It’s been another great week here in Peru. Now that we have 15
Americans here (that’s close to 20% of our missionaries!) we have much more
paperwork and migration appointments to deal with. But, we’re learning the
processes and working out routines to make things run more smoothly. This week Lane
walked several of our American missionaries to a photo shop a couple of doors
down from our mission office to get passport photos taken and LeAnn took their fingerprints
for their foreign ID card applications.
The big excitement for the week came on Saturday when Elder D.
Todd Christofferson and his wife came to Lima. He met with all the missionaries
serving in Lima (six missions) and the missionaries in the CCM. It was such a
treat for all of us to hear from an apostle. He and his wife were so friendly and
greeted each missionary as they entered the building. Both Elder and Sister
Christofferson gave their talks in Spanish…impressive! I (LeAnn) am getting
better at understanding Spanish, but still don’t catch everything. But, I do
understand the “gringo” Spanish better than the “native” Spanish since Gringos
generally speak slower and enunciate more clearly than the natives.
In his talk, Elder Christofferson reemphasized President
Nelson’s counsel on labels. The 3 most important labels are:
1.
I am a child of God
2.
I am a child of the covenant
3.
I am a disciple of Jesus Christ
“And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of
Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that
our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their
sins.” (2 Nephi 25: 26)
¡Que tengan una semana maravillosa! (Have a wonderful week!)
Love,
Lane & LeAnn
We love seeing missionaries when they come to the mission office for meetings or interviews! These missionaries picked up English practice books after meeting with the president for interviews
Our entire mission of sisters and elders waiting for the arrival of Elder Christofferson.
We have 74 young missionaries.
We arrived at the church around 8:15am where Elder Christofferson was going to speak Saturday morning. Lane and I shuffled 3 of our missionaries into a side room where we were able to get their fingerprints and signatures on their Peruvian ID applications (these 3 missionaries live far from the mission office and we took advantage of being together to get a little office work done). Afterwards, we made a quick stop at the restrooms and LeAnn was pleasantly surprised to see fresh flowers in a very clean women's bathroom! Well ... when LeAnn exited the restroom, Lane informed her that these particular restrooms had been set aside for the apostle and his wife ... WHOOPS! Oh well, there was no sign on the door and no one had said anything about not using these particular restrooms.
Six Lima missions, plus the Missionary Training Center missionaries, were all set up for taking photos with Elder Christofferson when he arrived.
Corinne and Meredith lining up our missionaries.
The sister missionary on the right is serving in our mission. Her twin sister on the left is serving in another Lima mission, and they got to say hi while waiting for Elder Christofferson.
The Lima Missionary Training Center missionaries.
Four North American sisters in the Lima Missionary Training Center are still waiting for their visas to be able to go out and serve! They've been waiting three or four months. We love these sisters and miss seeing them on Sundays ... but we are hoping they'll get to enter their assigned missions soon!
After pictures, everyone lined up to enter into the Stake Center, and shake the Christoffersons' hands as they entered the building.
Every detail of the day was managed very efficiently. We were told where to go and how to get there!
After the devotional by Elder Christofferson, everyone gathered and visited as they all prepared to head back to their missions on their respective buses.
Corinne (Sister Packard) had order Subway lunches for all the missionaries for after the devotional. LeAnn handed them out to our missionaries as they headed to their buses to go back out to their respective teaching areas.
This amazing lady - from our ward in La Molina - picked up all our lunches from Subway and brought them to the church for distribution.
As missionaries poured out of the church, my friend asked, "How will you know which missionaries are yours?" (There were probably around 500 missionaries at the church, and we have 76 of those.) I told her, "Well, I think I pretty much know them all and can recognize them. I've met them all at least once and work with their files and pictures in the mission office all the time." And sure enough, I didn't have any trouble recognizing our missionaries.
On the bus to go back to their teaching areas.
Heading out!
And yes, Corinne ordered Subway for us, too!
Yay! The "ovalo of death" construction is finally finished! This has been under construction since before we arrived last September.
In this pic you can see the overpass that was constructed over the top of the "ovalo of death" (which was basically a super-congested round-a-bout). Now a significant amount of the traffic is diverted over the ovalo, making it much more safe.
The Packards invited us to stay at their apartment Friday night so we wouldn't have to battle the morning traffic to get to the devotional. This pic was taken from their balcony ... a rare beautiful blue sky for Lima.
