Saludos a Nuestras Familia y Amigos

Hola y bienvenidos to another edition of YOU ARE IN PERU NOW. We are glad that you have stuck with us this long and are continuing to read of our adventures and misadventures here in Cañete.

No one likes to hear about how sick you have been so I won’t mention the trips to the clinic in Lima, the x-rays, and the crushed cartilage in Debbie’s neck or her painful physiotherapy sessions. I probably should not mention the three different skin afflictions that the dermatologist says she is suffering with. So I won’t mention them.

Part of my usual morning routine is to get a load of laundry started while the water tank is still refilling (the water comes for two hours in the morning and two hours evening). If I can get the first load done before eight o’clock A.M. it has a zero effect on the water supply for day.

I do this because our neighbor down stairs could care less about how much water she uses; when the tank is empty she turns her tap off. The crazy thing is that when she empties the tank she sits outside and gives me the stinky eye like I am the one that used all the water. Truth be known, I control the valve for the building and on occasion I have turned her water off before she completely drained the tank so that we can flush our toilets that day. I have also plumbed a line so that I can turn off the water to rest of the house and still run my washer. (It does not sound very Christian like does it, but neither is negligently draining the tank.) I will have to tell more about Washer Wars at another time.

This morning I got the wash in at about 6:20 which is just about perfect because a one hour wash cycle takes an hour and 30 minutes, that is another story. I usually have to check the washer at every filling cycle as the timer on the fill cycle usually times out before it can reach the setting level, I know it is complicated.

You probably don’t remember but our washing machine is on the roof where our solar clothes dryer is. So this morning as I hurrying to go to check the water for the first time I quickly pulled the door to the apartment closed behind me only to hear the clicking sound of the door locking and in that instant I knew that I did not have a key with me. We will just say I was in my night clothes but I did have a decent pair of shoes on.

Not withstanding my predicament I did not want to wake up Debbie this early as it was my silly mistake and there was no point in her paying the price for it. I was able to slide open a window on the landing, that looks into the living room, and through the bars I could just reach the back of the chair where my backpack was. I pulled the chair to where I could reach my backpack so that I could get my scriptures and other study materials and enjoyed the early morning on the roof top.

Finally around 8:00 when the wash was finished I went down stairs and rang the door bell only to find that Debbie had been up for a while and was wondering where I had disappeared to.

Life lesson I learned from this: Never worry about being overdressed for any occasion.

I will let the pictures help tell the rest of our story:

This transfer we said good bye to half of our missionaries, this is Elder Anibal. He and Elder Granados used to come once a week for English lessons. Before his mission he was fireman in Colombia and he put that part of his life on hold to come and be a great missionary in Peru.


Although Elder Nova did not finish his mission in our zone we did manage to say good bye to him as he departed for home. It was one of those "who would have guessed it type of moments," we were waiting for a missionary to arrive to leave at the bus station, a bus pulled in to the station and Elder Nova jumped off the bus and gave us all a hug and jumped back on the bus and left. You could not have planned it.



Meet the Tucker Family: David and Helen and their children Swatara, Talon, and Teric (I hope I spelled all the names correctly). They are our neighbours a few doors down. Meeting them was quite a miracle, each time we leave our apartment we have a prayer and on that day Debbie prayed that we would meet someone new that we could speak English. It struck me as odd that she would phrase her prayer that way but look what happened. Two minutes later we met Helen and the kids.

Elder Tombs and Elder Vera had a double baptism two weeks ago. It was tricky but we planned it between the block of meetings on Sunday and they went from the baptism directly to Sacrament meeting to be confirmed. Very efficient.

The Mission President told us we could not have a zone dinner the night before transfers anymore so being the obedient missionaries that we are we now have a welcome to the zone lunch. He made no mention of that.

The president says that every missionary is entitled expect certain things and one of those things is that every missionary is entitled to have a hot shower. It may be his promise but we make sure it happens in this zone. We have some missionaries that have never had a hot shower before they came to our zone, ever.

For this installation I had to run line from the forth floor roof to the second storey bathroom.

Access to the forth level and the storage tank is via this scareway to heaven. Which actually fell over while I was going up.

Fortunately I was able to find a piece of safety(not) rope and lash is to the a concrete pillar.

This is the before my handy work picture.

And this the after picture, complete with a 240 volt therma shower head and water supply that landlord can not shut off at 7:00, which he was in the habit of doing. (Melissa aren't you proud of your father-in-law)

This happy couple have been together for more than 20 years, have 5 children together. They were married on Friday and on Saturday Elder Scofield and Elder Chancafe took them to the beach and Hermana and 4 of the Children were baptized. Hermano Hernan is already a member.

It really does seem like the missionaries do a lot of eating but you have to understand that they are growing boys. The Elders in Mala arranged for birthday lunch for Hermana Reich

Their pensionista prepared a delicious meal and Elder Reich arranged for the cake.

Moving day, Elders Vidangos and Cuque found a new apartment so that they were not sharing a room with other set of elders. Our only option for moving was to carry everything the 4 blocks to the digs.

Elders Sardon and Flores and us spent our service day sanding and painting the security gates at the new casa capilla in Quilmana

The next week we arranged for this glass store front to be installed and a big and a big new sign for the front.

We don't know anything about this woman other than she is a child of God but if a face ever said I have a story to tell this one does.

We try and spend as much time as possible supporting the Elders in Quilmana and this day we were in a little pueblo north of Quilmana to meet a new family. These bamboo walls house very humble people and not withstanding their humble circumstances have lives filled with hope which is evidenced by this little flower garden I am standing next to.

These cows belong to Anders, Holga, and Anderson(boy) pictured below

I know that we say this about a lot of people, this a very special family. Anderson is has a medical condition that is going to require surgery so we gave him a priesthood blessing and then taught his parents about eternal families. They are one of 5 families that we are working with that need to get married.

This another of the Quilmana families that is investigating the church. The elders have been keeping very busy.

Halloween has got to be one Debbies top three holidays with Christmas being her most favorite. We might be far from home but Debbie's heart in never far from her holidays. Gracias a Hermana Adriana for the wig and clown nose.

Tomorrow we are taking Gustavo and Naty to the Municipalidad to register for the Masivo Wedding ceremony next week. Gustavo phoned tonight to confirm the times with us and his voice cracked with excitement and gratitude because he knows that this step in their lives will open the door to allow them to move forward toward an eternal family. Our lives have been so enriched by the relationships that we have created with so many people here. We can't imagine what we have done to be so blessed, we're just lucky we guess.

Abrazos a todos Los Whitney Gringos in Cañete