Peru- March 6, 2022

This week may aptly be called “The Week of the Great Cell Phone Debacle.” Several weeks ago, President Packard had told the missionaries that he had been informed that the missionary department was doing some sort of update on all the mission phones and that each missionary needed to complete the appropriate training in order to keep their phones connected to the internet and working. He reminded them of this update a couple of times.

 

Well, last weekend we started getting calls from multiple missionaries, “Elder Simmons … my phone isn’t working. I can’t log in to my account.” We were perplexed as we hadn’t heard about the pending mission department updates. But then I started seeing all kinds of chatter on my social media WhatsApp stream that includes all the missions in our Area (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia). Apparently, we weren’t the only mission having phone issues. As we followed these discussions, we realized that missionaries who hadn’t completed their “Edify” training were being restricted on their phones. It became a bit of a scramble as many of our missionaries tried to complete the training … but to their dismay, they found that the training was a multi-day process. The training app only allowed them to do 2 lessons per day … so they had limited use of their phones while they completed the process (that the president had asked them to complete several weeks earlier!).

 

Adding to this excitement was the accidental cancellation of 12 of our missionary phone numbers. WHOOPS! Earlier in the month, Lane had contacted the Area office about cancelling some of our 100+ phone lines since we were only using around 30. Unfortunately, due to some spreadsheet glitches, we ended up giving the Area office some bad information which resulted in the 12 cancelled lines. After a very long day with lots of pseudo-spiritual cussing, we finally got everything straightened out … at least we hope it’s straightened out! We are very thankful for our Area technology contact person who has saved our bacon more than once (and he answers our calls after hours on Friday nights!)!

 

Anyway, this scripture came to mind while contemplating the events of our week:

 

“Yea, and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness; …”

~Alma 57: 21

¡Que tengan una semana fantástica! (Have a fantastic week!)

 

Love,

 

Lane & LeAnn

It's fun to see some of the missionaries that come in for leadership council and training.  President and Sister Packard with their assistants do nearly everything, including making delicious lunches for them. We mostly just crawl out of our office cave to say hi to everyone!

But they always feel sorry for us and invite us down to the training room or bring us delicious food, which included fresh fruit and homemade rolls this week! And we take it!

The missionaries love getting to see each other at the meeting.

Lane must have been off playing golf somewhere (wait, he doesn't play golf.... we don't know where he was hiding), so when this couple rang the doorbell at the mission offices, LeAnn had to go down and practice her Spanish to see what they wanted. Then she pulled in Corinne to help understand that the couple was simply dropping off a suitcase for one of the missionaries.

We met these sisters at the Lima CCM (missionary training center).  The first and the third from the left are from Peru and coming to our Lima North mission.  The second from the left is from Equador, and the far right is from Bolivia, and they both will be going to Cochabamba, Boliva. It was fun for Lane to talk to them because Cochabamba was the first area Lane served as a missionary a century or so ago.

Part of our office responsibilities is to help with missionary housing needs. Here we purchased toilet cleaning supplies for all the houses. We're sure the missionaries will be thrilled.

Then we bagged a bottle of toilet cleaner and a scrub brush to give to each companionship in each house. So exciting. Not even a cookie to go with it.

Occasionally we have a contractor clean mattresses for the missionaries.  Very helpful to remove all the ugly stains and freshen them up. Can't figure out how all those stains get there -- surely not from those sweet missionaries -- but we're pretty sure they're not from the Holy Ghost!

We often have broken or excess housing supplies and furniture that we send out to the church Area offices for management purposes. It's amazing how "well-loved" some of the furniture gets!

Our missionaries don't drive cars or ride bikes. They walk or ride public transportation. But this image of one mission car that the president lets us use and park in the office area shows how filthy things get in Lima by just sitting outside for a day or two. There is a never-ending settling of dust in the city, presumably from the barren mountains, and never any rain to wash things down.

This shows the car after we wash it on P-day before we go to church on Sunday. Just a little difference!

One of the missionary apartments has a garage-like area where the owner of the house keeps these giant teenage-mutant ninja turtles. We didn't notice them until they came running out from under their hiding spots to attack us. Although "running" may be a little bit of an exaggeration, they were definitely focused and intent on coming after us as fast as their pre-historic legs could carry them with jaws snapping.  For some reason, they were attracted to or didn't like the black bag Lane was holding.

Notice President Packard in the background getting a little chuckle in as we drew the challenging turtle away from the door so we could then "run" back to the exit and escape the menace.