Creemos en la Paz

I know that everyone always says “time flies” but the last month truly slipped through my fingers.

Let’s break it down: Last Tuesday, Wilfredo picked up his new car. As a Mission Center President, the Community of Christ church provides Wilfredo with a car. His old car, a Daihatsu, was…well…old. The first time I was in that car and Wilfredo tried to drive it up the hill to Monte Sion, the car died and we, very cautiously, backed down the hill, which was delightfully horrifying. The Daihatsu is also a VERY small car, which is unfortunate, because Monte Sion is about 40 minutes away, and more than once we’ve had to cram four people into the minuscule backseat of the Daihatsu.



Churros are not helping me in the "gordita" department.

An added bonus to this is that it always provokes the charming conversation of, “Quien es mas gordita? Las Hermanas!” Allow me to translate that for you—in Peru, it’s not awkward to call someone fat. It’s normal. And, generally speaking, adding “ito” or “ita” to the end of something means it’s little and cute and you’re fond of it. So by saying someone is “gordo” which literally means “fat” and changing it to “gordita” essentially means that person is a little fat—but you like it. Regardless, I still don’t being designated the most “gordita” in the car. And while, frankly, it’s important the fattest person in the car sit in the front seat, it’s an awkward conversation for Katrina and I—especially because one of us (“Las Hermanas!”) always ends up being the lucky “mas gordita” winner.


Moving on, Wilfredo now has a 2013 Tucson there is plenty of space in the backseat and it can successfully climb the hill to Monte Sion. Muy bien.

Wednesday, Katrina and I were in class with our teacher, Carolina, and our classmate, Emily (who’s from France and speaks Spanish with a glorious French accent) and I, admittedly, was zoning out a bit. Then everyone stopped talking about looking at the table. I had no idea what we were talking about, but looked at the table too—and it took me a second to realize the coffee in my coffee cup (that was NOT successfully keeping me awake) was shaking—and we were definitely having an earthquake. Our classroom is on the sixth floor of an older building and that put Carolina on edge. She was living in Lima in 2007 when there was an 8.0 earthquake that did some decent damage to the city. Supposedly Lima is due for another “big one” anytime now. Regardless, this particular earthquake was in Arequipa, a district in the south of Peru, and we only felt a slight tremor of it for about 30 seconds in Lima. It was enough to catch my attention though—living in the Midwest my whole life, this was a new experience for me.  



With our teacher Carolina on the last day of class!

The rest of our school week was fairly calm after that, and Friday Katrina and I said a sad goodbye to Emily and Carolina, since it was our last day of class. I loved having class and I’d happily take more if they were free—but that’s not how businesses work and it was time for Katrina and I to move on. I do feel like we learned some great things during class though, and I plan on studying on my own now that class is over.

And that brings us to Saturday—which is when we celebrated the International Day of Peace in Monte Sion. We started the day with some volleyball games on the big field the Peruvian government built right in front of the church. Team Callao (aka my team) promptly lost and we were by far the worst team of the night—but I had a pretty enjoyable time losing. After the games, we sang a few songs, Wilfredo shared a few words, and some young adults in the congregation performed a dance. The highlight of the night was when all the kids dipped their hands in paint and we made a giant banner with a dove on it commemorating the day. We ended the night with fireworks (that were shaped like a peace dove) and went home tired, but happy with how the day went.

Yesterday, Katrina and I spent most of our day with Virgilio, an Elderin the Filidelfia congregation. We had some great food, finally got to meet his wife and got to have great conversation about everything from the festival in Peru where people eat cats (this isn’t a joke—there’s honestly a festival where people eat cats) to preaching styles and techniques.

Today, we got to spend more time with Bill and Lela Ayers before they headed back to Arizona. We hadn’t seen Bill and Lela for a few weeks and it was wonderful to get to hear about their journey through Peru and the jungle. We wandered through the markets of downtown Lima, had a delicious lunch, and rounded out the day with ice cream. We dropped the Ayers off at the airport just before dinner and said some sad goodbyes.

Ahead of us this week is a lot of discussion—planning our time in Huanaco, planning a trip to Cusco, and planning our trip home for Christmas. Hopefully next week I’ll have some concrete details on all three of these for you! Until then—Adios.