We Are In Lima; Better Late Than Never

As we have written in an earlier blog, we again have been given an assignment in the area of Perpetual Education. For those of you who might be reading this blog and have not heard of this program; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon’s) has a fund; it is called “The Perpetual Education Fund” or PEF for short. The Church makes available loans to students in less fortunate countries and help secure education to better prepare them to take care of themselves and their families.

It was quite the adventure just getting to Lima. We left Las Vegas the morning of September 8th and flew to Los Angeles. Everything went smoothly until our plane developed “technical difficulties”. So, we had a seven hour wait. Actually, it was a good thing; instead of midnight, we arrived in Lima at 7:30 am on September 9th. A driver was waiting for us when we claimed our luggage. He then drove us to our apartment. IT WAS HORRIBLE! We had made the mistake of renting it sight unseen. We could not stay there so he took us to a hotel where we stayed for the night. The next day we moved to another hotel which was closer to the office. We stayed there until we found our apartment. We are now getting settled and beginning to make Lima our home for the next 18 months.

In our office, as before, I do a great deal of paper work. I have not needed to answer the phones yet. We are not the only ones here working in PEF. Another senior couple, Elder and Hermana Lamb have been here for about one year. They have developed a good assessment test for the students. We also work with others who themselves are students and volunteer for several months at a time to work in the "call center". They call and answer student’s calls. They are a huge help. Henry is the supervisor of the call center, he works with the students. Our office is across the hall from the call center and we are there all by ourselves.

Elder W. has not really begun to start organizing his work, he has been really sick, he got bronchitis. He is doing his best, but he did not come to the office until Friday this week. We hope to be up and running this next Monday. We need to obtain supplies and that takes “requisitions” which take some time.

We cannot walk to the office this mission we live to far away. We have been blessed with a young man (Jack) who owns his own taxi. He and his wife (Regina) are students with PEF loans and she works in the call center. They are expecting their first baby, so we can help them by paying him to drive us to and from the office. It is really nice to have Jack.

We have already met some wonderful senior missionaries who have assignments in the Temple and Area offices in Church employment. There are about 12 families living here for one reason or another. It is great.

If we stay inside this weekend; hopefully, Elder W. will get better. The problem is that it is very cold and damp all the time. Our clothes in the closet are even damp.

I will try to keep this writing up to date in a more timely fashion than I did this month.

We are looking forward to making this another great adventure and pray our service to be acceptable to the Lord. We miss and pray daily for our children, grandchildren and friends wherever you may be. We especially pray for our Grandson, Elder Biehahn who is serving in Iowa. We pray he will have success and his testimony will be strengthened by his service.

Until I write again,
Hermana W.

It's Almost Time To Go

It’s Friday, September 04, 2009. We leave in 4 days.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week we were in Salt Lake for training. We met with Elders Cook and Carmack and others. They are all very concerned about the fund (Perpetual Education Fund). Peru has the second greatest number of loans next to Brazil. Much of the training was very familiar to us. As a matter of fact; some of the paperwork is the same we worked with while in Ecuador in 2007. It is very gratifying to see the forms are still being used and are helpful to the PEF staff. I have included a picture of Elders Cook and Carmack and Mishael, who is from Mexico and works for the church. He is a great help to the missionaries. We feel a great weight has been placed on our shoulders, we are praying very hard to accomplish this assignment. We would ask for your prayers also.

While there, we took the opportunity to tour the Conference Center. What a beautiful building! Elder Whitaker has a cousin who paints the portraits of some of the Apostles. His name is William F. Whitaker. We were excited to see several of his paintings which hang in the Conference Center. He is now painting President Monson, I can't wait to see it!

We had another very special experience. As we were coming home in the airport in Salt Lake, we had the chance to encounter Bro. Call; who used to be Elder Call in the Las Vegas Mission ten years previous. He now lives in Houston, Tx. We spoke with him for some time, it was wonderful to see him again and discuss special experiences he had in the Mission.

We have the best friends in the world! They hosted a dinner for us last night. There were six other couples in attendance. We had so much fun; we ate, talked, laughed, ate and laughed some more. We certainly are very blessed.

We started packing today; it takes some time to figure out what to take and not to take. Thank heavens Lima is a very cosmopolitan city, we can buy many things there.

We will miss our children, grandchildren and our friends very, very much, but we know this is what we are to be doing at this time of our lives.

I will write again about a week or so when we get settled in Peru.

Until I write again,
Hermana W.