On the road again...

Don't know if you have noticed, but today we are playing blog catch up.  It is a holiday here, and we are at home.  We have been busy doing mission visits.  We have been asked to go with the Clarks to attend some returning missionary training seminars.  The area presidency felt that the missionaries who were returning home needed some training in staying spiritual, finding jobs, continuing to study English, and the opportunities that they can take advantage of.  Missionaries spend one day at the end of their mission getting this additional training. Our part of the training deals with the Pathway program.  Pathway is a one year program in conjunction with BYU Idaho where students can study at institutes and on line.  It is a great way to get a college education for a little less cost and from your home town.  Our trip to Iquitos was in conjunction with the returning missionary program.  We also got to travel to Arequipa and Chiclayo. Interestingly, the three cities they asked us to visit were the three cities we felt we needed to go to.  Tender Mercy!  In addition to missionary training, we also take time to visit with the mission presidents to see how the Companionship Language Study program is going, specifically what we can do to be of help to them as they try to encourage missionaries to study English on their missions.  We were able to do our Power Point presentation in Iquitos and Arequipa. In Iquitos we met with zone leaders and in Arequipa with three zones. What fun to interact with the missionaries and the presidents and their wives.  It is always the highlight of our mission.

President Zobrist

President Gomez

Temple lot

Arequipa, is the second largest city in Peru and has a European feel to it with narrow streets and a large square surrounded by a large cathedral and colonial style buildings.  One of its claims to fame is a mummy of a young girl recently found when ice melted revealing her.  Our hotel was beautiful and just a block away from the mission home.  Arequipa is also scheduled to get a temple.  They had just finished acquiring the last of the land needed for the temple site, so President Zobrist (who just happened to be a neighbor of our friends the Van Wagoners when they lived in Las Vegas) and his wife took us to see the temple site and presented us with our very own little bottles of temple dirt. How fun is that.


The day after, we took a tour of the downtown cathedral.  They took us to the top and we could look out over the entire city.  Amazingly enough, you can see the temple site from there.  Won't it be fun when it is done and people look out and ask "What is that beautiful building over there?" We also got this fun picture of a little girl and her goat there at the Plaza de Armas waiting for people who pay for pictures. Notice her colorful, traditional dress.

We also visited a convent.  It was the tradition that the second daughter of the cities wealthy would be sent to the convent when they were about 13.  Each had her own room complete with space for a servant.  From that time forward, they could only see their families through a grated hole.  At 16, they had to decide whether or not they were going to be nuns.  If they decided not to, the family was embarrassed and often the girls were shunned.  At the time it housed over 200 young women and their servants. So not only did the girls live a life of solitude, but so did their servants.  It was a city within a city complete with streets, a communal bath and laundry area and a dinning area.  Now it is a museum with only a small section dedicated to the nuns who still live there.  I think there are only about 20 now.

Chiclayo is a smaller city and we were only there for two and a half days.  Since most of our time was spent with missionaries, we didn't see much of the city  But on the way there we met an amazing young woman on the plane.  She spoke beautiful English and we had a delightful conversation.  At the end, she asked if we were going to have time to see the city and offered to be our guide.
So, Tuesday morning she and her brother met us at our hotel and took us to tour a museum that housed artifacts from El Señor de Sipan.

With Candy at the Lord of Sipan Museum

This was a tomb that was only recently discovered in 1987.  They found many mummies (the wives, servants and children were buried with the "King"), artifacts of gold and silver and clay pots.  Afterwards, we were able to talk to Candy and Josémaria a little about the church and give them a Restoration video and a pamphlet.  They are our new Facebook friends. We also got to see our friends Sister Moore and Sister Arana.  They are now serving in Trujillo which is about a three hour bus trip.  It was fun to see them again and catch up on what they are doing.