¡Feliz primer día de mayo! (Happy first day of May!)
Hallelujah!! Today Peru finally lifted their mask mandate for outdoors! By "supreme decree"! It is wonderful to be outside again without a mask and actually be able to talk and hear someone else talk and breath normally!
It was a fun, busy week with transfers … see the pics for a
few details!
We love this thought from Amy Wright’s recent general
conference talk:
“Because of Christ, our decision to ‘go forth and change’ can
also allow us to ‘go forth and heal,’ for He is the source of healing all that
is broken in our lives. As the great Mediator and Advocate with the Father,
Christ sanctifies and restores broken relationships—most important, our relationship
with God.”
¡Tengan una maravillosa semana! (Have a wonderful week!)
Love,
Lane & LeAnn
Transfers happened again this week and new missionaries arrived. Occasionally we help with the tough job of getting the pizza for some of the new missionary training.
This sister missionary stayed with us Monday night and then got up at 3:00am to get ready for her 4:45am ride to the airport and her flight home!
This elder arrived at 5:35am Tuesday morning and went through the mission training meeting with the 6 Peruvians we received from the Lima CCM. He's been serving in the U.S. for about 18 months already. We have a soft spot for his companion; he was one of the office elders we Zoomed with while we were stuck in Utah.
President and Hermana Packard with our 7 new missionaries. President and Hermana Packard look fantastic despite getting up very early to pick up our American elder who arrived at 5:35am.
After the training, the missionaries go out and hop in taxis to head out to their new areas with their new companions.
OK ... this next series of pictures are screenshots from a last-minute-late-Friday-afternoon Zoom meeting for all the travel secretaries in our Area. In the top right corner you can see our Area travel supervisor, Peter. When the meeting started, we had a hard time hearing Peter ... he seemed muffled. Why didn't he take off his mask?!
As the meeting progressed, it got worse. It was strange ... Peter seemed to be restless. He kept moving around in his chair ... and it was still difficult to understand what he was saying. It also sounded like someone hadn't muted their microphone as there was a lot of background noise. Peter was explaining a very detailed and tedious process for scheduling an appointment with the Peruvian migration's office.
I couldn't believe that Peter was being so unprofessional! It looked like he was leaning back in his chair and he kept bouncing around (his "square" is showing up in the middle row, 2nd from the right -- he's the only one wearing a mask). Then all of a sudden he disconnected ... a few seconds later he texted, "Sorry, I'm in the car and got disconnected." WHAT! Is that a thing? To schedule an important Zoom training while you're driving in a car? (OK ... he wasn't physically driving, but he was a passenger!) His "fake" background had thrown us off ... and now we could clearly hear what all the interference had been - loud horn honking and car noises! You can see how he must have been going through a tunnel at this time (and in the previous picture) as his face is much darker here.
And here we are finishing up (Peter is in the top left corner). By this time he was back in his actual office and we could hear him much better. Note to self: Don't do an important Zoom meeting in the back of a taxi while you're driving in the Lima traffic, even if you can overlay a fake background!
Saturday training with 2 more missionaries that have been serving in the U.S. for about 18 months already. They were both scheduled to arrive on Friday, but one was delayed...hence the Saturday training.
Our two assistants to President Packard are great elders! They do some of the new missionary training with President and Sister Packard.
Loading the car to take these elders to their new home.
We walk past this interesting plant/tree every day, but we're not sure what it is. It looks like some sort of fruit (or alien egg) is growing out of the main trunk.
A morning view, looking east at the sunrise, from the top of our five-story apartment building. All the rubble at the base of the photo is what is on top of the building next to us.
Panoramic view from the top of our apartment building.
A typical garbage scavenger pulls up on his bike-cart, and scours through the garbage for anything useful. Everyone simply places their garbage out on the street, or in the gutter area or sidewalk, usually in plastic bags that the dogs and cats tear into, but often just out loose. No such things as garbage cans.
