Church in Trujillo

One of the great rewards and pleasures that I am having is meeting people that I knew when I was here 40 years ago.

Last week we went to church at the first chapel built in Trujillo (in 1962).  It is the chapel that I attended when I was here in 1975 and 76.

Here is a picture of Elder Moses, my companion, in front of the chapel (Av Ricardo Palma, Palermo Ward).

Elder Moses in front of Palermo Chapel, 1976

At that time we lived with the Alva Family.  Juan Alva was the branch president, and his wife cooked for us.  When I left Trujillo back then to come home, I gave him my suit and his wife adjusted it to fit him.

Wayne with Brother Juan Alva and Sister Emma Alva

They are still alive.  He is 94 years old, and he still remembers me.   He is perhaps the only person in Peru who could testify that I was really here.

Well, maybe Sergio Bendezú could also.  He was here when we were here.  Chris Feinauer remembers him as a legend in the mission.

He is pretty great even now.  

That is him on the left in this picture.

And his daughter,  Nicole (third from the left) is one of the main coordinators for the sisters.

This is so cool to see these people at this next step (having a temple).  From here they will really prosper.

We went to Stake Conference on Sunday here in Trujillo and the Stake President gave as good a talk as any stake president anywhere in the Church.  And we went with the Temple President and they all treat us like we are important.  I can’t believe we are here.

Jan makes pancakes.  it took us a while to find the ingredients  the small blue package on the left is Polvo para Hornear which is baking powder, such a small package.  The round blue bottle is bicarbonato de sodio which is  baking soda, we had to buy that at the pharmacy, crazy place to find that.  We have flour and syrup and strawberry jam.

It didn't take me long to find the fire panel
here in the temple.

Actually Jan discovered the fire alarm system
first when she saw the speaker strobe in
our apartment, and there are pull stations that say Notifier.

And the fire alarm annunciator at the front door.

This is fruit at the open market. The Hartmans took us there last week.

These are nuts, It is interesting to see how they stock it all up

These are packages of cookies.

A picture at the Mall.  McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, and many more.

We saw these missionaries having ice cream and so we joined them.  
Jan had fun talking to them, the sisters knew English

A pano view of part of the mall.  Where's Waldo?

another panorama of the mall.

I asked Jan if she is homesick.  We really are not.  We live in this beautiful apartment.  We have a mall with a great grocery store a few miles away.  It costs about $1.25 for the taxi.  We drink Tropicana Orange Juice, and fresh milk, and bread and peanut butter and corn flakes and all the things we wished we could have had.  I feel bad for all of us 40 years ago.  We have hot water and we can drink water out of the tap.  We dress in our white clothes and walk 140 feet to the temple, and home for lunch.  We work 6 hours a day. 

Of course we are 300 feet in the other direction from Peru and the houses look like they did 40 years ago.

I can connect by TeamViewer to my home computer and handle all my business.  And we connect to our Dish Network at home and watch KSL and local TV and all of our recordings.

Pretty sad, right? 

Seriously, this is awesome.  I have yet to feel like anything is not perfect.

Tomorrow we go to Lima to get our immigration papers.

We meet all of the missionaries when they come to the temple and then we see them again at the Mall and grocery store.  

This is a picture of Sister Peel and Sister Butikofer.  

I hope you can tell from this that we are enjoying this journey  It has been great so far.