3rd and last Thanksgiving!

Early thanksgiving

One of the Sicuani choirs

Tuckered out puppy in Sicuani

Sicuani polleria

Pie and ice-cream with the zone

St Bernard?!!!

Whipping cream

Young mom

Icaro holding the sidewalk down

This is Spike??!!!

Road runner bus line for all our New Mexico readers...

Thanksgiving Day repast

The Sicuani bus terminal

Tipon with the Johnson's

Another two weeks have flown by! We stayed in Cusco, worked and met with our district for the Monday evening meeting. We have a new elder and sister in our group. The previous elder finished his mission and went home and the sister had been sick for several months and the Drs. couldn’t figure out what the problem was with her stomach. She had to go home to Argentina and get well. We’re hoping she’ll get back on her mission soon. 

Julie kept busy with her English students and Rich had lots to do with the districts in the mission. There is a so much to do here, we’re sure everywhere. Senior missionary couples are desperately needed. The Rhoades and Johnsons leave in December and there is only one couple coming to replace them, for a year.

We had our Thanksgiving dinner Friday night with the mission presidency, the senior missionary couples, the mission housekeeper and her husband, the gardner for the mission home and the Harbertson’s daughter and son-in-law who are visiting. We had to do it early since everyone is busy next week. 

Rich and I made stuffing and took two turkeys to be roasted in the massive clay oven up the street. When Rich picked up the turkeys there were several baby pigs (lechon) roasting, sadly, not for us… Julie made “Grandma’s Rolls” and they were a huge hit. They were perfect! Truly a miracle since our oven has no insulation, no thermostat and it’s just a guess as to how long and a what temperature to bake anything and high elevation has to be taken into account. Every pan has to be baked on top of a cookie sheet to keep the bottom from burning. Julie misses her oven!

We had loads of food and the Harbertson’s daughter brought cranberry sauce with her. What a treat! This was our third and last Thanksgiving here, we will miss these dear friends. 

Rich left at 6:30 am Saturday for Urubamba with President Reatequi and Quique Rubio (mission secretary) for district training there. Julie and Sister Reatequi took a combi (micro bus) later and arrived in time for their training at 4:00pm. It’s about 90 minutes over the mountains to the Sacred Valley so Julie was able to stay the morning and pull the apartment in order after the frenzy of cooking Friday. 

We had a great district conference with the wonderful members in Urubamba. The valley is spectacular with massive snow/glacier tipped “nevados” all around. It is absolutely gorgeous. 

We spent Monday with the Johnson’s and took them to visit the Inka ruins of Tipon and then to the Wari ruins of Pikillaqta (flea city). The day was beautiful and warm and we had a lovely day with them. 

We had a huge apple pie left over from our Thanksgiving dinner so we bought ice-cream and took it to our district meeting Monday night and shared it with our zone. There are twelve elders/sisters in our zone and were they happy when we arrived with the treats! Mondays are their “preparation day” a day off for doing laundry, housekeeping etc. and usually involves playing football or basketball. The elders in our zone played football and they were all extremely sunburned. Young kids, they just don’t think about sunscreen… of course neither did we at that age! Fortunately, Julie had a bottle of Advil with her and doled out medication for all the headaches, bumps and bruises from the days “Turkey Bowl.”

We kept busy with work and on Thursday, Thanksgiving and went to lunch and had pollo a la brasa, with cooked veggies and french fries. At least it had all the right food groups for a Thanksgiving feast! We were able to talk to all our children and grandchildren. We do miss them!

We were invited to Sicuani Friday night to talk about our work and our mission. The stake young women were celebrating the anniversary of the Young Women program. We left Cusco about 3:30pm and arrived in Sicuani at 6:00pm. Dropped our gear at the hotel and arrived at the church just in time to make sure our video and slide presentations worked. 

It was a lovely evening and each ward had a young women’s chorus with matching outfits. We enjoyed the music, testimonies and the talks. Julie explained our work with a slide presentation, then we showed a video about the church’s archives in the Granite Mountain vaults outside of Salt Lake City. Rich then spoke about the importance of family history and why the Young Women need to be involved in this work.

After picture taking we were taken to a restaurant where we enjoyed delicious…pollo a la brasa! We have had our fill of poultry for a day or two. It was a wonderful evening and we love seeing old friends.

We left Saturday morning to return to Cusco. The rains have not started yet so the hills are still quite brown. Corn is growing in the fields but it’s looking pretty thirsty. The rains seem to be late this year.

We attended a baptism Saturday evening of a young woman named Jhesmina. Elders from our zone taught her. Baptisms are always exciting and we were happy to see that the elders are recovering from their sunburns and bruises.

After the baptism we walked to the center and had dinner at a good Italian restaurant just off the Plaza de Armas. We were definitely ready for bed when we arrived home.

Sunday we attended church in the Inti Raymi ward and enjoyed our day at home. We went there to see if we could find our friend Sister Carrasco to offer our condolences in person. Her father passed away this past week.

Rich is undertaking to make some beef jerky. We have survived for nearly three years without it but just wanted to see if we could make it. It has been somewhat labor intensive and feels sort of dubious. When it is done and if we survive the trial, we may have a recipe for space heater beef jerky…

Space heater beef jerky