Greetings from Peru!!!!

Thank you Elder Sorenson!!

Elder Sorenson just left the office, he has done a

great job serving as one of the president's assistents.

 This group just finished their missions.  We love each one of them and are

so greatful we could serve with them in this great work.  Elders:  Johnson

Emett, Harris, Flores and Franks.  Hermana Sanhueza from Chile.

 

Pictures from along the road to Moyobamba.

Moyobamba was the first city established by the Spaniards

in the Amazon jungle region. It was established in 1540.   

Over 3000 varieties of orchids grow naturally here, it is a high mountain  jungle region

Moyobamba is a distrist unit of the church.  Every six months the president and his two counselors travel to Moyobamba to teach and train the leadership of this district.  They also hold a meeting for all the members. 

On this trip a new branch of the church was organized in a town thirty minutes from Moyobamba in Soritor.  Pictured  below

are the members of the new branch presidency.  Elder Huaiquimilla from Chile and Elder Anderson from the US are serving in this presidency to help get this new branch started. 

Members of the new branch.

 

  Back in the office we just celebrated two birthdays.  Elder Sorenson is from Utah and Elder Paucay is from Chile.  We celebrated on Elder Sorenson actual birthday and his choice for lunch, a big mac sandwichs.  The things you miss when you are in a foreign country.  You can see it was a big hit. 



Zone Leader Council

October 3, 2012

These young men are in charge of anywhere from twenty

to ten other missionaries.  They assume a lot of responsibiliy

in the mission to motivate, inspire, help and lead.  They are

learning great leadership, life and family skills.

Life in Lima.

Fresh chicken anyone?

The president and I drive by several of these tiendas

( small stores) on our way to the office.  When you buy a

chicken here you get the whole bird.

On occasion we set out clothing items for the missionaries. 

Some of the clothes have been donated, others are left by

missionaries leaving the mission.  The women here in Peru,

actually scrub the collars to get them clean.  No shout out here.

 In short order the shirt collars look a little 

 ragged.  White shirts are a hot item anything we put them out. 

Shoes are also a hot item.

I only thought women loved to shop.  Boy was I wrong! 

 By the end of the day all

the items on the tables were gone. 

I love this picture because it shows the difference in

size of some of our missionaries.  It also shows what happens

when we take pictures.  Twenty cameras appear

and the assistants become photographers.

Thanks for your great help Elder Carranza and Elder Sorenson.

All the missionaires in our mission understand the importance

of getting married.  As a consequence they work with many

couples to help them get married. 

I love this picture of this sweet older couple waiting

to get married.  They have been living together

for many years, they have raised their children but

 they had never gotten married. 

I think it was the right decision!!!

Bless their hearts.

Celebrating with their family and the elders.

Congratulations!!!!



A bit of family news.

 This past month David and Sheri were able to have

their third son sealed to them in the Columbus, Ohio Temple.

What a sweet blessing.

Families are forever!!!!

 Preston loves his Daddy!

Also this past month,  Tito asked President Blunck

to baptize him.  Tito works as a security guard at one of our

churches in Iquitos and Larry just assumed he was a

member of the church.  As Larry visited with him

he shortly realized he wasn't a member which led to

a quick lesson and a referral to the missionaries, Elder Villegas

and Elder Bandis. 

Tito was very excited to learn about the doctrine of Christ and the restoration of the priesthood of God.  Afterwards he desired to be baptized

He is a great young man!



Our training this month with the missionaries started off in

Lima.  Lima was established about 1575 by the Spaniards

and still has some beautiful Spanish style buildings

This month our training focused on effective personal scripture

study, proper language, and use of the area book.  The area book

is a record book of the people the missionaries are teaching.  

Zones Wiesse, Canto Grande and Magnolias



Wiesse Elders returning to their area.  Wiesse is

located up a valley from Lima.  It is a developing area with

many unpaved roads, unclaimed dogs and lots of dust.





 Zones Comas, Carabayllo, Independencia and Tahuantansuyo.

All our Latino missionaries are invited to

study and learn English during their missions. 

Usually Latinos are invited to give the opening

and closing prayers at each meeting in English. 

This month the bar was raised a bit and at each training

we invited one Latino to give a 10 to 15 minute

talk about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

They loved this opportunity.

If questions were asked during the teaching, Latinos were invited to

answer in English and Americans in Spanish.   

Elder Barragan



Elder Bustos

Elder Blanco

Elder Zuniga 

After training in Lima we were off to the jungle cities.

A day in the life of a missionary serving in the jungle.

Each week missionaries give 3-4 hours of service in their areas.

Here a group of elders are digging a ditch.

Everything here in Peru is done by hand.

All the shovels I have ever seen are 4 feet long. 

Generally Peruvians are shorter so no need for long

handle shovels. 

Sister Sosa is conducting the meeting

in Iquitos. 



Zones Secada, Iquitos, Punchana, and 

9 de Octubre 

These sisters were pretty proud to have

won the packages of skittles and starbursts.

Skittles is a hot item for the missionaries.

Great job Hermanas Bowles, Vasquez, Boyer and Alvaer



Zones, Tarapoto, Moyobamba, and

Yurimaguas



Bananas produce twice a year in the jungle.

A big blossom forms at the bottom of the banana

bunch.  My favorite bananas are called

finger bananas, they are about 4 inches long and

very sweet.

The President is with a sweet family that is attending church in Soritor

Soritor is about 30 minutes from Moyobama Peru.  In Soritor

we have a new group of the church that is forming.  In October they

will officially become a branch of the church. 

Zone Pucallpa 

This is a special picture because it shows

all the sisters in our mission.  We had a special

conference for all of them in Lima. They serve 

though out the mission.  Some serve in Lima and many

of them are serving in jungle cities.

We love these sisters for their great faith and desire to serve the Lord.

At times they have the ability to get into doors the elders

can't get into. 

The Lord uses these valiant people to move His work forward here upon the

earth.  We are grateful for each one of them and the opportunity we have to serve with them in this great work. 

The gospel of Jesus Christ has the ability to change peoples lives.

This is one of the great miracles of today.

  



Larry and I consider our greatest blessing to be our family.

Each one of them enriches our lives.  Each one of them

has supported us as we serve in this calling.  They are an example to many of our missionaries of what a family should be like and can be like.  We thank them for their willingness to sacrifice in our behalf. 

We love each one of them.

Stephen and Shara are working in Dallas, Texas.

Lynette attends BYU

David and Sheri live in Ohio, with Benjamin, Hunter and Preston

Dusty and Janeece live in our home in Oregon with Karl, Phillip and Rita.

They undertook a huge responsibility to take care of our place and keep track of our business affairs while we are away.  Their service

allows us to take care of about 200 missionaries here in Peru.

 Once a year we have one of our church leaders visit  our

mission for a mission tour.  This visit is to help teach, train and

 inspire the missionaires.  This year our visiting authority was

Elder Ruben Torres and his lovely wife

 from Columbia.  Elder Torres had served as a mission

president in Mexico.  He brought with him a vast knowledge of the

scriptures and our manuel  for the missionaries preach my gospel. 

This was our visit to Zona Tarapoto.  



Zona Moyobamba

Our mission tour lasted four four days. 

During this time we traveled to four different cities,

spoke to 200 missionaries, held two firesides for youth in different cities and attended a wedding ceremony.

When we left for the mission tour a community wedding was planned by our office missionaries in coordinaion with a local authority. Twenty two couples were to be married.  Getting married here in Peru is very complicated and expensive, so getting married as a group is how many people are married because it is less expensive.  The office elders were left in charge of this event while we were on the mission tour.  Before we left on the mission tour I gave them a few guidelines as to what to do.  Cake would be nice, flowers for the brides and table clothes on the tables.

We caught a 6:30 am flight from Pucallpa back to Lima so we could attend the wedding.  I walked into the chapel I could not believe my eyes.  Over 500 family members and friends were in the chapel waiting for the marriage ceremony.  It was an amazing sight to behold.  The couples sat up front waiting their big moment.  Some couples were young and some were older.   Many had lived together.  It was a sweet occasion to finally see these couples get married.  They were dressed in their finest attire. 



The following pictures depict what the office elders did in our absence.

It was amazing and I was so proud of them. 

 Flowers for the brides

Cake for the bride and groom, and guests.

This is how they had transformed the cultural hall. 

They had worked so hard to take care of every detail. 

Elders served as ushers, others were taking pictures, one elder

was in charge of all the paper work for the couples.  It was

a glorious day for all those couples who got married and their families. 

Bien Hecho Elders!!!!Job well done. 

 Recently all the sisters serving in Lima were invited to

the mission home for a preparation day activity. Sister Sanchez from Guatemala was teaching us how to prepare food from her country. Flour ended up everywhere as everyone got to make home make tortillas. 

Right now there are ten sisters serving in Lima.  Hermanas;

Farias, Silva, Stull, Garcia, Montenegro, Steimle, Sanchez, Melo,

 Linares, and Grow 

 Elder Oceguera and Elder Price just completed

the first 12 weeks program.  Elder Clouse served as an excellent trainer.

New to the mission Elder Truman and

Elder Muniz

 We found the chapel in Callao that Larry served in 35 years ago.

It has been added on to but other wise looks great.

This is the street he walked down each day to go to his apartment.

It brought back a lot of memories of serving in Barrio Cinco.



 Larry or Presidente Blunck as he is known in the mission always.

has two assitants serving with him.  Elder Mar on the left

is going to Iquitos to finish his time in the mission.  Elder Carranza from Trujillo Peru will replace him and continue to serve with Elder Sorenson.  Thank you Elder Mar for your great service! 



For those of you who have never seen our mission logo here it is.

At the top it says Mission Peru Lima North and at the bottom it says

Walk in righteousness.!!!!!

The flags on the shelf represent all the different countries our missionaries come from.  Last time I counted we had 17 different flags.