Celebrating Easter in Lima, Mira Flores, & Palomino Island

We have now been in Peru 3 months. The last month was a mixture of hard work and relaxation — which was greatly appreciated. We enjoyed a "Stay-cation" with another missionary couple, the Cardons from Rexburg, Idaho. We visited in downtown Lima and the coastal community of Mira Flores.  We stayed in a beautiful hotel in Mira Flores; a short distance from the coastline and visited many local sites.  Namely . . .

The three story Larco Mall across the street from the J. Willard Marriott Hotel, and built into the face of the cliff that overlooks the ocean.)



We visited ancient ruins ...

 ... a peaceful park filled with Olive Trees 

 

and in the spirit of being one with the local culture, we visited churches — forgetting the local tradition of visiting all the 7 churches in downtown Lima as part of Easter weekend.

 

 

And, we went to a dinner show featuring 8 cultural dances from different parts of Peru ... until the last dance, which featured dancer-selected female customers who were picked to be taught by one of the dancers.  And, of course, who was the only grandmother picked ...

Then we celebrated the anniversary of Julene's 40th birthday by taking an excursion to two Islands.  The first had a few small penguins; the second had hundreds of sea lions.

Then we finished off the celebration at what has become our favorite place to eat . . .

El Hornero, an Argentina Steak House. The head waiter has a son attending BYU.
(There are half-a-million members of the Church, in Lima alone.)

Finally, since so many missionary couples had used the long Easter weekend (it's a national Peruvian holiday) to go out of town, we created a flyer and invited all of them to attend a showing of our favorite movie . . .

Oh . . . and I did mention it has ALSO been a very busy, and exhilarating month at the Area office.  We are now sharing with 3 missionary couples material on how to teach English, because they have received that assignment – or local missionaries and members have requested it.  Two of the couples were with us in the Provo MTC. The Thelers are in the Philippines, the Reeds in Russia, and the third, our very close friends the VanWagoners, are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

We shared with them a tool we had just created called a "Magic Weave" Language Card. 

It is very helpful in memorizing words or phrases related to a person's specific needs.

And finally, two weeks after we started our mission we made a presentation to the missionaries in the Bogota South Mission.  Very few of the native Spanish-speaking missionaries had been involved in the Companionship Language Study program to learn English, which they had been encouraged to do. We had tried in our presentation to help them catch the vision of the great blessings that would come to them if they did.  Two weeks ago we received the following photo. Our joy will last for months!!!

We think that is enough for this post.  We'll tell you the details, in the next post, of the incredible blessing that has come to non-English speaking missionaries around the world — because of the inspiration that came to my faithful wife, and her dedicated follow-through.  It will be one of the highlights of our mission.

Until then, we send all our love and prayers for your safety, happiness, and guidance from our Heavenly Father.  Love ya!