Posts From Perú

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.