It has been our privilege this past month to have a visiting general authority from our church tour our mission. He and his wife served over this mission about twenty years ago. She also served her mission in the Peru Lima North Mission. They are wonderful people and it has been a highlight for our missionaries to receive training from them.

Our other excitement for the month was our daughter Janeece and our grand daughter Rita arrived for a 8 day visit. We were thrilled to meet our grand daughter for the first time. We took a few days with our daughter to discover a little more of Peru.

Papa had fun taking this picture of Rita. Everywhere we went people said,"La Muneca, Que Linda" Which means, the doll, how beautiful.

Here we are at a pottery factory we discovered in Peru. At this factory all the pottery is made by hand.

Janeece and I loved looking at all the finished pieces, they were beautifully painted. We also loved visiting with the owners, they were wonderful people. They sell their pottery to many places in the US.

Each piece is hand painted.

This lady is preparing the clay to form a bowl.

The raw product is mixed with water in the top container. It is hand stirred for 6 hours to separate the clay, then it is strained and allowed to sit in the other two containers for 24 hours to settle the clay to the bottom of the container. After that it is sun dried for a week. The end result is soft clay that can be stored for up to a year.

We are off for a tour of Tarapoto in a moto taxi. This handicapped man was a great tour guide. He took us to all the great sites in Tarapoto including to the chocolate factory. Yes, we got a samples. They sell their chocolate in Las Vegas.

After a twenty minute walk into the jungle we arrived at a university research facility where they rehabilitate animals and do research. This is baby jungle tiger. They also had a bear that mainly consumers fruits, boa snakes, a jungle condor, monkeys and huge jungle turtle.

Not to mention alligators.

They grow fresh papaya and pineapple for the animals.

This is a hive of ants up in a tree. It is made out of mud and inhabited by little red ants. It was huge. When you are walking into the jungle you have to keep an eye out for poisonous ants, snakes and other animals. We were taking a short walk into a university research facility.

These tropical flowers were in bloom everywhere.

This fern is over 8 ft tall.

Tuesday we headed to a jungle region to discover this waterfall. As we walked in to the waterfall the tropical foilage is dense and we heard a wide variety of birds .

Enjoying being out doors and the warm sun in Tarapoto Peru.

After we arrived in Tarapoto we headed to Lamas. Lamas is located in the hills so the view of the valley and surrounding area is great. Lamas still has some native people that live there.

This is a boa snake skin that was shed. We were told this was a small one. In Lamas we found a small museum with a small bug collection from the jungle. As you can see some of these bugs are not very small at all. Everything in the jungle grows big.

Early Monday morning we took off to Tarapoto Peru. Janeece wanted to see a bit of the Amazon jungle while she was here. We took Janeece to our favorite place.

Yes, we have a thumb sucker in the family once again.

Babies are so much fun to hold especially when it is your first grand daughter.

Saturday was a day to see a few sites in Lima in the Miraflores area and we also visited the Inca Market.

Just relaxing in Lima

On Friday Janeece had the chance to to see her Mom and Dad in action as we had the Lima mission tour with the Ucedas. Over 100 missionaries were in attendance. Janeece had a fun time talking to several of the missionaries.

Papa couldn't wait to get his hands on her and he held her every chance he could get.

Their first day here we gave everyone a chance to get rested. Then we had fun giving Rita a bath in our kitchen sink.

Grandma is pretty thrilled to see her for the first time.

We were delighted to great our oldest daughter and her new daughter on March 16th. We had never met our granddaughter as she was born last October. When Janeece walked into the airport little Rita was wide awake despite the fact it was midnight..

These sisters are serving in Iquitos Peru.

Recently we have been having a mission tour by a visiting general authority. Elder Uceda and his wife have been touring our mission. He spends three hours teaching the missionaries. Then has a question and answers session with them. His wife was a missionary in our mission about twenty years ago. The Uceda's are thrilled to revisit the Lima North Mission. She served as a missionary here and he served as the Mission president here. It has been a wonderful experience to tour the mission with them.

Our latest group of missionaries to complete their missions.

These are the elders who help us in the mission office. They are excellent. Most of them serve for six months in the office.

This last month we had zone conferences. Zone Pucallpa was the last zone we visited.

These are some of the beautiful tropical flowers we see in the jungle cities.

Time for planchas (push ups)! We work to build strong missionairies both spiritually and physically. A great way to wake people up after lunch.

One fun way to help our Latino missionaries learn English is to sing hymns.

Missionary work is just about talking to people and being friendly. Something they say will open the door for you to talk about the gospel. Here Larry is talking to a father while they watch a bunch of little boys play soccer.

These two elders are headed out to work. Yes, they are wearing boots! It is the rainy season right now in the jungle regions of Peru so many roads are muddy.

Larry helped the elders teach this family one evening. Peruvians are a very loving and kind and always offer you something to eat. The young man in the striped shirt was baptized on March 5th. Larry gave him a new white shirt and necktie to wear to church.

We have seen some beautiful sunsets from our apartment this past summer.

Zone conference. The missionaries come from different countries and all walks of life but the gospel of Jesus Christ brings them all together.

Sometimes the cloud formations over the jungle of Peru are spectacular.

The mission mom!!!

One of our many jungle trips. Office missionaries always travel with us to work with and help take care of the needs of the other missionaries.

Preparation day, looks like the president out to get someone with those water balloons! Each missionary has one day a week to take care of personal needs. This is called their preparation day.

Preparation day pictures.

President talking to a moto taxi driver.

Preparation day moto taxi ride.

Tarapoto Peru. Missionaries out enjoying the sights.

Litttle boys are always curious.

Zone conference in Tarapoto Peru.