to act for yourselves—to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of
eternal life.” (2 Nephi 10:23)
While I was in the temple and waiting for directions, one of
the temple workers (a young adult sister) started talking to me. When she found
that I wasn’t a native Peruvian, but was here as a missionary, she leaned over
and asked, “¿Le gusta nuestra comida?” I don’t usually understand a question
right off, but have to say, “Repita, por favor.” But this question I understood
immediately. This is the most often asked question of us. “Do you like our
food?” It makes me smile, because Lane and I are such non-foodies, but we can
honestly say, “Yes, we do enjoy the Peruvian food we’ve tried.” We just don’t
tell them that we’ve only tried Pollo a la Brasa (roasted chicken) and Lomo
Saltado (grilled steak and veggies). And we’re not the types that are anxious
to try much else!
¡Que tengan una semana fantástica! (Have a fantastic week!)
Love,
Lane & LeAnn
Yesterday we visited a car museum here in Lima – the
collection of Jorge Nicolini – and enjoyed an impromptu private tour of the
entire facility. One interesting fact about this museum is that Nicolini
purchased all the cars on display here in Perú and restored them himself (with
increasing help through the years). We got a behind-the-scene look at the
workshop where the dilapidated cars are taken apart and then re-assembled. I’m
not sure why this was so fascinating, but I kept thinking of how sometimes I
feel like those old, broken-down cars … being replaced by newer, more efficient
and stylish models. Maybe that’s why I love seeing the renewal process. It
reminds me of this scripture:
“But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall
stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s
soap.
And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he
shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may
offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” (Malachi 3:2-3 and 3 Ne. 24
2-3)
After the restoration process is finished, the cars look
amazing! It was a good reminder to me to keep up my own personal “restoration”
process.
This week in the office we started gearing up for the next
transfer and part of this process includes printing all the documents that the
missionaries will be taking with them when they leave the mission. We
affectionately refer to these missionaries as the “Walking Dead” (a name likely
bestowed long ago by some office elder – I have a “Walking Dead” file on my
computer that gets updated each transfer).
Covid (and other sickness) has hit Perú hard. This week Lane
got a call from the CCM branch president informing him that the CCM had
confirmed its first Covid case and was going into quarantine for 10 days … so
we weren’t able to attend the church meetings there this week. Hopefully things
will clear up quickly.
¡Que tengan una semana fantástica! (Have a fantastic week!)
Love,
Lane & LeAnn
This photo was taken about four months ago, looking out the window of our mission office at the construction site of the new Stake Center that will also house our mission office -- they say within about a year.
We really did not want to get the booster, but don't have any choice here. Peru passed a decree that everyone 50 and older has to show proof of having received three doses to be able to enter any public buildings, including malls, restaurants, and grocery stores. Peru already had in place the requirement to show proof of two doses of vaccination for everyone, and they have been checking in many of the malls, restaurants, and stores, requiring that you show your vaccination card as well as a personal identification card. And all that is in addition to wearing double masks, or a single K95 mask, in all public places and even outside! Ugh. We didn't want to be prohibited from buying groceries, so felt we had no choice but to get the booster.
Lane just loves the photo of LeAnn!
This week one of the elders who is preparing for his oral English exam asked, “Sister Simmons, how do you pronounce this word: F-U-L-L?” After I said the word a couple of times and explained the concept of “full,” he asked, “How do you say:
F-A-L-L?” And then he finally asked, “How do you say:
F-O-O-L?” Learning a new language is tricky, and pronunciation is just one
piece of the puzzle. It’s amazing to me that with all the intricacies of
language, we can communicate anything very clearly, let alone communicate
across languages. And yet, truth moves forward under the direction of the
Spirit:
“… for the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not.
Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they
really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the
salvation of our souls. But behold, we are not witnesses alone in these things;
for God also spake them unto prophets of old.” (Jacob 4:13)
WARNING: Lengthy story to follow. If you want the short
version here it is: we lost power in our apartment twice this week, and once at
the office, all of which was not fun. Now you can skip to the end!
We’ve had the “opportunity” to practice our resourcefulness
this week as our power went out in our apartment … twice … Aack! And to make
things more exciting, both times it went off, we both happened to be showering
(not in the same shower … in different showers, but at the same time … so … no
more showering concurrently!). I’m getting very weary of cold water rinses!
The first outage occurred Monday morning and Lane, who is
very handy with these sorts of things, checked out our power box but couldn’t
see anything wrong. As he investigated, he found that our apartment wasn’t the
only one in our building without power. So he promptly called our landlord who
said that he would “get his guy over to take a look.” We naively went off to
the office thinking the situation would be resolved within an hour or two. At
lunch, Lane checked back in with our landlord and was a little more concerned
to hear that the “electrician(?)” could be to our apartment at 4:00pm.
In the meantime, Lane decided to call a handyman who helps
with electrical and other theissues in our mission and met him at our apartment
around 1:00pm. After assessing the situation (and nearly getting electrocuted)
they could see it was beyond the scope of our apartment; we’d have to wait for
the landlord’s guy. Now I was beginning to think about all the food in our
fridge and freezer.
We arrived back home around 5:30pm to a rapidly darkening
apartment. At 5:45pm the electrician texted to say he was “near.” As a side
note, I’m not entirely sure how Lane seemed to become the contact person for
the entire apartment building, but he largely took charge of the communication.
The electrician (who ended up being an older gentleman with a knee brace) finally
arrived around 6:20pm riding a bicycle! … not a motorcycle, but an old,
dilapidated bicycle! And he had no tools … just an electrical testing device in
his small backpack. Things did not look good!
During this time, the Packards had been texting us for
updates and Corinne mentioned that we could take our fridge and freezer stuff
over to the mission office fridge. We’re a five-minute walk from the office …
and I was kicking myself that I hadn’t thought of this earlier. So, after Lane
talked with the guy and followed him around for a bit (I felt so bad for him
having to climb all the stairs in our 5-floor building) we packed up the
fridge/freezer and ultimately walked all the food there in two trips.
It was after 9:00pm when we ended up eating a dinner of
canned chili (which cannot be found here in Peru … but which Adria and Elzada
brought to us from the states when they visited in September – Thank You!),
fruit salad (which we prepped in our dark apartment before we left – big
shout-out to Lane and his flashlight fettish – they literally saved the day!),
and toast at the office using the microwave and toaster there.
Corinne mentioned that we could sleep at the office if we
wanted to, but we opted to walk back home where we had water (even if it was
only cold) and a bed. We arrived back at our apartment just before 11:00pm and
while we were enroute, the electrician texted saying the power was back on! Hallelujah!
We hauled all our food back the next morning.
So … on Thursday morning when my shower turned cold again, I
was not amused (in this apartment we have what are called “rapid duchas” which
are basically instant hot water heaters – but these ones aren’t as sketchy as the
jimmy-rigged ones of yester-year). And I was mildly pining for the 5-gallon
termas in our prior apartment (at least we’d still have hot water if the power
went out during a shower). Anyway, this time we packed up our fridge and
freezer and took all the food to the office fridge first thing in the morning.
Thankfully, the power was only off ‘til around 11:00am this time.
These experiences did give us 2 unexpected upsides:
1.
We were able to meet our neighbors and engage a
little more than we had in the past.
2.
During our walk back and forth to the office
with our fridge/freezer food, we discovered a lovely, scented vine/plant that
only “blooms” or emits it’s fragrance at night. It smelled so good and reminded
me of honeysuckle. But when I tried to catch a whiff of it the next day, it was
gone. We’ve never seen/smelled anything quite like it.
Almost unbelievably, the power also went out in our mission
office Friday afternoon. Luckily we were able to get a repairman there quickly
and he was able to fix the situation, but we lost a good chunk of computer/administrative
office processing time.
Well, that’s it for this week. We’ll have to update you on
how we ended up speaking in sacrament meeting on-the-fly in the pictures below,
or next week!
¡Que tengan una semana fantástica! (Have a fantastic week!)
Love,
Lane & LeAnn
Summer is here. We love walking past this beautifully-bloomed tree on our way to the office each day.
The relatively few green plants we see around our area seem so out-of-place compared to the dry, barren mountain landscape-setting that surrounds Lima.
We met one sister there that is actually from an area in our Lima North mission, but is called to serve in another Peru city.
This map in the admin building of the CCM shows the missions in our South America North-West Area. The countries include Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Columbia, and Venezuela. If you zoom in and look closely, at the photos of the mission presidents, you can see President and Sister Packard of our Lima North mission. They are the ones with the straightest teeth and perfect orthodontic smiles! 🤣
Morning earthquakes seem to be a thing here. We had another one on Thursday around 5:45am … lots of shaking but no damage to our place. We put our pillows over our heads (yes, that’s a real recommendation of what to do if you’re in bed during an earthquake) and I (LeAnn) prayed like crazy that the building wouldn’t collapse!
As far as mission office work goes … this week I learned how
to pay the fines the missionaries accrue when an election is held. Here in Peru
voting is mandatory, but the missionaries aren’t able to vote due to their
being away from their assigned precincts. All these government processes take
time – you have to first pay the fee at the national bank (thank Heaven for
online banking!), pull together all the necessary paperwork, convert everything
into a single PDF format document, and then enter the government portal to
upload everything. It’s not that it’s difficult … just tedious. Lane was busy
with missionary finances, housing issues and repairs, and trying to figure out
how to clear and reformat missionary cell phones.
This weekend was a little crazy. On Friday night around
midnight, President Packard texts, “Are you guys still awake?” Apparently they
had just received a call from a trio of sisters whose terma (hot water tank)
had fallen off the wall, crushed the toilet lid, and leaked water everywhere.
We couldn’t call anyone at that hour, but first thing Saturday morning, Lane
connected with a repairman. Then, around 9:15am we had another American
missionary come into the mission office for training. He’d been “stuck” in the
Lima CCM since Sept. 30 … don’t know why his paperwork took so long to process …
but we are so happy he’s finally here in the mission! Later in the afternoon,
Lane got a call from 2 elders whose phone had been stolen at knife point … thankfully,
no one got hurt. When it rains, it pours!
So, by the time we got to our “P-Day” it was about 6:30pm.
We can’t complain, though. President and Sister Packard had far more
“excitement” than we did. In addition to the Friday midnight call, they
received a 4:00am call from a missionary with a blistering sore throat that
needed help. And they had a stake conference assignment – which means speaking
in multiple meetings both Saturday night and Sunday. They are amazing!
Highlight for the week: One evening after working in the
mission office, we walked to a nearby store to pick up some supplies. Lane had
left his wallet at home, so I was checking out. As I handed the cashier my ID
and credit card, I noticed she was looking at me very intently. Then she said
something with the word “iglesia” (church) so I turned to Lane for help. She
was asking about our church … what it is and how you can go … and Lane had a
very brief discussion with her right there in the check-out line! We got her
name, phone number, and neighborhood name, and passed along that info to our
missionaries in that area.
“Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying
the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which
is great.” (D&C 64:33)
¡Que tengan una semana fantástica! (Have a fantastic week!)
Love,
Lane & LeAnn
One of our office responsibilities is helping to keep the missionary houses supplied with basic housing items. Here we purchased a couple of chests of drawers for missionaries moving into the apartment where we used to live!
The mission car that the Packards let us use becomes extremely valuable when we are purchasing or moving housing supplies for the missionaries!
Got a delivery this week from the States... thank heavens for family helping us and embassy workers in one of the wards here that travel to the States on occasion.
We’ve had a couple of weeks with missionaries arriving on days other than the typical transfer day. On Saturday, Dec. 18 (a few days before transfers) we received 4 Peruvian missionaries (all elders), and then this past week we received 2 American missionaries…an elder and a sister! They have been at the Lima CCM for the past several weeks (which is essentially the Garden of Eden, relatively speaking), and have now entered mission reality! But so far, so good!
About a week before Christmas, the Peruvian government sent out
a Health Alert which set forth Christmas and New Year’s Restrictions which
included the following:
·
All people in Peru must remain in their homes
from Friday, December 24, 2021 until Saturday, December 25, 2021 from 11:00 p.m.
to 4:00 a.m. and Friday, December 31, 2021 until Saturday, January 1, 2022 from
11:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.
·
All gatherings and social events, including
those at home and visits with family, are prohibited in all four levels of
alert in Peru.
·
On December 25, 26, and 31, 2021 and January 1
and 2, 2022 the sale and consumption of alcohol is prohibited.
I almost laughed out loud when I first saw this. Would
people abide this directive? Well, during the week before Christmas there were
parties in the apartments directly above and below us on Wednesday and
Thursday, but on Christmas Eve it was pretty quiet. So we wondered if this
would hold true for New Years. Nope … around 11:30pm on New Year’s Eve we
started hearing people out in the streets. Then at midnight, fireworks lit up
the neighborhood and sky. What surprised us both was how the parties seemed to
start at midnight and continued well into the wee hours of the morning. And it
wasn’t just adults/youth … we could hear kids talking, laughing, and crying,
too.
We woke up to peace and quiet in the morning … until about
11am and then the partying started up again and went all day. It felt like we
were at the BYU Dansport competition in the Wilkinson Center, with Latin dance
music blaring all day, and people laughing and yelling. Good thing we both grew
up in big families and can pretty much sleep through anything!
Mission office work continued and we press forward.
This past week I’ve listened to a couple of podcasts
discussing the book of Genesis. One of the podcasts was Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-Day Saints focused, and the other one was an academic/secular
discussion of Genesis. I loved hearing both podcasts and gained valuable
insights. One key take-away was how important it is to view ancient texts through
the cultural lens of the day in which the text was written. Hearing this
reminded me of one of my favorite professors whose motto was “Seek first to
understand...” (from Stephen R. Covey). I did not see eye-to-eye with this
professor as he and I were 180 degrees opposite in our political views (and
this was a poli-sci class!), but we had some great discussions. I learned a lot
from him and his point of view, and after I finished his class he wrote me an
email thanking me for my “thoughtful and well explained answers.” So, this is a
good goal for 2022: Seek first to understand!
¡Feliz año nuevo! (Happy New Year!)
Love,
Lane & LeAnn
