Ruth and I are assigned to work in the Peru Lima North Mission Offices.  We thought that we would be working in a beautiful, Spanish, colonial style mission home when we arrived, but not so. Our Mission Offices are located in a Stake Center on a very busy street.  Back when we were missionaries the Mission Home and Mission Office were the Mission Home. The Mission Home is located in central Lima about 30 miles away. Just the President and his family live in it.  The President doesn't come to the Mission Offices very often because he is out working, training and interviewing all the missionaries where they work.  So, there are three senior missionary couples who work in the Mission Offices and make sure that the Mission functions properly, every aspect of it:  Elder and Sister Allen, Elder and Sister Mossel and Elder and Sister Spanos.  What a great team!

Elder and Sister Allen

   













Elder and Sister Mossel

Sister Spanos

Elder Spanos

Even though it doesn't rain in Lima there is plenty of water to have  lots of trees, shrubs, and lots of beautiful flowers.  The water is piped in from large dams located outside of Lima.  The water comes from the tropical rain jungles in Peru and it flows into the dams and then to Lima.  Ruth loves to take pictures of all the flowers near where we live.  It is summer here so there are lots of flowers now.

The Peru, Lima temple is beautiful.  It was dedicated in 1986 and sits on a beautifully, manicured piece  of property.  So elegant and majestic.  It's too bad it was a cloudy, smoggy day when we took the following pictures.  It takes us about 8 hours to get to and from the temple: 2 hour bus ride on three different buses (you can't believe the traffic); a wait of 2 hours to attend a session because the temple is so busy; 2 hour session, and a 2 hour bus ride back.  We are thankful for this 8 hour trip to and from the temple.  It puts everything into perspective for us.  When we take our 5 minute drive from our home to go to the Ogden Temple in the future, we will definitely remember our 8 hour spiritual journey to the Peru Lima Temple each month.  

Getting around in Lima is always an adventure.  There are many types of transportation and Ruth and I have used almost all of them. Lima is dominated by the big, noisy buses.

There are smaller buses like Volkswagen vans that are called "combis" and they are used to get to the out-of-the-way places like up on the hills.  This is what we take to get up to our ward each Sunday.

Our favorite type of transportation is the "moto".  It's the most expensive but it gets us there really fast and avoids all the busy, busy streets. It's a tight squeeze!  They charge us about $1.00 to where we want to go.

You don't see a lot of motorbikes and bicycles in Lima due to all of the traffic and it's very unsafe, but there are few brave souls who use them.

There are about 10 million people living in Lima and we are convinced that 5 million of them own a taxi.  Taxis are relatively cheap, have no meters in them and you negotiate the price.  That can always be interesting.

Our favorite mode of transportation is walking to where we need to go if it's within a mile or so.  So many things to see and so much action happening on the streets.

Happy New Year!  One of the funnest things about being in another country is to learn about its culture.  Here in Lima there is a tradition of giving things that are yellow to friends, family, and visitors for New Year's day.  Yellow brings everyone good luck so yellow flowers are really, really popular.

One of the most popular things to give away to someone for New Year's day is a yellow under ware.  Anyone want a pair?

Lots of yellow fruit is sold also.  Yummy.  Yellow tuna and granadillo is very popular to buy.

Here we are, the party animals, ready to revel into the wee morning hours.

Here I am with a yellow lai that one of our senior missionaries bought for us.  He knows that I need all the luck I can get.

This past week was all about the wonderful missionaries who are serving in the Peru Lima North Mission.  What a fun and inspirational Christmas party they had.  First, a prayer and then they played lots of basketball, dodge ball, volleyball, ping pong, etc.

After several hours of playing, sweating and lots of competition, they were served a scrumptious lunch of steak, potatoes, salad and tasty desserts in a beautifully decorated cultural hall.

Our missionaries are so, so talented.  They all sang like angels, which they are.

After playing, eating, and performing they all went out into the neighborhoods around the Mission Offices and sang Christmas carols and gave away fruit baskets.  At 5:00 pm they returned to their proselyting areas and taught discussions, invited others to Christ and did what all missionaries do: love the Peruvian people. God bless our missionaries!

President Godfrey wanted to get every missionary a nice, soft, light blanket.  All they have are big, thick, wool ones that weigh a ton!  We found some really nice ones in the Mercado Central and we bought 240 of them.  They came in three big bundles that weighed over 300 pounds each.  Here we are standing next to the bags when they arrived at the mission office. 

President Godfrey asked us to attend the Deseret Ward up on the mountain side in an area called Tahuantisuyo.  We love the ward and its members.  We feel at home and are learning so much from the faithful saints in that area.  This is where we go to church each Sunday.

In spite of the dry, dusty and arid conditions in Lima, Peru (it hasn't rained there for years), there is always to be found beautiful, elegant flowers and plants right next the church.