Second Week in Lima

Can't believe it has only been two weeks since we got here. We have learned a bunch of stuff and realize how much more we have to learn. It was good to be at church again. The ward we go to is about like going to one in the states except, of course, they look different and speak spanish. We had translators for Sac. meeting and RS-Priesthood this week. It was great in our English SS class to have so many neat people who know so much and have a great way of teaching. We had a General Authority - Elder Nash, The Church Lawyer for the Area, the Temple Pres. and his counselor etc. and me. What a way to learn the great things of the gospel. Today we had a lesson on the three degrees of glory. I guess I noticed the reaction Bro. Nash was having to our coments and wondered what he was thinking. We of course were trying to figure out some of the details that are not in the scriptures and he finally spoke up and basically said, read the scriptures. What we know is what we know. Understand that and that is enough for now. He did have some interesting comments to add and so did all the others. It is such a different world here. Elder Hash's son gave a talk today in Spanish and did so well. (I guess) It sounded good to me anyway.

We went to the MALL yesterday. It is Jocky Mall pronounced Hokey Mall. It was a zoo. I wonder where all the people come from. But, when you consider that there are 8 million people in the city that explains in part why there are so many people and cars etc. A taxi ride is a hair-raising experience. I am learning to close my eyes and pray until we get where we are going. They like to make four lanes out of three and they don't care if they pull out in from of someone and they go very fast and toot and go. WOW

We also had dinner at an American restaurant. The Longhorn. We had a combo meat selection that had heart, blood sausage, another kind of sausage, pork steak and a beef steak. The beef is from Argentina. It was really good and was enough for a meal today. We also had a salad and papas fritos, which are french fries. It cost about 25 Soles which is about $8.50 for the meal we both ate. Pretty good prices.

Tomorrow we will get our dryer fixed we hope. The brother is supposed to be able to do it then. It will cost us about $30. US which is more than I would like to pay, but better than a new dryer for the landlord people. I am excited to have a washer and dryer in the same place and can do laundry whenever I desire. I also want to do the floors tomorrow. I need to buy some cleaning stuff before I can do too much. It is quite expensive, so have put it off.

We had a very busy day at the temple on Sat. There were over 300 numbers given out to the people as they came and they had to wait until their number was called to come into the temple. Then they had more lines inside the temple waiting for clothes, a locker and then the rest of the stuff they wanted to do. We also had big groups for baptisms. The kids always look so clean and neat when they come to the temple. This week there was a group that had their boys all in their white shirts and dark pants. They are such beautiful people. Some drive in old school busses about ten hours, which is all night, then get here and there is a place they can shower and dress in their Sunday clothes before coming into the temple. A lot of them still have wet hair when they come in. It is so humid outside that their hair never really dries. It makes me feel really sad to see the Boise temple so close and used not to its fullest capacity. Yes, there are sessions during the week that are not filled, but the weekends are really busy. Seems like they could schedule a time to come so we know how many to plan on. I guess they tried that and it didn't work.

We begin our afternoon schedule on Tues. It will be a whole new situation for us. We will have to meet all new people again and start over being the new guys. Each day has a different group, so we have to do the same - being the new guy - again and again. Oh, well. This will be the last week of that.