We are frantically trying to pass stuff around to the people it should go to and get packed and finish up a few things today.  Glenn is working at the office today finishing up a few things and we have a few people coming by to say goodbye.  We leave for the airport about 10 p.m.  I hope the airports aren’t backed up or closed with all the snow at home.  I am posting this today because we will probably be tired and busy as soon as we get home and I wanted it to go out.  I will probably do one more posting when we get home before we close down our blog.  So, that’s it for today.

Earlier: We have 9 days to go.

This week we did do a couple of nice things that made the time go quicker.  On Tuesday we went to see the movie Avatar.  It was expensive but it was good to get out of the house and I liked the movie.

Wednesday we went down to the Employment office early because Glenn thought he had an appointment with Napoleon Quispe and Samuel Gomez to have a meeting about the vocational test, but when we got there (40 minutes on a bus) they were not there.  But it turned out to be okay because we talked to the two BYU interns who are here teaching the TAE, the church’s self-employment workshop.  We invited them to come with us to dinner at Nancy Chuan’s and see a part of Lima that isn’t upper middle class.  We ended up having a very good visit with Nancy’s family and they heard what she had to say about how things really are here in Peru.  And we had a very good meal and a nice visit. And the day went fast. Nancy and her family have become our friends.

Today, Saturday, we again invited these two young men to go with us, first to the open market, which is just interesting.  There are all sorts of meat hanging out, chickens with head and feet and the eggs showing inside, guinea pigs cleaned with their little feet sticking out, and fish.  And there are fruit and vegetable stands, along with various other offerings of all kinds.

It is good to see what some real small businesses are like.  We met a woman with a meat stall who is a member of the church.  She told us that her bishop said she should not work on Sunday, and they make as much now without Sundays as they did in the past.  Her husband also has a business, and they currently have a son on a mission in Venezuela.

Then we rode the bus out to Manchay.  I especially wanted them to see that there are members that are not middle class, that live in poverty and they need some help and church resources too.  We rode the bus past the church and it is too much to take in, really. It is so different that it is hard to really understand it.  These people live in wooden structures the size of a tool shed– really many people in the US have tool sheds that are nicer–lots without running water, etc.  It is real poverty.

We visited Br. Lucio Dipaz. He was nice enough to recount in detail how his brother and parents were killed in Ayacucho during the time of terrorism in the 80’s.  There were 14 children in his family. 7 are still alive.  Some died as infants or small children and he never knew them.  But he watched as one of his older brothers was executed by the communists in the town square in his village. 

He said that the first time the communists showed up there were only two of them.  They planted a flag above the town.  His father was upset with his brother who helped them because he knew it could cause attention and trouble with the government.  He said to take the flag down.  The communists went away for a year.

The next time they came there were 5 of them.  They wanted the people to attack a police station, but the people pointed out that they had no guns.  They said they should attack with rocks.  The communists used his village as a kind of armory.  They made bombs and grenades, which they were using on attacks against other places.  They organized the young men of the village to guard the arms.  One Friday, it was feria, market day, the police came to capture the terrorists, but they didn’t surround the market;  he thinks the police were afraid and didn’t make much effort, and all the terrorists got away.  That was 10 or 11 in the morning.   That evening around 6 or 7 o’clock the terrorists came back.  They rounded up everyone in the village and had them sit on the ground.  Anyone who had a rock or a stick in their hand was singled out—21 people were executed.  Lucio’s brother who had just gotten back into town from working in the selva was one of the ones executed, because he picked up a stick or a rock to defend himself.  Lucio said they almost killed his mother that day, because when they killed her son she screamed and cried.  The people were told to not get up or do anything for an hour after the terrorists left.

I should explain at this point that his village was a small village up in the mountains.  These were farm people without guns, without electricity, 3 hours from the nearest police post, campesinos living from subsistence agriculture.  I don’t know how they felt about the communists, but they just wanted to stay out of the trouble and be left alone.

During the next month the people in that village did not sleep in their homes.  His family and the other people slept out in the hills changing places each night because they were afraid.  His father made money by going through the countryside buying and selling animals.  He was gone for two weeks on a trip and when he returned home he decided to sleep at home for that night because he was tired from this trip.    His mother said that if he was going to stay in the house she would stay too, with the little children.  Lucio was at his grandmothers.  That night the communists came to their home and asked his father for animals to take for food. (This is the account of the younger brothers and sisters who saw what happened).  His father said to take the animals.  But they killed his father and mother.  Lucio said he heard the gunshots from his grandmother’s house. 

He traveled three hours the next day to the police post.  The police came back and buried the bodies.  Lucio’s parents were not the only ones killed that night.  He took all his younger brothers and sisters, all the people of the village went to live close to the police because they were afraid.  The people of that village helped them some, and they went home during the day to get food, but they slept outside in the cold close to the police post.

Eventually, the government sent police to their village to protect the people and they were able to go home.  But the police raped women and would bring in boys who were tending animals in the fields and execute them, saying they were terrorists, young men that the people knew were not involved with the terrorists. The police had a quota of terrorists they had to meet and it was easier to round up innocent people than catch the real terrorists.   He got a job at one point working on a farm in the selva planting coca and various other crops but they paid him very little.  And he was trying to take care of his younger brother and sisters. I think he has 15 at this time.

He eventually was able to come to Lima with a relative.  But because he has underage and didn’t have an official government identity card he had a hard time finding a job. He could work three weeks and then had to not work one week because of the law.  When he finally turned 18 things got better, because he could work legally.  When he could he brought his four younger siblings to Lima to take care of them.

He went on a mission for the church.  His older brother said he would care for the younger children but he didn’t, but his younger brother was able to get a job and care for his three little sisters while Lucio was on his mission.  He said he had to leave a good government job to go.

We had been talking a long time at this point in the story, and we had to leave.  But I know that he met his wife during his mission.  He was the bishop of the Musa Ward before the Manchay branch was formed.  His wife said there was no road between where they lived and Musa so they had to walk over the mountain to get to church.  Lucio went early and she had to bring her three little children over the hill alone.  She said you had to be very faithful in those days to be active in the church.  He served as bishop for many years.  He now works for the temple as a guard, which is a relatively good job.  But his house is not anything to brag about.  I think he spends his money to keep his children in decent schools.

Once again, I don’t know if I got every detail of the story exactly right.  Or if I have written it well enough for you to understand the feeling of what it was like for his family.  But I have great respect for Lucio Dipaz and his family.  He managed to come out of that experience a great person with a strong testimony of Christ.  We met them when we first came to Manchay because he brought his kids to a little English class I was teaching.  His kids love both him and their mother. 

Friday night.

This has been a busier week.  After being basically ignored for our mission, we had an appointment with the mission president, Pres. Leyva, who previously worked in Trujillo in employment, so he has some feeling for self-employment.  When we explained how frustrated we are at not getting any interest or support, he made an appointment with one of the area presidency.  He and Glenn went in to talk to Elder Gavarette, and when Elder Gavarette saw one of the pictures in the presentation of Sr. Baglietto and her little wooden house in Manchay, he was surprised and asked where that was.  When Glenn said Manchay is a 20 minute bus ride from the area office, Elder Gavarette was surprised and wanted to go see it.  Long story short—they went to Manchay, visited this poor family—and I hope they now have some understanding of needs of real people in Peru.  Too bad people from Salt Lake who are making decisions never see that part of Peru; maybe they would begin to understand the need for the small business workshop and how some people are too poor to go to school, even with the PEF.  And that for many people in Peru, starting a small business is their only option for income, that or working as a cleaning lady for rich families, working very long hours at little pay.  Or picking through people’s trash for recyclables to sell.

Then we got called in to talk to Brother Ramos because Glenn told Elder Gavarette that we were not very happy with the support—no support that is—that we got from the paid employees in the area office. Ramos is the DTA and so is in charge of the running of the office in the area so Elder Gaverette told him to talk to us.  I think the most discouraging part of this whole affair is that so many people are making decisions that affect the lives of ordinary people, and they are working without all the facts, or based on their particular prejudices, or their own egos.  They are not bad men, they just are making decisions without bothering to understand the true situation.  In the end, all you can do is forgive them.  I personally though think that leaders have a responsibility to try find out facts and understand the situation they are making decisions about.

 We have seen the “important people” who come in for a visit; the local people, because they want to impress or put a good supportive face on everything, won’t speak up about the facts and problems and take visitors only to the nice, comfortable places, so how would the people from Salt Lake  know what is really going on.  It’s a curious thing about the church culture.  No one wants to be seen as a complainer, or murmurer, which means you can’t say anything bad.  God is no respecter of persons, yet we are to respect the leaders.  I understand the need to respect leaders, but we don’t need to worship them, and never disagree with them when we feel that they are wrong.  It is a very frustrating situation that is a cycle encouraging poor decision making because there is no free exchange of ideas.  And of course that is complicated because it is the nature and disposition of almost all men when they get a little power to exercise unrighteous dominion.  That is you can try to tell them and they don’t choose to listen.  Maybe you understand what I am talking about because you have experienced it yourself.  I wish not.   I expected better.

Monday Nov. This week is thanksgiving and you will all be eating a nice dinner with family and friends. I hope that for all of you. We will be teaching the last of our first complete 11 week self employment class on Thursday. I am grateful that things are going better for me here. I have things to keep busy with that I feel are worthwhile, which is really what I have wanted all along. The summer has arrived in Lima so we will see the sun every day until we leave. (This did not happen) Glenn and I have discussed what we will say when people ask “How was your mission?” Probably only our good friends would bother to listen to the long and complicated answer. Sherry suggested “It was a once in a lifetime experience.” And you can draw your own conclusion. I am grateful that I feel enough better about the whole experience that I could say it has been a blessing; and I would consider doing it again, only not in Lima because of the long dark winter. In August I would have gone home and paid my own way if Sam and Peggy had not been coming in October and already had their tickets. Now I am glad we didn’t go home. I guess we have probably had all the typical mission experiences and that is one of them, the discouragement and then it gets better. I am grateful for that, that it got better.

Things of interest: the cockroaches, harbingers of spring, have come out (only outside at night. We haven’t had them inside so don’t get too horrified.) One day walking to the office I saw that they pulled out all the trees in a particular area along the main road and wondered why they would take them out. Then another day while walking I saw a bus pull out of there, and a pee spot on the ground. So I guess it is a bathroom stop for the bus drivers. It was a bathroom spot before, but the buses couldn’t pull in.

On Nov. 17, my birthday, we put in a 12 hour day that started with a staff meeting in the morning to discuss loan exceptions—we approved them all; we got home at 10 pm from a vocational test in which 45 kids came. School starts again the beginning of Jan or Feb and kids are beginning the process for loans.

Dec. 3: Other things I have learned while on this mission: If you sit long enough you get used to sitting, just like if you walk enough on hard surfaces you get used to it. When we left home, I could hardly stand to sit in the MTC for the long meetings. I was used to being up and going, working in the garden, or sewing, or doing something all the time. Now I find I can sit for long stretches with no ill effects. The trouble is I am not so sure this is a good thing. I have no muscles left and it will be hard to work again when we get home.

December 8, 2009 We had a conversation with a man here who asked us if we would like to send our children here so they could see what Peru is like; he meant that when children, especially teenagers, from the United States come to an underdeveloped country they see what they have that other people do not have and they are more grateful. He then said that he wished to send his children to the US to open their eyes to the possibility of a better world. I see his point about seeing that the world can be better, the question is what better means. It would be good if they could see the good things about the US and not just the “stuff”– like people who work hard and obey the laws, the opportunities for an education, and people can have a chance for good jobs without being exploited by employers. That justice can be for everyone. Peru could use a few lessons on safety, also. I must admit that I like to see things clean and pretty and not with rubble everywhere. And I really appreciate having nicely painted walls and landscaping.

It is the season for Thanksgiving and I tried to think of what I am grateful for that came of this mission: Friends. We have made some wonderful friends, people we have come to really love. Doug and Connie Earl are so fun and we could talk to them about anything without being judged or them being shocked. Scott and Beverly Zimmerman are wonderful examples of staying faithful in spite of real adversity. Because Beverly had no one in Tarma to talk to, no one in Tarma speaks English, when we visited them she and I talked almost nonstop about everything important and unimportant in our lives. So in a very short time we became friends. She had a hard time in Tarma, it was not easy for her to be there, but because she loves her husband and knew it was what he wanted to do, she did it. And he loves her and knows she has always been a clean freak and that is okay. You can see that they love each other.

Orlando Handa and Armando Rebaza have qualities I admire. The new PEF guys are good guys also. Other Peruvians have extended friendship to us, as much as it is possible with my limited Spanish.

Examples of really good People: Kay and Jack Beals have been great examples of hardwork, loyalty to each other, not complaining, and just being nice. Kay is always positive. Br. And Sr. Talledo have a wonderful marriage relationship and we have seen other husbands and wives who really love each other and it is obvious when they are together. The people in Manchay have been an example of facing adversity with courage, faith and good cheer. They may cry at home, but they show strength in public. And many of them have very hard lives. The people in Villa El Salvador showed self-reliance, a willingness to learn and to work to face the economic challenges in their lives.

I am grateful for the chance we have had to travel around and see this interesting and beautiful country. We have seen the jungle, the highlands and the coast. Each is different and interesting. The archeological sites, other sights and sounds and smells and tastes that are new and interesting. I have experienced new ways of looking at things. I’ve had the chance to experience something different than living in Ohio for the last 27 years.

I am grateful for what I have learned: I have learned how to use the computer better. We have studied career counseling, vocational tests, non-profit organizations from the receiving and giving end, the complexity of non-profit giving, how to start a business, corporations and how they work. All these are things I knew almost nothing about. I’m not claiming to now be an expert, but I know a lot more than I did about all those topics. I now know what a mission is like, not just what you hear others say about what a mission is like. I am grateful to have all these experiences, no, I am grateful for what I learned, not what I had to go through to learn them. And I forgot Spanish, my Spanish is mas o menos. And now we are learning something about writing a book, another new experience.

February 2, again The Branch president asked us to speak in sacrament meeting the last Sunday we are there. It took a long time, but I guess we have finally gained some acceptance in the Branch. They stopped announcing that we were there and welcoming us every Sunday, some time ago. I just realized that! I don’t know what I am going to speak about. It has to be pretty simple because of my limited Spanish. Something about God, I think, and his love for us.

And I need to tell you that we managed to get Angelina through the process and she starts school the end of February. She is going to cosmetology, which is a 16 month course teaching hair cutting, massage, makeup, etc. It seemed like a good choice to me. She certainly won’t get rich, but it is something she can use her whole life, as extra income with a family, and if she wants more education, she has some skill she can use to make money while she continues her education. She still has 4 years and money left in the Fund. She thinks she can get the job back that she had working for a school in the morning and go to school in the afternoon, so she will have enough money for her bus fare and the 15 sole a month required to pay back the loan. HURRAH!

We have exactly 4 weeks to go before we come home. We leave on the 15th, ten days before the official date of the 25^th.  We have the plane tickets and we are trying to get rid of stuff out of the apartment—that is, give it to other missionaries so they can use it and then pass it along.  Another couple arrived last week, the Noalls, from Bountiful Utah, and we gave them a bed, sheets, towels, one of the couches, heaters, fans, etc.  They bought a refrigerator and stove and other stuff because they didn’t want to wait 5 weeks for the ones in our apartment.

And we are trying to finish up a couple of projects as we mentioned before, the book for self-employment and a vocational test.

We went out shopping tonight and I had a feeling of competence come over me when I realized I could buy stuff, talk to the clerk, and get home on a bus;  that means finding the right bus and being able to tell the “cobrador” (I don’t know the English equivalent) where I needed to get off.  Sounds pretty simple, but 16 months ago I felt pretty helpless and couldn’t do any of that. 

The promised sun never has come to Lima this summer.  It is an El Nino year, with a different weather pattern.  Too bad for me.  It has been in the 70’s so that is good.

I am going to add here some of what I wrote in the past but never posted:

December 24. 2009

Christmas Eve we had 3 other couples come to a potluck dinner at our house: Beals, Slingerlands (area doctor) and Abeytas (area auditors).  Then we went to the MTC for a Christmas program; each of the missionaries had a part, like a primary presentation, Glenn said, and we sang Christmas songs. 

Christmas day Jessica called on Skype and we saw Kinsey and Kyler open presents; we also call the kids that were at our house together: Emily, Melanie, and Micah and their families.  In the afternoon we went to the zoo with Beals.  We were able to talk to everyone else that day or soon after.  It wasn’t a bad Christmas.

New Years’ eve another missionary couple invited us and several other missionary couples for a party.  It was fun.  We played some games and talked.  And before midnight we went onto the roof of their 3 story apartment and watched the fireworks.  It was a great experience.  People all over Lima buy fireworks, bottle rockets, firecrackers to full fireworks as good as the fourth of July.  And they shoot them off in the streets all over the city.  So off in the distance, and sometimes down on the street below you could see and hear fireworks, surround sound 360 degrees.  And people burned something on the street.  The weather was nice, and it was beautiful.  I would almost recommend traveling here to see it.  They also do fireworks Christmas Eve, but we were at home and did not have such a good view.

And we are close enough to going home that we have been talking about it and making plans.  This two weeks before Christmas and after new Years there has been absolutely nothing going on in the office or with the fund.  I have been checking loans and only one has come in the last 7 days.  So Glenn has been working on his vocational test, and I have been doing miscellaneous keep busy stuff.  We decided to move our departure up by two weeks because no one here cares what we do, but there is another missionary couple coming in next week and they need an apartment so we may leave earlier so they can have this apartment.  Glenn is going to talk to the employment guy in Lima to see if we can do anything for him, and if he has no plans for us, there really isn’t much more to be accomplished by hanging around. 

We have had maybe 3 days of sun, and it is warm here, so it might be better weather here than we are going home to.  We do have a few things to settle up before we leave.  Our final date is February 25, 2010, it won’t be later than that.

Sunday Jan. 3, 2009

Today we had an experience that reminded us why we are here, and made me discouraged, because, with all the good intentions of the PEF, I know it isn’t doing what it was intended to do, help the very poor.  Well, we are not completely failing, but there are cases like this that are so desperate that they need more help than we can give.  Sr. Baglietto lives in Manchay with her 14 year old son, Angelo and her 17 year old daughter, Angelina.  She left her husband and moved here to live with her sister and family because her husband was molesting the daughter.  We have known her since we began attending at Manchay; she is about 4 foot tall and very outgoing and friendly and positive.  So she is someone you would notice.  She is a hard worker, but cleaning house for other people is a hard way to make a   living, and she has no skills to get a better job.  She also has bad knees.  Abeytas brought down some medicine for her from the US and that helped but she still hurts when she walks.  We talked to her daughter Angelina months ago about going to school and encouraged her to go to school with the PEF.  She even got the application filled out, but at some point in the process she quit.

They invited us to dinner at their house today after church.  So we went.  The three of them live in a “house”, which is a wooden premade “playhouse” of one room.  They all sleep on one bed, and it is not a full size bed, maybe a little bigger than a twin.  The “kitchen” which is more or less a Coleman-type camp stove is in this room and the only other furniture is a wooden closet.  They have no water, they have a garbage can size plastic water barrel down by her sister’s house and Angelo carries water up to their house in a bucket; they buy water from a water truck that comes through the neighborhood once in a while.  They are buying the piece of property, which is on a sloped hill for 3,000 soles, which is about $1,000.  Men from the branch have helped them by leveling out a space big enough to put the house on; hopefully they will eventually help level out more space, but it is hard going because the hill is rock.  They had Christmas decorations up, no tree, but ribbon and a nativity.  How they manage to get to church in clean clothes is difficult to understand.  They can use their relatives’ bathroom down the hill a little way.  The relative sells them electricity by running a wire between the houses. 

I didn’t think about it too much while I was there but now I am crying.  Angelina asked to talk to us alone, when her mom and brother had a party to go to and left.  She asked us to take her with us when we go home to the United States.  She said she wants to learn, maybe I could teach her how to play the piano and she could work for us.  We explained that it is not that easy to take someone home with us into the US.  But that we would help her.  Can you imagine being 17 years old and living in a one room shack and sleeping in a bed with your mother and brother, no privacy, no hope except for lousy jobs because you have no skills.  Even starting a little business seems out of the question.  With no resources, no place to make anything if you could figure out what to make, with the threat of having anything you might accumulate stolen.  The situation does seem impossible.  I wish we had been more aware before, we could have been more proactive in helping her.

This is the situation the fund was meant to help and we will make sure she gets into some kind of school, the shorter the better, because her situation is so precarious.  I don’t know what else to do.  Glenn wants to help them expand the house so Angelina could have a little privacy and a place to sleep, but until more rock is chiseled out, there is no room to expand the house.  This is a girl the Fund was meant to help, but it isn’t enough to pay for living expenses, bus fares and extra school expenses. 

On a lighter note, Manchay wants to start a choir and they asked Glenn and me to help them.  That is really pretty funny, because I cannot play the hymns and Glenn only knows the treble clef, so he worked with the alto and sopranos on the treble clef and with a little electronic keyboard, I played the tenor and bass parts for the men.  It is fun and they appreciate it.  When we arrived a year ago we tried to teach math and English without much success—Glenn has helped a few individuals.  We should have started with music.  I guess this is the way of a mission, when you finally figure it out and make some friends, it is time to go home.  Better that way than to hate it and feel totally incompetent up to the end. 

January 18, 2010 again,

I should report that since that Sunday we went to Baglietto’s house in Manchay that I have had Angelina come here a couple of times and showed her some simple things she can sew and sell to make some extra money for bus fare, etc.  She can’t go to school and have a job at the same time, so she needs some self-employment activities she can do while she goes to school. We do not yet have her started in school.   We loaned her mother 100 dollars, which we are not supposed to do, so she could start a small business making a couple of cleaning products, which everyone needs, so that is a good choice for her.  Saturday evening she had finally made her first batch. We will see firsthand if self-employment really works.  These people are not standing around waiting for a handout, or for someone else to solve their problems, though I guess we did help by the loan.  I do admire Sis. Baglietto, who manages to be so positive in the face of such hard circumstances.  I think Glenn will put up the pictures on Picassa Web.

It is 11:30 p.m. and Glenn isn’t back. He went to Chimbote with Orlando, about 2 hours south of Trujillo.  It is raining a little here.  We had another whirlwind weekend with Orlando.  Friday morning we left for Jaen.  We have stopped so many places I have lost count.  Orlando’s wife must be a saint to put up with him being gone all the time.  This is the second weekend he has been gone and he promised everywhere he went to come back in January.  I am glad we came on this trip.  It made the month go fast.  And it has been good to be out of Lima.  Hopefully, also, we are seeing a little bit of the fruits of the labor we put into the course for self-employment. I am tired of the food at restaurants.  It is good, but just always the same: soup, some kind of meat and white rice.  I would like some vegetables.  We have had a couple of very good meals.  Glenn has become a fan of cabrito, baby goat, which he had served with taca taca, which is a mixture of rice and beans fried.  I had ceviche, which is also very good and I think missionaries are not allowed to eat it—fish uncooked, or rather cooked with lime juice.

The land north of Trujillo is desert but there is some life; humps of sand with plants and when you finally head east, there must be some rain because there is a lot of vegetation, trees I don’t know the names of, even before you get into the mountains.

I have begun to take the juxtaposition of rich and poor, old and modern in Peru for granted.  Donkeys pulling carts, adobe homes beside highways with cars, trucks and buses, cell phones and people washing clothes in the river, people begging and sometimes sleeping on the streets, gorgeous catholic churches, modern Mormon churches, green rice fields and desert sand, tiny stores and huge modern ones.  Common sights:  buzzards, rice fields and the white birds that live near them, rubble along the side of the road, and plastic bags caught in the vegetation, small stands selling pop, fruit, snacks, toilet paper, etc.  adobe bricks drying, clothes hanging out, mototaxis, sugar cane fields, huge semi trucks, men peeing, statues in every plaza or park, giba or break springs (speedbumps), dirt streets, dirty walls, huge buses, taxis with the name of the owner’s mother on the back, huge gas stations called grifos.

We passed by several archeological sites, Chan Chan the largest adobe city in the world, pyramids, museums, my lord of sipan, a particularly famous burial of a rich guy which was found not looted.  But we saw only the signs as we drove by.  Apparently archaeology is not one of Orlando’s interests.

North of Chiclayo is a large farming community. And many rice mills with brown rice laying out to dry and bags full waiting to be milled.

The mountains to Jaen are not as high  or steep, which was fine with me—I didn’t want another white knuckle ride–but the vegetation was different, not much potato farming. Jaen what we saw of it, wasn’t very remarkable except for the number of motorcycles.  The hotel was brand new said to be built with laundered drug money.  The rice fields are really beautiful, terraced, wonderfully green, in various stages of production, with the white birds, and occasionally an ox plowing through the water. They have small combines for harvesting the rice.

We passed by a water project called Olmos.  They have built a dam and are working on a tunnel to divert water that now goes to the Amazon to send it to the west coast for irrigation.  The tunnel goes under a mountain, the continental divide and will be 20 km long.  It is really a great undertaking.  It is being built by a company from Brazil.  Orlando said this project has been planned for 50 years.  The government is finally uncorrupt enough that the money is being spent to help the country in place of lining the pockets of friends of the powerful.  My impression of Peru is that the government is doing good things here and trying to improve the country, and things are improving for the people.

On the way back from Jaen we visited the pueblo of Olmos which is famous for limes.  When we arrived the branch president and two full time missionaries were cleaning the building.  The branch president has two sons 16 and 18 who want to study with the fund.  They will have to live in Chiclayo because there are no schools in Olmos, which is farm country.

Sunday morning began as a typical day with Orlando.  He wanted to leave Chiclayo early, then spent 10 minutes driving around looking for a gasoline station that sold 95 octane.  We drive out to Barrio Las Delicias to meet the stake president who is out of work.  He wasn’t there so we waited half an hour for him and stayed at sacrament meeting just to take the sacrament.  This must be a ward where the people do not have bathrooms in their houses and use the church bathroom to wash up before meetings, it was unusually dirty.  Yet the people always come in clean clothes and look nice.  

We stopped by Pacasmayo again at the end of the meetings because people there want the self-employment class.  Ate lunch there.  I started feeling sick, like I needed to stay close to the bathroom so they dropped me off at the hotel on the way through Trujillo and Glenn and Orlando drove back to Chimbote where he had scheduled a first class for the Creating Family Prosperity Class.  Glenn said over 200 people showed up.  They got back to the hotel at 12:30pm, but no one was there to open the gate to let Glenn in (I had finally gone to sleep with a pillow over my ears because someone was having a loud party so I didn’t hear them).  After 20 minutes of knocking and honking the horn, Glenn went to sleep at a hostal down the block.  When I woke up in the middle of the night and he wasn’t back I was actually pretty calm, considering that I am always expecting that Orlando’s bad driving will someday catch up to him.  But I did realize how utterly helpless I am; I can’t speak Spanish very well, I didn’t know  phone number to Orlando’s house or anywhere else, and didn’t have a phone if I did know the number.  And I don’t know how to get to the bus station or the employment office.  I had little money.  Etc.  I wouldn’t know what to do if I were alone. 

Monday Dec. 29, 2009 back in Lima

We made it through Christmas and are now counting down the weeks until we leave: there are about 8 to go.  Christmas eve we had three other missionary couples over for supper and then went to a program at the Missionary Training Center.  Christmas morning we talked to some of the kids on Skype and watched some of them open presents, then spent the afternoon at the Zoo.  We got to talk to all the kids and so it was a nice Christmas.  Christmas eve Peruvians set off fireworks, bottle rockets, firecrackers, etc and so from about 11:30 pm until 12:30 am, later in other places we heard, there was too much noise to sleep so we watched fireworks out our apartment window.  Few people are in the office for this week which is good because Glenn is working on a vocational test that can be put on line for all five countries and when no one is around he can get more done.  I went with 5 other North American women to the Inca Market to buy souvenirs to take home and to just get out.  The sun shone today for the first time since we got back in town from our trip to Trujillo.  No applications have come in for a while, I guess because everyone is on vacation.  So I will go back to translating missionary applications.

The worst is probably over, spring seems to have come to Lima and it is warmer and we see the sun on a regular basis, if not every day, often enough that it isn’t unbearable.  I promised a report of our trip to Machu Picchu.  Monday morning we flew to Cuzco and spent the next 5 days in Cuzco, the sacred valley, train to Aguas Calientes, Machu Picchu, train back to Cuzco, bus to Puno, boat ride to the floating islands, flight back to Lima.  I did not take notes like I usually do, partly because I was not feeling very good the first two days, so I don’t have a detailed description of the trip.  But we have been many places in Peru and Bolivia and seen some beautiful scenery, and the trip to Machu Picchu was still spectacular.  I thought I was tired of traveling, but it was worth it. 

We have not really been in Inca territory before, and the stonework is amazing, even if Glenn did say he had seen enough rocks for one trip.  You can view our and Jared’s 700 photos on picasa web. It was fun to travel with Sam and Peg and Jared and we are glad they came so we could go together.  Jared gave us his pictures and even after getting rid of duplicates and fuzzy ones, there are still too many.

I am slightly afraid of heights, and at one point, after walking along a sheer cliff to see the Inca bridge, I got sensory overload and thought I would not make it back.  I had to focus on the inside of the path and not look over the edge anymore to be able to keep from crying and to keep going.  People talked about mosquitoes; there are not mosquitoes, but a very small insect that bit us on all exposed skin; you didn’t feel it when it happened but the next day bites kept coming out and itching.  The Uros, floating islands, are kind of touristy–they now make their living “because Americans are interested in anything different” by selling handicrafts to tourists—but we also enjoyed that part of our trip.  It was very interesting to see how the islands were made and the houses, and fish farms, etc.  It is interesting to think about the different kinds of lives we lead from them and the ancient natives. What would it have been like to live then and there?

Sam and Peggy stayed longer than Jared and we saw more of Lima: the gold museum, the storehouse and silver jewelry factory, fountain park, and Larco Mar where there is a mall overlooking the ocean.   Thursday they went with us to our class in Villa El Salvador and our taxi driver, who is a member of the church, took us on a tour of that part of Lima, which is a part of Lima tourists seldom see, then to Pachacamac, a ruin/archeological site just south of Lima and we came the back way home behind the mountain through Manchay.  There is a place there where it rains and so it is green, and you feel like you are out in the country somewhere, not close to Lima at all.  After saying it never rains in Lima, I felt a little like a liar because it does actually rain there. We also went to a temple session. And we spent a day at the national museum and at the Indian Market (as if we hadn’t had enough shopping on the trip to Machu Picchu.)

It was great to have family visit us.  We enjoyed the time we spent with Sam and Peggy and Jared.  Actually if they had not been coming, I would have gone home when it was so bad in August.  So they were a double blessing.  Good to have them here, good to have someone to go with us to Machu Picchu, and good that we didn’t go home early.

Wednesday November 4, 2009

Last night Emily’s baby girl was born in Ohio.  We are so grateful that she and the baby are both safe and healthy and everything went okay for this home birth.  Welcome another little girl into the world and into our family!!!!!

Friday November 6, 2009

Since PEF has been such an unstructured mission—sometimes there is something to do and sometimes nothing at all—I have searched for other things to do to keep busy.  This week Glenn even came to the conclusion that there really is no role for a missionary couple in PEF.  He has been able to play a bit of an advisory role with the new managers and employment people, but sometimes they are too busy entertaining Salt Lake to do any real work that helps the students.  Anyway, I have found a new way to keep busy– helping translate missionary applications before they are sent to Salt Lake.  I am touched by both the young men who are new members of the church who are the only members in their families who want to serve because they want to share the blessing that has come to them by joining the church.   And I am equally impressed by the young men who have grown up in the church with names like Nephi and Lehi.  I can imagine how proud their parents are of them.  It is good work for me except I can’t sit in front of a computer all day without my back hurting.

Wed. November 11, 2009.  I will try to finish something and post this today.  We are now down to 3 and a half months left, but who is counting.  So it is actually close enough that we have talked a little about what we will do when we get home. The new PEF managers had a little time this week and Glenn felt like he was able to do some good.  We checked loans and sent them to Salt Lake this weekend.  He is also working with employment to develop a vocational test.  I have been helping with missionary applications.  And every Thurs we teach a self-employment class in Villa El Salvador—3 weeks left.  This Saturday we will start another class in Manchay, our branch.  That’s what we are doing.  We would be glad to hear from you.

10 pm and we are at an institute building giving a vocational test and interviews.  At midnight we pick up Sam and Peggy and Jared at the airport.  We leave for Cuzco on Monday and I don’t expect to write for the next couple of weeks while they are here.  You’ll get a detailed account of our trip to Machu Picchu when we get back and they leave.  After months of seeing the sun for a few minutes every 7 days or so, on conference Saturday the sun came out, the breeze picked up and we had 6 days of spring weather, with sun.  Then it went away again today.  It was so nice, and in a little while we will have summer sun every single day.  Hopefully that will last until we leave for home.

Glenn is teaching a start –your-own-business class every Thurs. in Villa El Salvador.  That is what I imagined a mission would be like—meeting people and interacting and helping them.  They are a great group of people and it has been nice to get to know them through this class;  it will last 11 weeks and we just finished lesson 6.

Samuel Gomez, the new PEF director, finally arrived in Lima with his family.  We have a leader again after no one for 3 months.  So things are looking up here.  Orlando wants us to move to Trujillo to finish up our mission and work with him in employment.  We haven’t decided yet.

I am going to post some more things I have learned while on this mission, and observations.  The last time Glenn posted these he came in and said I wish I could see people’s reactions when they read these.  I guess my enemies aren’t reading this blog, because you that responded were positive.  And there was no hate mail…

20.  There are scriptures and lessons that take on new meaning here.  In a lesson on fasting a sister said:”When I am hungry I think “Which of my brothers and sisters are hungry?” and she meant that literally, not figuratively.  How many of us in the US have ever thought of that?  Not me?  3Nephi 6:12 And the people began to be distinquished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning: yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches.  We don’t see that so much in the US with free elementary and high school education and plenty of loans available for college.  It is a great problem here however and the PEF is helping a lot to help solve the discrepancy. 

21.  It is so strange to be either completely ignored in the area office because we are just missionaries and will go away in a short while.  But then we went to Bolivia as representatives of the area office and people acted like we were special because we were from the ”area office” and they listened to us and they are interested in what we have to offer.  How can you be the same person with the same message and be treated so differently?  I suppose because of the rank or status you have relative to everyone else.  Strange to me.  I have come to the point that I try to judge things by their merit, not by the status of the person presenting the message.  Unfortunately that can get you into trouble if you don’t think a high status person is correct.

22.  We had a great experience in Bolivia, except for the very last day when we went to visit a district outside La Paz.  There was a good turn out; but the discussion of the fund turned into a debate between Br. Cabeza, who is the church employment person in La Paz, and 3 men in the audience who just wanted to complain and criticize.  They said there is prejudice against them in the district; and they complained about a number of things that we can’t do a thing about such as the fact that their youth have to go to La Paz to study because there are no schools in the district, and how the fund won’t pay for kids to live in La Paz while they go to school.  They just wanted to complain because we weren’t doing enough for them.  What was the sad thing is that those men wasted the time of all the other people who did come and had a good attitude; because the time was wasted with their griping, Glenn didn’t get to present much of the message he brought. 

That is a hard thing for a teacher, or in this case leader who really did come to try to help these people, to learn, that is to not let a few people dominate and ruin the meeting for everyone else.  And it was hard to listen to people who say the church is rich so why isn’t it giving them stuff. There is actually a lot of division in the country overall because of the current president who is fomenting division between the campesinos and the wealthier people in the cities.  This mentality that you owe me something and should give me stuff is actually common in the US also, but it is not the teaching of the church.

 And there is some merit to the complaint that the PEF serves the wealthy more than the poor.  The poorest don’t know how to get through the process to get the loan; they don’t have computers and in many cases computer skills.  They are the least able to pay the cost of transportation to and from school, etc.  But it is not an issue of prejudice or lack of desire on our part to help them.  The system is just so complicated and it is hard to train all the local people on how it works.  If these men would have worked with us to make sure they had the stuff they need in place in their district we could have accomplished something.  Instead they wanted us to do everything for them, and complained when we couldn’t.  It was a pretty frustrating experience.  I for one do not want to help the rich more than the poor.  The fund was set up to help people get out of poverty.

23. Connie Earl taught me that in Peru it is easy to be generous.  When a child, or a man for that matter, is selling something on the street, or singing in a bus for money, or juggling in front of traffic, or shining shoes, or washing car windows at a stop light, or selling ice cream or water, or any of a number of things they have to do to make a living here it is easy—usually 1 sole or $.33—to buy something from them.  And that little thing is a real help.  I suppose there are little things we can give away that will help other people, too, like a smile or a kind word.  But it is so much more obvious here.  I am glad Connie taught me to be generous.

24.  A couple of times now I have seen that marvelous spirit of cooperation that President Hinkley talked about in regard to the Perpetual Education Fund.  He said that people would work together to make this work and bless the lives of the youth of the church with the opportunity for an education and a better life.  This morning we visited the Institute in Canto Grande where there are volunteers and paid employees working with the kids to help them through the process to get the loans.  You could tell they care about the kids and are working hard- some for no pay and sometimes not enough gratitude- to help them.  I was proud of them and grateful to be a part of it.

25.  I realized yesterday at church as I sat through a lesson on the pioneers going west that revelation from God is real and pretty simple—go west.  It is in the details of carrying out inspired direction that it gets messy.  The fund is like that.  It is an inspired program, but carrying out that inspired program is messy.  There have been mistakes made.  The program is inspired but not every policy, or document, or process, or person working in it is.  And that is okay.  The fund has been run by men trying their best to learn how to give good loans to real young people all over the world.  That is not an easy thing to do, or know how to do.  It has been a learning process.  Once you understand that you won’t be intimidated thinking that every process, rule, etc. is necessarily correct.  The prophet is pointing the direction, but the road is a little curvy and has holes and detours and rivers in the way.  And there may be more than one trail that will get you there.

26.  This mission is conflicted for me because we work as volunteers with paid employees in the area office.  The fact is the corporation of the church is a corporation.  And I forget that from time to time and expect it to have the same values as the church.  In particular, the value taught over the pulpit and in the scriptures that all are alike unto God, male and female, black and white, bond and free. He is no respecter of persons.  We are told that it doesn’t matter what our calling is in the church.  But the corporation is set up to promote a hierarchy. Pay level, management level, who has the best office, who is listened to, or gets special treatment, who has power to hire and fire, are all so in your face in the office.  Glenn is used to it, but I am not.  And then the church status gets mixed in; if you are visiting from Salt Lake, whether you are a volunteer or paid employee, you get the red carpet treatment.

Missionaries on the other hand are at the bottom of the food chain.  It is so in your face, the inequality.  I have decided to handle it by not going into the office any more than I have to.  It is probably a male/female difference; men as so used to it –the status heirachy–they take it for granted, while women do not.

We left La Paz again and had a trip to a little branch of the church in Suriquina, which is not even a town, but rather an area of scattered farms on the altiplano.  This area of the altiplano seemed better for farming, except for all the rocks.  There were many piles of rocks which I wondered about, then saw a farmer throw another one onto a pile; they are trying to clear enough to farm.  We saw big stacks of cowpies by most houses which they must collect for fertilizer.  The only water that these people have comes from the ditches that they have dug to bring water to their houses, I don’t know if each house has a ditch or not.  We went through several places with water over the road, but it wasn’t much of a worry because it was so rocky that you knew you wouldn’t sink in.  Br. Cabezas had warned us that they would have a meal for us, but I was not prepared for this meal; everyone brought small potatoes, except one girl who brought beans.  And we ate with our hands, and there weren’t enough plastic cups to go around so we shared.  The limiting factor for farms in this area they said was water, though there is a lake nearby, and of course the fact that with the altitude it is cold at night year round.  There is one man who has a greenhouse where he is growing flowers to sell in Lima for some cash income.  Other than this one man, everyone else is subsistence agriculture in Suriquina.  Education and employment in any sense that we understand does not apply here.  Even starting a small business would have to be modified because there is no town to sell in.

 This is a letter I wrote to a friend:

It is so nice to be remembered.  We have had some wonderful experiences here and it is good to be in the sunshine for a couple of weeks.  I hope that the sun will soon return to Lima.  This morning Br. Cabezas took us out to a branch of the church in the altiplano.  He has been there before but could hardly find the way–on dirt roads, through a river and irrigation ditches, to the church building that is in the middle of nowhere, with no town.   The members have to walk from their homes great distances to get there.  I gave the same talk that I gave in Manchay.  glenn talked about laws you have to live to have prosperity; these people have almost none of the things to be even minimally prosperous, no clean water except from the ditches, homes of adobe, no medical care available, there are schools for secondary, but no vocational schools or universities, and the food is questionable.  They served us a communal meal; everyone brought something to share which they laid out on the floor.  Each woman opened her packet of food and each brought potatoes.  One girl brought habas. and they also had a dish that was fresh cabbage-like with sardines.   We ate without plates, utensils or napkins.  The branch president had bought several bottles of a punch, but they did not have enough plastic glasses to go around so when we finished ours we shared our glasses with others so they could have a drink.  I’ve never experienced anything like it before.  The branch president spoke both spanish and aymara and some of the people did not understand spanish.  The branch president said as a summary at one point that they knew how to work because if they did not work they would not eat.  And you knew he meant that literally. 

 Br. Cabezas is over employment in this area.  But he has no idea what employment can do to help the members in this area.  It brings a new perspective to the term of both employment and prosperity.  He says they try to visit this branch once or twice a year, but he has no idea what to do to help.  He promised to bring the kids gifts for Christmas.  We are impressed with his love of people and desire to serve them.

 We came back to La Paz and were the guests of honor at a stake event: a Folklorico.  We met a lady Thursday at a fireside and she invited us to the show, but I didn’t realize how important it was to her for us to come until we got there and she said they waited on our arrival to start the show, and she seated us in the seats of honor and announced that we were there.  Now I know how it must be to be a general authority–the people honor you, not for yourself, but because of who you represent (though in our case we are just missionaries).   Each of the 10 wards and branches presented a traditional dance from different areas of Bolivia.  It was a wonderful event.  The costumes were fabulous and the dancing very good.  And I almost couldn’t keep from crying when I saw the little children and families; it made me so homesick for my grandchildren; and I was touched by the great spirit of cooperation and friendship of the people in this stake.  This has been a wonderful trip so far.  Bolivia is so much nicer than I expected.  Hopefully the government won’t do harm to this country and the people–there seems to be that possibility.

 We are returning on Thursday.  Just before we left Br. Hooker said we should also go to the other area in Bolivia so we changed the plane tickets to stay a couple of days longer.  We are hopeful that some of our training gave Br. Cabezas some new ideas and help with PEF and Self employment and supporting the stake specialists.  We have been well taken care of and we have grown to really appreciate Br. Cabezas and Br. Agremont.

 See you Friday,  Veronica

 We had a great experience in La Paz, except for the very last day when we went to visit a district called Achicachi outside La Paz.  There was a good turn out; but the discussion of the fund turned into a debate between Br. Cabezas, who is the church employment person in La Paz, and 3 men in the audience who just wanted to complain and criticize.  They said there is prejudice against them in the church—noone ever visits them from the headquarters; and they complained about a number of things that we can’t do a thing about such as the fact that their youth have to go to LaPaz to study because there are no schools in the district, and how the fund won’t pay for kids to live in La Paz while they go to school.  They just wanted to complain because we weren’t doing enough for them.  What was the sad thing is that those men wasted the time of all the other people who did come and had a good attitude; because the time was wasted with their griping, Glenn didn’t get to present much of the message he brought. 

That is a hard thing for a teacher, or in this case leader who really did come to try to help these people, to learn to not let a few people dominate and ruin the meeting for everyone else.  And it was hard to listen to people who say the church is rich so why isn’t it giving them stuff. There is actually a lot of division in the country overall because of the current president who is fomenting division between the campesinos and the wealthier people in the cities.  This mentality that you owe me something and should give me stuff is actually common in the US also, but it is not the teaching of the church.  The church programs are intended to help the members help themselves.

 Actually there is some merit to the complaint that the PEF serves the wealthy more than the poor.  The poorest don’t know how to get through the process to get the loan; they don’t have computers and in many cases computer skills.  They are the least able to pay the cost of transportation to and from school, etc.  But it is not an issue of prejudice or lack of desire on our part to help them.  The system is just so complicated and it is hard to train all the local people on how it works.  If these men would have worked with us to make sure they had the stuff they need in place in their district we could have accomplished something.  Instead they wanted us to do everything for them, and complained when we couldn’t.  It was a pretty frustrating experience.

This is the story Br. Cabezas told about Achacachi.  There is a village near by that no one goes to because they eat people.  If you go there you never return.  I think he was serious.  Also in Achicachi two people were killed, but the community decided to not tell the police anything, and so no one did.  They are a pretty proud and close knit community, but not necessarily in a good way.

The land on the trip to Achacachi looks more prosperous that in the other direction toward Oruro.  The farms have electricity and the road is good so they can get their produce to market in La Paz.  Sunday must be wash day because we saw people who had brought their wash to the river in their car.  We passed Lake Titicaca, or a small corner of it.  I didn’t realize how big the lake is until we saw it from the plane when we flew out of La Paz to Lima.  There was a man who played the piano in Achicachi; almost every place we went in Bolivia someone played the piano at some level of competence, in contrast to Peru where very few wards or stakes have anyone who plays.

We spent two days in Cochabamba and two days in Santa Cruz, which is the area for the other employment office in Bolivia. 

 Monday Sept 21  We are now in Cochabamba and I am looking out the window of the hotel and the traffic is lined up in an orderly fashion, staying in the lane lines and stopping at stop lights.  Not at all like Peru.  We went to a market where they offer anything you want and it is pretty cheap.  Stuff comes in from China through Chile.  We talked to a lady who is a member of the church who has a little stall selling pots and pans and other kitchen stuff.  She said that when they joined the church 4 years ago they decided to not sell on Sunday.  Her relative who has a store beside her made fun of them and said their business would fail.  She said she couldn’t see any loss.  She and her husband also attend the temple every Thursday.  They go to the 7:30 session in the evening, but don’t open their store on Thursday.  They want all day to be sure they are not rushed when they go to the temple.  What incredible faith and dedication.  We could learn from her!! The other member we talked to with a business said she has a degree in psychology but can make more money with the family store—they sell toys from China.  She also designs educational toys so she is using her degree in that respect.

They had everything you could get at Walmart in this shopping area.  And it was cheap.  Unfortunately it is cheaper than the locals can produce stuff for and so is it good or bad for the country? Cheap stuff available, but it takes away local jobs?

Santa Cruz, our last stop:  Santa Cruz is different than the rest of Bolivia, in fact they really want to divide from Bolivia and form their own country.  It is the beginning of the Amazon and so it is green and tropical.  Their main industry is petroleum, gas, farming, soybean, sugarcane, sunflowers for oil, livestock and fish.  And there are all kinds of fruit: banana, pineapple, coconut, mangos, oranges, watermelon.  We were there the day of the celebration of the cities founding 197 years ago.  You did not see women dressed in hats and skirts like in the mountains.  The city is 80% people who have come here from other cities, called cullos; and 20% are people of native tribes called cambas.  Some people think there is prejudice between the two, but I couldn’t look at them and tell who was who.  “Santa Cruz is a land blessed by God.”  We are not supposed to talk about politics because someone from Bolivia might read this and think we represent the church and be offended, but I am going to risk it and tell you what a taxi driver told us.  He said that Santa Cruz is run by 8 families, who own everything, the electric company, most of the land, the water, etc.  They have a counsel that runs the politics and if they don’t like you they will kill you. So there is need for reform here. Most of the people will vote for Evo Morales.  He is a good president; in fact someone said he is the best president they have ever had;  but they are worried because he has some people advising him who are corrupt, and he is leaning toward communism like in Castro’s Cuba.  And everyone acknowledges that he will win the upcoming election, the question is by how much.   If Evo wins by a lot and tries to enact reforms, there may be a civil war when Santa Cruz opposes him.  And no one will win if that happens.  In Bolivia there is a saying: Beware of Peruvian men (they are thieves), Chilean women (they are unfaithful), and Bolivian justice (there is none).

After 2 weeks of living in hotel rooms, even very nice ones Lima almost feels like home.

This past week was spent in meetings with the new PEF coordinator and other members of the PEF team and Br. and Sister Coombs from Salt Lake.  It was a rocky start with them—Br. Hooker the new Welfare manager, who is directly over the PEF coordinator, is going to be much more involved in the work.  That may be good, but it started out bad because he is an opinionated man whose opinion differed from mine on two points:  he thought our kids were “not committed” and would be ”more committed” if they were required to pay a percentage of the cost of their school.  That may seem to make sense, until you take into consideration that the Fund was aimed to help the poorest people and if the poorest had to come up with 10%, in addition to books, bus fare, other school costs and living, I was afraid that we would exclude those most in need.  He said they would be more committed; I said they would be excluded up front, or put so close to the edge of trying to survive that we would lose some.  His opinion against mine and he has the power.  That’s how it is a lot of the time in the church. Actually if you are a woman that is the way it is all the time.

But, because of Doug’s suggestion, Glenn made an analysis of some of the loans we had waiting to be approved and found that almost all of our kids were paying more than 10% already, in fact an average of 23%, while the students in the North Area, who have the mandatory 10% were paying an average of 10% because they were manipulating the numbers to arrive at the required number.  Our kids on the other hand were entering their income for the year, minus their outgo for the year (living expenses, tithing, etc) and since the computer automatically takes any extra income straight off the loan amount, they were paying more.  So that shot Elder Hookers argument that a mandatory 10% made the kids more committed.  The policy is now that if they study less than 4 years they have to pay all that they are able to pay.

Hooker also said that decisions couldn’t be made by consulting too many people—like us for instance even though we have been working here a year and the new guys have never done PEF before and in some cases are from Columbia so don’t even know Peru and the schools and people and all the people involved in the PEF loan process, such as Seminary and Institute, the finance guys who write the checks, Employment, etc.  He said it would be too hard to get all those people together to make a decision.  So they went into the area President and presented some new policies that I did not agree with.  I was really mad and I didn’t even try to hide it.  I wrote a letter to President Nash, but sent it to them first because I thought it was fair to let them know before I bothered Pres. Nash.  I have been pushed to my limit of enduring arrogant men.   Hooker must have changed his mind on that one too, because that is what we did this week…talked to all the people involved in the process and discussed how we could improve things, and what were the best policies to put in place for everyone’s benefit.  It was the first time I have seen the “spirit of cooperation” President Hinckley talked about that would need to happen to make it work.

I am proud of what we have done during the almost a year we have been here.  We did not do it the way the book said it should happen, because it wouldn’t work.  But Orlando, Armando, Doug and Connie Earl, and we–our PEF team managed to get over 700 kids through this awful process so far this first half of the year; to put that in perspective there were 700 loans all of 2008, and 175 in 2007.  We did all the things other organizations should have done, trained employment specialists to teach the Career Workshop, got the stake presidents to call employment specialists; we did a PEF fireside in almost every stake in Peru during this year, which the book says seminaries and institute is supposed to do and we got in trouble for overspending the travel budget; and we had a vocational counseling program to make sure the kids didn’t choose something stupid, and hopefully made a good choice.  Now with so many new kids the process is indeed messed up because it wasn’t made to handle so many kids.

It wasn’t a bad week, but both Glenn and I independently came to the same conclusion; this is not what we would choose to do with our time if we had the choice.  I would never have chosen to work in an office, or work with a bunch of men. For Glenn it is just like working in a corporation again, something he has been talking about retiring from for several years.   The work the new PEF managers have to do is formidable and I am glad I am not getting paid to do it.  I can go home; I can say “fire me; I don’t care; send me home; that would make me happy.”  I wish the new PEF team great success for their sakes and for the sake of the young men and women of the church in the new South America Northwest area.  They are great guys and they will do a great job.  They may also see that it isn’t as easy as they may have thought to do it by the book.  I just hope they don’t think it is a good thing to decrease the number of loans given out.

Aug 30. 2009

I got a call from Scott Zimmerman this morning telling us that his daughter died in childbirth and they are going home from their mission early.  I am so sorry for their loss and pain.  I was a hospice volunteer before we left Ohio and one thing I learned from them was, “Pain is the price you pay for love.”  And we would all rather love and suffer pain than to have never loved.   Grieving is a part of the loss, and there should be no guilt in grief.  Glenn and I will miss having Scott and Beverly here in Peru as friends.  They are going home to take care of a newborn granddaughter.

We finally got the visas to go to Bolivia, so we have a 10 day trip planned for September. Glenn and I are the only ones left in Lima to give the vocational test, so now that the Bolivia trip is scheduled we can schedule some times for vocational tests.  And we have been going once or twice a week to the bishop’s storehouse; Thurs. we started a Creando Prosperidad Familiar class which will be every Thurs. for 10 more weeks.  Peggy and Sam and Jared are coming in October for a trip to Machu Pichu.  So maybe we can keep busy and time will go fast for the next two months.

Sunday we had an interesting time at church; our fifth Sunday combined lesson was on how to fill out a donation slip.  Some of the key points were: be sure you put your name on the slip and not just on the envelope, they cannot accept dollars, only soles because if the exchange rate changes overnight their figures don’t work out right; no one in Manchay writes a check, but suppose that you are an empresario and do write a check then make it out to ASPERSUD (which stands for Association Peruano de los Santos de Los Ultimos Dias).  If you are putting in cash, you don’t count the number of bills and the number of coins, rather you put in the value of the bills and the value of the coins.  You can put the tithing of the husband and wife in the same envelope, but the children should use a separate envelope.  There are 3 copies of each donation slip; you keep the yellow one; the green one should be returned to you by the ward clerk soon so you can verify any discrepancies and report the mistake to the bishop; there are a number of procedures in place to keep theft from happening.  I don’t think Peruvians are any more dishonest than people are anywhere else, but with the extreme poverty of the past, the temptation is pretty great to use the money for your own family.

Saturday evening at Manchay the Employment specialist planned a seminar for small businesses.  Glenn spoke for 45 min (the two other men who were invited to speak both backed out at the last minute).  And then there was a presentation by a business called Negocios Familiares on how to make 5 different soap products that you can make in your home and sell.  Liquid hand soap, which you vary by color and scent, an all purpose cleaner, dish soap, air freshener, and a heavy duty degreaser.  Once again I watched the whole thing in Spanish, so I missed probably half of what was said; but it was very interesting, and I would like to try making some of the stuff when I get home, if I can find the ingredients.  You could see how you could cheapen the product by adding less of the important ingredients. And the buyer could not tell until too late.  The thickness came from cloruro de sodio (espesante) not from the actual cleaning quality.  And you can add as much color and perfume as you want, which again has nothing to do with the cleaning quality.

Tuesday Sept 1.

I needed to be at home when Zimmerman’s came through on their way to the airport, so I stayed home today.  Maybe spring is coming to Lima because we have had sunshine for 5 out of the last 7 days.  I went out for a walk and watched hummingbirds fly through a water sprinkler; and there are blue birds around, though I’ve never seen them up close.  Also yellow finches and red and black vermillion flycatchers.  Those are the most colorful birds, though there are others.  Peru is a birdwatchers paradise, though most of them are not along the coast.

Scott and Beverly Zimmerman are going home early from their mission to take care of a new granddaughter, and help their son-in-law and their other granddaughter.  She said “How could we teach the gospel and then not accept the message of peace that it brings when our daughter dies?”  But even knowing that death is not the end, still there is pain and sorrow they have to bear.  Glenn and I will miss having the Zimmermans here; they have become good friends.  One of the blessings of this mission is the good friends we have made while we are here.

Sunday September 6, 2009

I really wish I could have understood more of what was said in Relief society today.  The lesson was about women preparing for employment in case they have to work.  Most of the women in Manchay and I think older women in Peru have had to sell stuff on the street at some time during their lives to have enough to feed themselves and their children.  Selling is a life skill here, like driving is at home.  The Relief society president told about the time when she learned to make and sell food on the street.  Once again I wish I could have understood more of the conversation.  This is not part of our regular USA heritage.  Every homemaking night they have taught something that the women could make to sell to their neighbors, or elsewhere: cake, pudding, and this next time is a heavy duty bag.

A little boy threw up on the bus on the way home.  I think it is funny to see Glenn teaching a class on how to direct music.  He does this class while I teach a couple of kids piano lessons Sunday after meetings at the chapel.