Sunday, June 21, 2015

Dedicating graves to temples; subteranean to sublime

New Mural






Cusco Fair Booth setup



More Cusco Fair setup








Icaro

Icaro



Cusco Days Celebration
















Rich had a call this week from a branch president who explained that he had to move the cadaver of a loved one from one crypt to another. This is common enough in many lands since plots are only rented for a period of time… long enough for the cadaver to become nothing but bones. Sometimes, folks just take them home here, hence “skeletons in the closet” aren’t always just a saying…

So his question was; should one dedicate the grave to where the remains are transferred? The thing is; this is a question that we would never in a million years have been asked at home in the United States…

Rich spent Wednesday releasing missionaries that are on their way home. We also realized that Julie’s carnet (foreign visa) runs out the day after we get back from the states, the middle of July, and we can only renew a month in advance. We called a friend who runs the visa office for the church in Lima. That stirred things up and they called the mission office in a panic, perhaps due to our abuse of power. The mission communicated back to Lima who said the correct papers by plane would be in Cusco by Thursday morning. 

Then, we also discovered that Rich’s new passport didn’t have an entry stamp and it would cause big problems traveling on Monday. When he received his new passport the church office in Lima should have taken care of the entry stamp, but they didn’t. Phone calls were flying back and forth and the Travel and Visa office in Lima was scrambling and urging our office elders to do the same. 

The mission secretary and his companion here in Cusco went to the airport Thursday morning and picked up the necessary papers for us and we spent the morning in immigration. All was in order and ready to go but the paper work had to have a check-mark from the jefe (boss) and he wouldn’t be back until Thursday afternoon. Everything hinges on one man putting a tic mark in a box…..we can’t even discuss this rationale……..

We spent the afternoon at the fairgrounds helping to get our banners hung and setting up for the big Huancaro fair that begins on Saturday. When we finished there, with promises and promises that the electricity would be connected we took the Elders Olsen and Yorgesen to Papacho’s for lunch. They were so funny, they haven’t eaten anything like these hamburgers their whole time in Peru, they really thought they were in heaven. 
And we didn’t get one picture taken. There’s always tomorrow….

Friday was just as crazy a day, lots of running around and taking care of last minute things and Rich spent part of the morning in immigration again and everything was signed, stamped and finger printed for Rich’s passport and once again, the jefe was nowhere to be found to put his check mark on the papers, Grrrrrr! so there was nothing more to be done. Immigration closed in the afternoon for a meeting and never mind that we were flying out the next morning. The immigration minion promised that it would be ready by 9am Saturday morning.

Elders Olsen, Salazar and Yorgesen are true angels, they were at immigration before 9am, got Rich’s passport and were at our house by 9:40am to help us with our bags and get us to the airport on time! Ah…living on the edge…..

The fair opened Saturday morning and we received and email from Elder Johnson who is overseeing our booth. We love the Johnsons and the Rhoades, the other senior couples serving in Cusco. Where would we be without their willingness and savvy? Saturday afternoon and Elder Johnson wrote the following:

“Don’t worry; you can sleep peacefully at night    .    .   .   the Peruvians will never take over the world.  I could start out by saying “you’ll never believe this", but I know you’d believe anything by now.

No electricity this morning.  By 12:45 they had the wires strung (there’s a long story here), but the next question I asked Sr. Farfán was:  when are they going to turn the electricity on?  I could tell it was never going to happen (and it didn’t), so I called Elder Rhoades to pose a solution and he had a better one.  One inverter and car battery later, and we had video by 2:00, and it ran perfectly the rest of the day.  I am now in a scramble for a battery charger, and we will run on our own power through the Feria.

The first day of the Feria was really “setup day” for everyone else, and it was chaos til about noon.  They finally laid carpet down our street and banned trucks, cars and buses from driving down, and the people really started to come about noon.  The missionaries were superb, and if the traffic continues at today’s rate, we will use up our 1,000 Mi Familia folletos.  The word is that tomorrow is really a big day, I don’t know what the weekdays will be like.” 

We are so grateful for the Johnson’s and Rhoades who so capable of figuring out workarounds in Peru! 

Saturday evening we enjoyed watching the Cultural Event via satellite from Trujillo for the temple dedication. There was beautiful dancing, singing and sheer jubilation, what a night.

Sunday morning we attended the dedication via satellite of the Trujillo Temple. President Uchtdorff presided and Elder Bednar conducted our session. Elder Uceda, the area president gave a seminal talk on the power of the temple in the lives of our children. He is an amazing influence and example in the country. He speaks with pure authority as a Peruvian who has it all figured out and he is so dynamic. It is a true privilege to have been able to meet and associate with him on a social and personal basis.

The dedication was an incredible experience. We have such a connection to Peru and the wonderful people here, despite our whining about petty functionaries and bureaucratic frustrations. We can’t begin to describe the overwhelming manifestation of the Spirit that we felt while we joined with members throughout Peru to participate in this momentous occasion. How truly blessed we are as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We know the gospel is true; we love our mission and our Savior. 


Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Amazon Ramble




Chaos at the fair grounds


The Strike and related traffic

The corn truck














Garcia family

Apaza family

Boat dock




Boat ride



Lucy the peccary

Lucy the peccary
Lucy the peccary

Lucy the peccary
Lucy the peccary, "Oooh baby, feels so good!"
Before really getting muddy...


Leaf cutter  ants







The gang






Lake Sandoval, Tambopata Reserve

Hoatzin/Stinky bird

Spider monkey





giant river otters
Artsy Sandoval Lake


Red howler  monkey
The Harbertsons on the  trail

The trail in low  sun angle



3 toed sloth

Amazon storm
Last week our fair-booth saga continued… On Monday we went to check out the booth location and learned that it is basically nothing like we had been told. The fair begins this Saturday and the archive director told Rich that we had jumped the gun in printing the banners for it… We are leaving for the US at the end of this week, so, he doesn’t think so. Essentially, Rich made them too long and too many based on the original configuration but we can make it work. The Johnsons will handle the booth in our absence together with a group of elders. The fair organizers could not figure out how to make an institutional pass to get  our elders in so we will have to pay for their entry. 

Additionally, it does not seem that the plan to have electricity available had been really considered and a good deal of our plan needs it.  In the various meetings were just studies in frustration. In the end, it seems that it will come together. After something more than s./2000, our original plan to pay nothing has turned into something of a joke.

Additionally the University down the street from our office went on strike. We actually have no idea why, but it is usually either the professors striking for more pay or the students striking for better professors. Little is accomplished other than a lot of milling around in the street and a day off work. Most importantly, it gums up the works all over town. There was gridlock on all fronts.

On Thursday, Elder Uceda held a meeting to help train the local stake and mission leaders and Rich got to go. Elder Uceda is a remarkable man with tremendous insights on how the church should work in Peru and he brings real and remarkable credibility to his training because he is Peruvian. 

On Friday we traveled to Puerto Maldonado for a district conference. We had a great conference with the wonderful folks there. It had been well organized with real effort to improve and grow the district into a stake. We were pleased with the experience and came away feeling pretty positive about it.

On Monday, we had made plans to take a day-trip into the Sandoval Lake in the Tambopata reserve with the mission president and his wife. We had planned this for some time and it came together just a week before we left. They picked us up from our hotel, took us down the river to a lodge we had not been to before. There we met Lucy a collared peccary who is tame as a puppy and quite the adorable little piggy. She walked right up to Rich and nuzzled him until he scrubbed her bristly little jowls and belly. She could actually turn on the faucet with her teeth to get her own drink of water.

Then we went into the lake. It was hotter than before, muggy, and with spectacularly gooey mud. We trudged our way into the lake and out all the while sweating like mad. We did see the giant river otters that we had seen before but this time we saw red howler monkeys, capuchin monkeys and had a wonderful view of a three toed sloth. It was really a great trip. When we got back to the river (The Madre de Dios) it started to rain and the temperature dropped forty degrees. We thought we might freeze just then…

We came back to Cusco on Tuesday, early afternoon.