Tweezer Season

Tweezing

More Tweezing

Still More Tweezing

The Tweezing Never Stops... Seemingly

Priesthood meeting

Two missionaries and the  primary

Red flower

Drying hides

Pitumarqueño pig

Wool for sale

Pitumarqueñas

Niña Pitumarqueña

Bottle collector

The delicious “tuna” (cactus fruit) is in abundance again. There are ladies all over town with wheelbarrows, buckets and boxes full of the delicious fruit. When we buy them, the ladies slice the skin, open it up and we pluck the juicy fruit out and happily slurp the treat down as we walk. The fruit is heavenly. It is funny however, to pass buy a wheelbarrow when no one is buying the fruit because every single lady keeps a pair of tweezers in her apron pocket and spends the “down time” plucking the little cactus spines from their fingers. We think it’s a pretty rough way to make a few soles, but we’re certainly happy that they sell the fruit!

We had a great Sunday in Pitumarca with Elder and Sister Johnson. It was a wonderful reunion and we loved meeting with the members there. The Johnson’s had a wonderful time and we all felt the spirit as we taught and visited with the group.

We haven’t really officially announced this but we are extending our mission and will finish up June 1, 2016. We are making a trip home for three weeks at the end of June, 2015. We have grandchildren and our own children to visit and get reacquainted with and we need to do some re-supplying for the following year. We are excited to continue our work here and love serving in Peru.

We took 9,989 images this week, so we felt pretty happy about that. Julie has started teaching English to a woman that is working in an office across from us. Marta works for the archives and is organizing amazingly huge stacks and piles of legal documents. What a project. Julie teaches Marta from 12-1pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and continues to teach Marvid and Yahir later in the afternoons.  

We learned this week, that we will need to move to another apartment. The Agüeros are being moved to Lima and they have dealt with the landlord for us. The landlord is going through a divorce and really has no interest in taking care of this building or the people who live here. Brother Agüero said it would be to our benefit to get out and move to a place that has a landlord that is available. 

Fortunately, another friend and his family are being transferred to Arequipa, so we will move into their apartment. It’s about a 10 minute walk down from where we now live. It has three bedrooms so we’ll have a bit more space.  It’s quite new and is on a quiet walk-way off the busy main street. The landlord is very attentive and helpful so that is a huge plus.  We shall see how things go.

On Friday we traveled to Abancay with President and Sister Harbertson and the two mission assistants. We had a pleasant trip and attended a Multi-Zone Conference there. Rich had several interviews to take care of while the President was in the Conference.  It’s always enjoyable to meet with the young missionaries and we had a great time. 

Because of the rain, everything is green and beautiful. The Apurimac River is really full and it’s charging churning, gushing and muddy this time of year. It’s quite the sight indeed.