You may remember that one of the Church leaders, Elder Uceda was on a mission in Peru in 1976, when I was here. He was companions for some time with Marvin Harper, who was the father of Ruth, our American daughter-in-law (Andrew’s wife). Elder Uceda taught Marvin English, & Elder Uceda taught Marvin Spanish. We often tell the young Latino elders here they should take advantage of having an American companion & learn English like Elder Uceda did! Recently, he was able to come in our office & look at some of my mission photos that brought back memories for us both.
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| Elder Uceda of the Area Presidency |
In Lima, the rainfall is negligible, a fine drizzle at best, so it’s vtal that people water their gardens. We often see vehicles like this watering the grass & trees in the streets. If you were to come along afterwards, you’d think there’d been a downpour! The climate in Lima right now is dull & dreary due to the very low cloud cover. At this time of year, Lima goes without seeing the sun for several months. The humidity is often 100% which makes everything cold & damp. When we go out in the morning, it looks as if it has been raining because there are puddles everywhere. However, it would be a problem if it really did rain because many homes are built on the sides of the mud & dust covered hills, which would create an Aberfan style disaster.
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| Watering the Grass Verge |
In Lima, there is a very unsavoury place called Gamarra, half an hour away, where it’s not safe for us to be after mid-day. So we get a car full of senior missionary sisters & go in the morning, being very careful not to take anything of value. It's a shame because we’d get some amazing photos there!! However, they have a vast array of stalls & little shops selling fabric & clothes at incredibly cheap prices. I’ve bought 2 long sleeved blouses there for £6 each, & some fabric that I’m waiting to have made into skirts that cost £6 each. On my first trip there a friend & I bought some queen sized sheets (our bed is in between double & queen size.) We waited 1/2 hr for them to be made, & they cost £14. Our best bargain yet was a new set of curtains for our lounge/living room. Our old ones are nets (sheer for you US folks) & grey in colour from all the dust, & won’t wash clean. So, Graciela, our driver, took 3 of us to a shop where they made curtains in Gamarra. I chose the colour & ordered them at 1.30pm. The lady said we could have them at 5pm, but in the end, a previous job & the bus journey took the man longer than planned & he came at 8pm. The curtains cost £62.50, plus £1.25 for the bus fare, & we gave him £1.25 for hanging them. We are delighted with the new look.
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| Our New Curtains |
I’ve written about the amusing things that people do at traffic lights to make money. Last week I saw lots of young people with T shirts & caps with a logo on, collecting money for a cancer charity. They were in all the main roads collecting from every car in the vicinity, & have a collection every year. It made my standing in Witham Town Centre collecting for Farleigh Hospice, or the British Legion on ‘Poppy Day’ look very tame & boring!! I mentioned previously that people come round selling many different kinds of food etc. I managed to photograph this man selling oranges & pineapples outside our apartment.
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| Fruit in abundance |
On 12th June, we flew to Trujillo to present the Health Insurance Cards for our missionaries. I was so excited to go there because I served 6 months of my first mission there. For those of you who haven’t yet gone to the Turks Blog (on the 14th June entry) to read about our visit, it’s a good read, with some lovely photos of the fun we had. (www.terryandjanetturk.blogspot.com) We stayed in very nice accommodation that is used by the Churh leaders when they visit the Trujillo Mission.
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| The Mission President's Home |
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| The Guests Annexe |
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| The Guest Bedroom |
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| A Clinic We Had Just Inspected |
We had a ‘Sick Parade’ (as Brian calls it, from his days in the RAF) of 10 missionaries & advised them what to do to get better. We taught Health Principles to about 10 Zone Leaders, who were then to teach them to other missionaries in 2 weeks. It was good to see how attentive they were & taking notes to help remind them what to say.
By far the best part of our time in Trujillo was to visit the Meza family, the only other family I’d kept in touch with. Oscar Meza (in the yellow shirt) is now 79. The baby in her mother's arms in the original photo is wearing a dark trouser suit in the 2011 photo. I was very touched that Oscar had kept photos of our family that I sent them many years ago before Matthew was born.
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The Meza Family in 1976
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| The Same Room 35 Years Later |
President Turk, very kindly took us to the house where I lived for my six months in Trujillo in 1976. My companion Janet Murri & I lived on the top floor of the cream coloured house,next to the Hostal, overlooking the little plaza where we stood in June 2011.
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| Looking Onto the Plaza in 1976 |
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| Looking Up From the Plaza 35 Years Later |
On the way back to the airport we stopped to see the site of the new Temple, & Stake House that will be built in Trujillo. It looked huge, but we know it will look very different when the buildings are completed, with carparks etc.
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| Site for New Trujillo Temple |
On 23rd June, we took out two nurses for a working lunch. One of them, Sister Anderson is in the CCM, preparing to go to Arequipa & work there advising the missionaries in a similar way to us. The other, Sister Stoddard has just completed her mission in Arequipa & was in Lima to have a three day overlap & train Sister Anderson. We really enjoyed our meal, talking about their work, but also talking about Sister Stoddard’s Mum!! The day before, we discovered that her Mum & I were in Lima at the same time, as Health Missionaries, & knew each other. When they come to visit Peru in a few weeks, they will come & stay, which will be great for all of us!
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| Mission Nurses |
On 29th June there was a Seminar in the Area Office for the 7 new Mission Presidents & their wives that will be working in our Area, one of them in Lima East Mission, & one in Chiclayo Mission. Brian gave a 10 minute presentation about the medical facilities available to them. Someone translated for him because all but two were Latinos. There were 3 teenage girls in the group, so they were taken to the Lima Central Mission to join President Tylers daughter, who lives there. She is going to BYU, a Church University in America in a few weeks, & knows all her future room-mates but one. You can imagine her delight to find that one of these girls is lined up to be her other room-mate. This girl's parents are now serving as Mission President in the Columbia Cali Mission. It’s small world in the Church!!
Some of you will know how much I rely on my Power Nap after lunch to keep me going, but I have to lie down to go to sleep!. Well, of course in the Provo MTC there was no opportunity, & there isn't in the office either. I hadn't worked in an office since leaving Secretarial College in 1965. I find it really tiring. I've heard of some people here who lie on the floor, not very comfy, & I've seen some with their head on their desks. That gave me an idea, so I bought a little cushion & Bob's your Uncle, if I'm really tired, I can fall asleep with my head resting on my cushion on the desk. I feel better for it, & I work more effectively afterwards. A fellow missionary took this photo when I was having a nap.
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| I can't take any more!! |
On the 30th June, Elder Nash, our Area President flew back to the US after 4 years of living in Lima, & working in the 5 countries in our Area. Shortly before he left for the Airport, he was given some framed photos of him with the 21 Mission Presidents & wives for the Area. When we had all enjoyed the maracuya gateaux, Brian made a small presentation. He said “I don’t have photos or a gatteaux to give you, but I do have La Bomba!!” (the Bomb) These are 3 tablets that have to be taken by everyone leaving the Area to get rid of any parasites they may have picked up along the way. We advise people to take them once they arrive home in case they cause side effects!! His remarks were greeted with much laughter!!
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| Farewell to Elder Nash (on the right) |
This month some of our missionaries have had some interesting medical challenges. One elder in Lima South Mission was knocked over by a motor-taxi. This is a motorbike with a 2 wheeled, covered carriage on the back. he was admitted to an Intensive Care Unit with a fractured skull, & was unconscious for a while. We visited him twice, then again when he was transferred from ICU after 6 days. He was discharged after a further 6 days, & we met him in the Mission Office on Monday, gradually aclimatising himself to life outside the Clinic. Apart from feeling a bit light-headed he was doing remarkably well. Another elder in Bolivia had an appendicectomy, & then was confirmed to have Typhoid Fever, which they suspected. The final case, was a senior missionary who Brian had to send home with a slipped disc, for surgery by a Dr who had treated him previously. We were grateful to learn they managed the two flights to Salt Lake City very well, & were met with wheelchairs everywhere, which made the transfers much easier.
This month we have visits to Missions in Bolivia & Equador, so we will have plenty to write about in our next Blog! We miss you all, & hope you are well & happy. If anyone is reading our Blog, having read about us in the English insert of the June Ensign, here is our e-mail address if you want to contact us:- helloblondgrandma@gmail.com
