We acknowledge everything Elder Rasband said yesterday about serving a Senior Mission!

General Conference is a welcome break from all that has gone down during the last weeks. We are thrilled beyond words for the news of the 8th and 9th temples announced for Peru! What a time we are living! Such a blessing to serve here at such a time!

It is a thrill to serve. We have been privileged to help with lessons and bear witness of the restored gospel. The missionaries seem to not know that they can invite us so when it happens it is a treat. Our Uber Book of Mormon campaign continues apace. We have presented the Book of Mormon to just under 200 people who have accepted the challenge to read it during the past three months. Whether they do or not is up to them.

On Friday night, a week ago, our friend José Luís was baptized. We attended with the mission president and his wife and the elders responsible for teaching him in his area. He had asked one of his friends from our mission to baptize him though he is outside of our mission boundaries so our mission president had to give permission. His family and a few members from his ward also attended.The following Sunday, we attended his ward and José Luís asked Rich to confirm him. It was a very sweet experience.

Once again, things got away from us a bit and two weeks have passed since we wrote a blog. During the week before last we held a round of mini, mulit-zone conferences. Over four days we met with the 9 zones in our mission office. For that we supplied food and drink and attended each of the conferences and participated in them. When we do this, we do a lot of background work. 

Rich got to do an interview in the area we call San Gabriel. In large South American cities, the poorer parts of town are higher up on the mountain. Rich went to the highest part of San Gabriel that has a chapel. He took a driver that he contracted for the service to take him, wait and bring him home. We are never sure we will have cell service in these outlying areas and hence, getting out of them can be complicated.

The driver is a woman named Rocio, who we gave a Book of Mormon to some time back. She is very sweet and responsible. All the way up to the appointment, she kept mentioning that this is a dangerous area. She said, "I will only go into this area for you." Sometimes, people ask for a car in these areas and then rob the driver. Rich had explained to her that there was an enclosed parking area where we were going and that he would be no more than an hour. He agreed upon a price beforehand. All went well and Rich got to see a part of Lima most tourists miss…

Lima has projected Water outages to begin on the 7th of October. There is a significant part of the population that has no running water, somewhere around a million people have to carry water. They plan a major infrastructure project to better distribute water. It will involve cutting water off during the day for about 12 hours with diminished capacity during the hours that it comes back on. There is also the concern of clean water during all of this.

We are doing what we can to make sure our 120 missionaries have the capability to capture water when it is on and store it for household needs each day. We can supply tanks and some potable water but it will require them to take the necessary steps. A lot of effort has gone into making that happen.

Meanwhile, we also have dealt with a badly sprained ankles, numerous dog bites, one case of a match stick broken off and stuck in an ear during childhood but never corrected… Life continues to be interesting to say the least.

We continue to love our mission. Who could have told us that we would even come to like, let alone, love Lima. We feel at home and feel such love from our members. Even non-members here are so warm when we tell them that we are missionaries here in their country. We are truly blessed to serve here.

José Luís' baptism

Mini, multi-zone conferences

Hanging out with the missionaries

José Luís announcing his baptism to the missionaries

José Luís's rescued puppy

The Miraflores flower festival

The Miraflores Palacio de Arte

The Miraflores Palacio de Arte (The tags each have a braille description...)