San Isidro district

San Isidro business district. Usually it isn't clear enough to see the hills. It usually is very hazy.

Birds and plants

We love to watch the black Vulture as they soar high in the sky above our mission office. They are a very large bird and hop while on the ground.

Plants that are bushes at home are trees down here

New taxi

Latest taxi. Why worry about a gas shortage or high prices. If you run out just peddle.

Elder Neuenschwander

Elder Neuenschwander is such a great elder. The entire mission loves him and we found out that he needed open heart surgery everyone rallied around him to help any way that they could. He ended up using 11 units of blood and we actually gave 17 units to the hospital. We went through all the missionaries that had O+. The hospital was so particular. They wouldn't take my blood because I am too old. They said that some of the sisters were too short. One elder had warts so they wouldn't take his blood. We made sure that we fed the missionaries and gave them plenty of liquids after they gave blood. We have a picture here of President Elmer that was waiting with us for elder Neuenschwander to come out of surgery. I looked over and the president was sound asleep. The picture of elder Neuenschwander is with his companion and with Karen prior to the surgery.

Actually elder Neuenschwander was born in Bolivia, his mother is Bolivian, but lived in Germany, his father is German, for all his life but 3 years when he was born. He looks Latin but did not speak Spanish prior to his mission call. He has an uncle that is a General Authority and a member of the 70's quorum. Elder N. does not speak English nor has he been to the United States.

167 Anniversary of Relief Society

Our Magdalena Stake had their 167 year Relief Society celebration. We first met in the chapel. The Stake Relief Society President spoke. She was followed by our Stake President. The picture above is of Stake President Gadoy and his first counselor Pres. Louisa. We have a very good Stake Presidency. Generally the stake presidency are ever as good as those back home. Sometimes the bishoprics need more training.

After the program inside the chapel we all moved outside where the sisters put on a spectacular evening of song and dance. We
have 8 wards in our stake and each ward participated. Each ward sang and danced to songs that are traditional in the Peruvian Culture. The songs were beautiful. The traditional dances were exciting, beautiful, the costumes were bright and colorful, it was Peruvian.

Our pictures do not do justice to how magnificant the performance was. Mostly by the sisters of the Relief Society in our Magdalena Stake.

All those in attendance had a wonderful time.

Double click on the pictures to see a closeup and notice the
intricute needle work on each colorful costume.

As it got darker I needed a flash.

They performed this outside as their was more room and the weather was so nice. On this court they play basketball and
soccer and dances and other cultural events. They do have
a cultural hall inside the chapel with a stage.

This was an absolute delight for us.

We have told you about some of the many small miracles that happen at the office each day and each week. On Friday we were on the telephone for nearly six hours with the Global Service in Orem, Utah to fix our computers and so that we could have Microsoft Outlook working properly. They wanted to take over our computer through the modem and said that we needed a special cable and adapter as seen at the right. A little background. Karen is a clean office freak and everything is in its place and put away. A month ago she and president Elmer went through a box of old cables, cords and telephones and threw them all out. Well the people from Orem said that we needed this adapter and blue cord in order to hook up the modem to the computer so that he could take over the control of it. He said there should be a light blue flat cord. We looked everywhere. As we were talking on the speaker phone I noticed down on the floor by Karen´s desk was a sealed plastice package with the light blue cable in it. The fellow said we had to have the adapter also. At once I felt prompted to go into the supply closet and look up on the shelf over on the left in a small box. There in the box in a sealed pastic bag was the adapter. No one seems to know how they got there. Karen never allows things to be on the floor or out in the open on top of file cabinets etc. It was just another of those small miracles that seems to happen each day and each week.