New Mission Presidency and Apartment Photos

This week Presidente Chipman set apart two new counselors in the Mission Presidency.  Presidente Caceras as 1st Counselor and Presidente Sheely as 2nd Counselor.  Presidente Caceras is Peruvian and lives in Mollendo west of us on the coast.  We met him and his wife this week when they came out for the first presidency meeting.  They were very nice and seemed very capable.  Presidente Sheely is a gringo who lives in Arequipa with is family.  His wife is Mexican and is going to help me with English Connect, since she speaks English and Spanish.  Tim was assigned to be the Executive Secretary, or as Presidente Chipman likes to call him, the Chief of Staff.  

Peru Arequipa Mission Presidency

So last week we worked mainly on administrative stuff, trying to get organized.  I did more research into English Connect and presented that at the presidency meeting.  Transfers happen next week which will shake everything up, so I'm hoping to be ready when everything settles down.  

Highlights of the week:

We take a lot of taxis to get around which are easy to find and very cheap, but they don't ever have change.  So we stopped by a bank last week to break 100 soles, but the bank couldn't give us anything less than 20 soles, which the drivers don't have change for either.  So we find we have to go to the tiendas and buy something so we can pay for our taxi rides.  We can only get 100 soles from the ATM's.

100 soles is about the equivelent of $25.00

We went to dinner with the Chipmans and they ended up having to deal with an emergency - an American missionary was in the emergency room with abdominal pain.  The doctors were convinced he had appendicitis without confirmation and wanted to do surgery.  It was crazy!  Long story short - they didn't do the surgery.

This morning we went down to Interpol as the next step in getting our Peruvian ID card.  All things considered it went pretty smoothly despite the hardcore lady there.  The young office missionaries took us down along with 3 newish Elders.  The office missionaries lead us along every step of the way.  We had to carefully fill out a couple of forms.  Any mistakes and you had start over on a new form - I'm looking at you Tim.  Then they photographed us, and took an insane amount of fingerprints.  Then they had us lay down on this retro looking dentist chair and examined our teeth.  Apparently, they do this so they can identify the bodies. Yikes!  I was hoping I could just give them the name of my dentist. 

Last but not least, I finally took photos of our apartment:

View when we walk in

Kitchen with small fridge.  There is a filter hooked up to the sink that works very well.

Laundry Room in the back of the kitchen - washer and very small dryer

1 of 3 bedrooms - we use it as our office

Our bedroom

One of 2 1/2 bathrooms.  We each have our own bathroom because they are very small

View from our apartment.  Nice garden area right next to a construction site.

And here is a sample of the food we've been eating when we go out.  The food has been super good and very inexpensive.  We have seen guinea pig on the menu, but will not be ordering it.  One of the Elders this morning showed us a picture of a bunch of live guniea pigs running around in their pensionista's yard.  He said the pensionista just has them pick one out and they cook it up.  Another Elder there said they were teaching someone in their home and a women chases and catches a chicken right in front of them and then wrings its neck.

Lots of avocados which I love!

More Photos

Hermana Chipman just sent me some photos she took this week that I thought I'd add before I forget:

At dinner in Tacna the night before zone conference.  Us, the Chipmans and the two AP's (Assistants to the President)

All of the sister missionaries in the Tacna and Ilo Zones

Having lunch at the Tacna zone conference.  Same group that had dinner together.  We were the last to sit and they had to set up a new table for us.  That was our first course.  They then served us chicken thighs, potato salad and a lot of rice.

Preparing for our drive back to Arequipa from Tacna we stopped to get gas.  Next to us was this incredibly jam packed bus and I guess he was pretty hot and had to take his shirt off.  Hermana Chipman stealthily took this photo from the car.

You come across some crazy things in Peru.

Zone Conferences and Tour of Southern Peru

Another week has gone by and I'm pleased to report we now have internet in our apartment, although I am writing from a city called Camana on the coast of Peru about 3 hours away from our apartment in Arequipa (at the church building).  This week started with the missionaries' p-day (preparation day).  We went to the mission office to use the wifi and there were a lot of missionaries there having fun playing volleyball and fútbol:

This is the parking lot of the church where the mission office is.

Then zone conference was on Tuesday and another one on Wednesday.  The missionaries are grouped into zones, then districts, then teaching areas.  For example, there are 8 zones in the mission.  Each zone has one to three districts.  Then each district has about 5 companionships of missionaries assigned to a certain teaching area in or near where they live.  

Tuesday was zone conference for 3 of the zones - two in Arequipa and one was bussed in from the coast.  Then Wednesday was zone conference for 2 zones - the other two in Arequipa.  The zone conferences are led by the mission leaders and are a way to teach and motivate the missionaries.  We attended the first one and just part of the second one since they taught the same thing both days.  Presidente Chipman gets very animated when he teaches which made us chuckle:

We ate lunch with the missionaries and spent some time getting to know them - so many names and faces to remember.  Presidente Chipman recognizes the birthdays after lunch for all those birthdays coming up between then and the next zone conference (Tim being one of them).  It's his tradition to do a little birthday song and dance for the missionaries and then he passes out candy for them.  Being that he and Hermana Chipman both have birthdays in February, I encouraged the missionaries to come up front and do the same dance for them.  Here they are:

The missionaries did it the next day as well.  Then Tuesday night we went to the temple with the La Costa Zone missionaries (the zone that bused in), which we really enjoyed.  The temple here is beautiful and sits up on a hill so you can see it from pretty far way.

We took a quick selfie that didn't turn out great.

Then Thursday morning we headed to Tacna with the Chipmans about 4 to 5 hours away south of Arequipa.  Parts of the drive looked like we were on the moon:

Then other parts looked like Mars:

Tacna itself looks like a scene out of Star Wars:

This is the view from our hotel room

(which was very nice by the way).

You can see the dust on our window

In Tacna the mission employs a driver, Socrates.  Socrates drove us all around Tacna to all the pensionistas' homes, so we could get to know them and go over their responsibilities.  Pensionistas are paid by the mission to "take care" of the missionaries as far as meals and many of them supply their housing.  It is important that they feed them safely of course, so they don't get sick.  We reviewed with them the importance of filtered water, fruits and vegetables, etc.  The Peruvians serve rice and potatoes with every meal and we ask them to include something green as well.  We also wanted to be sure they know not to be offended if a missionary doesn't eat everything on their plate.  Sometimes they serve A LOT of food.  We met with 11 out of the 12 pensionistas in 1 1/2 days.  It was amazing how well Socrates knew the city and could take us right where we needed to go.  The addresses here are not clear at all.  

Here is Tim at the home of a pensionista.  

She is the only one we weren't able to get a hold of.  

The car is Socrates'.  No air conditioning, so a lot of wind blown hair

We loved sitting down and getting to know these women and some of their families.  Very humble circumstances.  

The next day was the zone conference for the Tacna and Ilo Zones.  We actually visited two more pensionistas during zone conference and returned just before lunch.  Wow!  The stake there served us sooooo much food.  After lunch we headed back to Arequipa with the Chipmans.  We got back around 8:00, stopped for dinner and they dropped us off.

The fun for this week is no hot water.  We had to take cold showers this morning.  The office couple didn't have power for a few days and lost food in their fridge, so I guess we are lucky, especially since we stayed in a hotel for part of it.

Today we drove out to the coast (Camana) for a district meeting.  Since I don't speak Spanish, Tim is in the meeting and I am working on the blog.  I didn't need to come, but I wanted to see more of Peru and meet more people.  

I'll end with a description of how it is to travel by car here.  They have two lane roads (highways) with no speed limit.  You can go as fast or as slow as you want.  There are many very slow trucks on the road, and sometimes very slow cars.  There is some mountain (they look like very large dunes, not like the Colorado mountains) driving with twists and turns and some straight away driving.  Most of the time you are having to pass the slow vehicles into oncoming traffic.  If the road is too twisty, then you are just stuck behind a line of cars following the slow trucks.  This goes on the entire road trip.  Yikes!!

 

We've Arrived in Arequipa!

We've been here almost a week and still don't have wifi.  I'm trying to finally post something while we are at the mission office.  I hope this doesn't get too long.  

Leaving from Salt Lake Airport.  We somehow managed to get all
our luggage and our granddaughter Penny in the car

We made it!!  We left for the airport in Salt Lake City at 1:00 pm Monday and arrived in Arequipa on Tuesday at 12:30 pm.  It's a two hour time difference from Salt Lake/Denver - so, with layovers, close to 24 hours.  Hermana Chipman (mission leader) picked us up and took us to the mission home to feed us.  

Arriving in Arequipa.

She then drove us to our apartment.  It will take us weeks to figure out how to get around the city.  There are lots of narrow streets that go every which way - very confusing.  Our apartment is on the 7th floor and is very nice.  We have a doorman and you need a code to enter the buildings.  Getting our luggage to our building (which is the farthest from the road) and then up a small elevator was very comical.  The mission leaders took us out to dinner that night where I tried ceviche - Yum!  It was in the touristy part of town which we've only seen at night, but it seems nice.  Most of the city is what you would picture as a Peruvian city.  It's been really fun to catch up with the Chipmans.  As we come to learn what all their massive responsibilities are, we are really glad we are here able to help.

First night in Arequipa.  Dinner with the Chipmans

In front of the cathedral in Arequipa down the street from the restaurant

We took it easy the next morning so we could get unpacked.  Presidente Chipman eventually texted us to be sure we had water.  I thought how thoughtful that was and told him we had some, but that we'd buy more when we shopped with Hermana Chipman that afternoon.  Then he clarified and asked if water was coming out of the faucets.  Well, it was at the time, which was why we were confused, but apparently most of the city did not have water coming out of their faucets.  We went shopping and by the time we got home, ours had stopped too.

The doorman told us the water was due to come back at 5:00 am the next morning, and sure enough we heard the toilet tanks fill up at 4:30 am.  It's been fine ever since.  The Chipmans, though, had to monitor it for all the missionaries and the office senior couple didn't have water for 3 days, so we were lucky.  I guess it depended what part of the city you were in.

Then the next day, while doing wash, we flooded our kitchen.  The washing machine drains into a utility sink, and a small piece of paper had fallen into the sink and blocked the drain so that the water overflowed and flooded the kitchen and laundry room.  We were able to sweep the water into a small drain in the laundry room and mop up the rest.  We went from not enough water to too much water in about 24 hours. 

The rest of the week was learning to get around the city and meeting the missionaries, who are awesome!!  The Chipmans have taken us to some really good restaurants.  But grocery shopping will take some getting used to.  The Chipmans met with us on Saturday to give us more of any idea of our responsibilities.  We are going with them to Tacna this week and will meet with the pensionistas down there while Presidente does missionary interviews.  The missionaries live in pensions in some areas and have pensionistas who are paid to feed them and do their wash.  We are going over new contracts with them which among other things, insures that they are given safe and healthy food to eat.  Today I am looking into English Connect.  A program the church has developed to teach English to Spanish speaking missionaries to help them with occupations when they finish their mission.  We went over other things that I will write about as we get to it.

Yesterday, we went to a stake conference here in Arequipa.  The Chipmans spoke and from what I could tell, the meeting was very good (but all in Spanish of course).  The VanDusens (office couple) invited us to dinner, which was our first experience in getting our own ride.  We used the app InDrive (like Uber) to get there, but just flagged a taxi to get home.  We had a very nice time at dinner.

One night Presidente Chipman picked us up on his way home from the mission office and there was a beautiful sunset over the volcano and mountains.  We raced up the hill to the temple to try to get a picture.  The sunset had faded by then, but here is an idea:

The Arequipa temple at sunset

This gives an idea of a street in Arequipa with the mountains in the back.

We found an ice cream shop that sells ice cream made from sheep's milk.
They told us they don't need to use as much sugar because the milk is sweeter.
It was very good.

Second (and last) Week at MTC

Our time at the MTC has come to an end.  We will miss the Spirit that is felt there and the friends that we made.  Thought I'd share a couple of impressions.

1. Receiving our visas when we did was nothing short of miraculous.  When we received our mission call we were told that it could take about 8 months for our visa applications to be approved.  We submitted our applications the first half of September and they were approved just before Christmas.  In the MTC, we tried to meet the young missionaries assigned to our mission in Peru, only to miss them by a day.  They had just left to begin their missions.  We did learn, however, that out of their district, only one received his visa in time.  The others had to be reassigned to other missions in the states.  Then we learned of another missionary assigned to Peru, whose visa application was rained on and ruined.  How does that happen?  He had to start the application process all over again.  It's plain to us that we are supposed to be going to this mission at this time.

2.  In class yesterday, we were asked to fill out a self evaluation worksheet.  We needed to determine our strengths in the categories of Spiritual Strength; Education; Employment; Physical, Social, Emotional Health; Preparation for Emergencies; and Talents.  Then we needed to write down "What Can I Improve?" and "What Resources Can Help?"  I became very discouraged and then distraught as I couldn't think of anything to write, except under "What Can I Improve" under Spiritual Strength - "recognize the Spirit."

I prayed to know what my strengths are and didn't get any indication of what I should write.  Then later into the class, the thought came to me - you have faith.  When you have faith, it doesn't matter the talents you have.  You know that whatever comes your way, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, you will be strengthened and lead to know how to best deal with any situation.  And the bonus is - I recognized the Spirit.  I also realize that our talents are gifts from God and we should do what we can to develop our talents, but this impression at this time brought great peace.

There are over 1,000 young missionaries in the MTC being sent all over the world. They are amazing, friendly, high energy, and excited to serve.  We really enjoyed our time with them.  Our teachers had recently returned from their own missions and they were amazing as well.

Here is a photo of our district with our instructors for the second week, Sister Barlow and Sister Rodriguez:

Tim, Jalene, Bry Christensen, Cheri Christensen, Ainsley Barlow,
Nilda Rodriguez, Lynell Findlay, Russ Findlay, Kris Denison, Neil Denison

The mural behind us is a smaller replica of several murals in the new MTC building.  We were given a pdf of all the murals and a study guide that I have included below.  The murals are very beautiful.