Every house has a clothes line.

This is a pueblo called Santa Clara outside of Iquitos where two of our missionaries are working.

Each Latino elder is paired with an American. They help one another learn a new language. The Latino elders are quite excited to have the opportunity to learn English.

This is one of our office Elders celebrating his 21st birthday.

You can see all the elders were anxious for a break from the training session except one.

This gas station is in Iquitos where the attendant mostly serves mototaxi drivers.

Fill it up, please!

This is a typical lumber yard in Iquitos. All of the wood is coming from the surrounding jungle areas. A lot of wood from the Amazon jungle is shipped from Iquitos.

This is the local car wash in Iquitos. These mototaxi drivers take pride in their vehicles.

This is a mototaxi that has been revamped to be a small size truck. A mom and two children are catching a ride. No child restraint laws here.

Our apartment overlooks a golf course here in Lima. This is about the best view we have had. In the distance you can see the Pacific Ocean.

This is a recent picture our daughter sent to us. She is shown here with her Latino companion and her district leader. She loves serving in the Cusco area.

Here we are with a sister missionary outside the Lima Temple, she is just completing her mission and will be returning to Bolivia.

We have two sister missionaries serving in Pucallpa Peru. They love serving there. They have brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to this man in the photo, he was baptized on Saturday. He repairs shoes for a living.

The sister missionaries serve in a ward in Pucallpa and this is a picture of them with their bishop and another ward member.

Last Tuesday we received a group of 17 new missionaries. Only two are from the US the rest are from countries in South America. This is a day filled with excitement as they have finally arrived in their mission after several weeks at the language training center.

These three missionaries are all from the US. The two on the left have valiantly served the Lord for two years. They go home a changed person. Along with converting others to Christ they have also converted themselves. The elder on the right is an assistant to Larry. He serves in many capacities. He is an exceptional teacher.

This is the latest group of missionaries to complete their missions. The Friday before they depart we take them to the Lima Temple.

Lima is a coastal desert so if you want green space you have to water. Most everything here is done by hand, that includes watering the grass. Big tanker trucks can be seen out watering the green spaces about Lima.

Many people outside of Lima move to Lima in search of a better life. They establish their first home on these foothills of Lima. It is quite a humble start for many. This is how the city grows. Once they obtain good employment they move to nicer housing or upgrade the house they live in. The well established parts of Lima have nice homes. As the city grows up these hill sides they build staircases so people can go up and down more easily. Yes, these are some of the areas our missionaries work in.

This is one of the hillsides that people have developed. In the US we have no concept of poverty.

This is a new area people have started to build in. You can tell because the city has not built any staircases yet. From these pictures you can truly see that Lima is a coastal desert. Our mission consists of two very different parts, the jungle areas and part of northern Lima. The missionaries serve in both areas.

Many times I have comments how everything here is done by hand. At the airport in Iquitos I caught this young man hand painting the stripes in the parking lot. He was thrilled that I would take his picture.

This elder on his preparation day was visiting a family that had a baby pet sloth. An experience of a life time.

This is a senior couple serving as missionaries in Nauta Peru. This city is about 60 miles south of Iquitos. Nauta has never had missionaries so they are working hard to establish the church in this area. They bring much valuable church experience. What an adventure they are having. She speaks Spanish and he is learning Spanish.

Don't these church members look sharp in their white shirts and ties.

This is the new house chapel in Nauta. When the church is established in a new area, houses are used as meeting places until there are enough members to be able to build a chapel. Our senior couple has worked hard to restore this house so it can be used as a meeting place. We only have one couple in our mission and we could use many more. The need is great and they bring so much experience with them.

This open air room was the original meeting place in Nauta. Attendance has now outgrown this meeting place so the senior couple has found a large home that will serve as our new meeting place.

Sunset over the ocean in Lima as seen from our apartment.

Traffic in Lima can be quite a jam at times. Needless to say it is a test of Larry's patience to drive here. His agressive nature comes out on the road in Lima.

Here are some sister missionaries loading up their luggage after receiving their new assignments. Each American missionary is paired with a Latino so they can learn the language more quickly. It is amazing how fast the American missionaries become fluent.

Larry always has two missionaries that are his assistants. They help him with everything and anything. One is always a Latino and the other if from the United States. This young man is from Columbia, he has been a huge help to Larry, he loves dunkin donuts.

The latest group of missionaries to enter our mission.

Time for a lunch break.

These two young men just completed their missions and returned to Guatemala.

This group of missionaries just completed their missions. The young women serve for 18 months and the young men serve for two years.

We tried to take a bit of Christmas to our 180 missionaries who are far away from home. We flew to three jungle cities for celebrations and had three different celebrations in Lima too. The missionaries had prepared skits, we sang Christmas songs, played games and enjoyed a meal together.

Merry Christmas!

We have twenty one young women serving as missionaries in our mission. These four are in Iquitos Peru enjoying our Christmas celebration.

Recently we introduced an English speaking program to our Latino missionaries. They are encouraged to learn English while on their missions. It will greatly aid them after their missions in obtaining better employment. Here is a group of them singing a song in English. We are so proud of them for trying to better their skills.

We visited this family one hot afternoon and they wanted to offer us a drink to cool off. We were all treated to fresh coconut milk. Their son climbed the ladder and batted the coconuts out of the tree so we could all have a drink.

Once he batted the coconuts down from the tree he took a machette and hacked off the outer husk to get to the inside nut. A hole was punched in the nut and it was ready to drink.

Nothing like fresh coconut milk to cool off.

We flew to Pucallpa Peru for some training and also spent a preparation day with this group of missionaries. They were excited to have us participate in a water balloon activity as it was a hot day in the this jungle city. They also had another surprise for us as well.

Yes, Larry is about ready to pop this three inch grub into his mouth and give it a try. What can I say, this is what the young men do when they serve in the jungle. I think it has something to do with proving that you are a man. Larry couldn't disappoint them so he gave it a try. You will have to ask him how it turned out.

Grubs anyone? These grubs feed off the bark of dying palm trees. It seems everything in the jungle is always growing, thus these three inch grubs.

Zone conference with a group of missionaries. A zone is a group of missionaries that serve in a specific area. In our mission we have 16 zones. We hold meetings every three months with all the zones. At these meetings they are given language instruction, health instruction, doctrine instruction and instruction on becoming better teachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Here I am with a group of our sister missionaries. The high light for me is to go out with them when they are teaching people in the evenings. Many people here are very open minded and willing to listen to our message about Jesus Christ.

Here the sisters are with a family they have baptized. The mother had spent five hours preparing the sisters special food for that evening. I asked the young man in the front of this picture if his life has changed since he joined the church. Tears came into his eyes and he said it had completely changed. He use to go out each weekend and drink with his buddies. Now he knows he has a purpose here on this earth and that God loves him.

Another family that the sisters had baptized. The mom, Clara, is in the middle she has read the Book of Mormon three times and loves to sing hymns. When we knocked at her door she was reading from the hymn book.

Here we are after a zone conference in Iquitos Peru.

Almost everyone has a clothes line in Peru. Only the wealthy have dryers. I decided it would be fun to take pictures of the different clothes lines I see.

Zone conference in November.