Happy Golden Anniversary!

 50 years ago today!

Happy Golden Anniversary!

October 29, 1975 - October 29, 2025

What better way to celebrate that serving a mission during our 

Golden Years!

First in Salt Lake City

Then in Piura, Peru

With an eternal companion!

Nuestra Casa

 The other Senior couple spent many long hours making our apartment a comfortable, homey place.  They did a great job and we love it. And yes, it is on the 4th floor.  The arrow points to our living room window.  

Climbing up all those stairs several times a day helps us get our daily exercise.  Hermana Malpica lives directly below us.  Almost every time we come home, George says, “If we lived in her house, we’d be home.”  Our Apple Watches have alerted us that the numbers of ‘flights climbed’ over the last few months has increased significantly.  No joke!

An interesting thing to note on stairs here is that some stairs as you turn the corner are triangles and others are squares.  And it isn’t consistent.  For a few days the lights on our stairs were not working and I held on as I made my way up and down.  Don’t want to misjudge, thinking it is a square step and be surprised with the cut off.  

Another interesting thing about apartment here is the security.  We have two keys, one to let us in the locked common area before the stairs and another to get us in our apartment. Here is lock #1.

We have heard of missionaries getting locked out of their apartment but also locked in the apartment outside area.  You would just hope you have your cell phone so someone can be called to rescue you.

On the first floor of our apartment is a living/dining room, laundry room, a kitchen, Elder Lewis’s office, and a cute little under stair bathroom/luggage storage area

Upstairs there are two bedrooms, one of which is my ‘office’, and a bathroom.  The only hot water in the entire house is in the shower.  None of the elders and most of the sisters don’t have the luxury of hot water.  We did just get permission to put instant hot water heaters in the showers in all the sister’s houses.  They are thrilled with that news. 

Here’s the view from our front windows.

I have been amazed at how quickly a foreign place can feel like HOME.  And our little corner of Piura definitely does.

Four and a Half Months Later…

 Somehow with writing a weekly newsletter, writing in my personal journal and all the work in the mission office, I never have gotten around to working on this blog.  Since it is my pictorial personal history, I decided I should share something of our lives over these past months of the mission.

Although our time in Salt Lake was wonderful in many ways, we were extremely excited to finally be on our way to Peru, with 4 50-pound suitcases, 2 heavy carry-ones and 2 ‘personal items’ we were definitely NOT traveling light.

But we were traveling happy!

Salt Lake to Atlanta - 3 1/2 hours

Atlanta to Lima  - 6 hours and 45 minutes

Lima to Piura - 1 1/2 hours 

What a great greeting party!

On the left, President and Sister Van Alfen who are from our Stake in Eagle.  We didn’t know them before but quickly have learned to love them and their spiritual insights and leadership.

Next the two Assistants to the President.  Since they live in the apartment below the Mission Office, we get to know them well. They are outstanding young men and it is easy to love them.

Then Hermana Malpica who is a dynamo!  Originally from Peru, she has lived for 40 years in the US so she is fluent in both Spanish and English.  She handles all the travel and visa requirements for the missionaries.  And also arranges weddings.  That may sound strange but because of the complications and expense of getting legally married, many people live together for years and raise a family. When our missionaries teach them the gospel, they cannot be baptized until they are officially married.  Hermana Malpica does the leg work to make that happen. And it is not a trivial assignment.

The other ‘senior couple’ is the Nyes.  Interestingly they are from Meridian, Idaho.  They are very young to be considered senior missionaries.  When their youngest child left on her mission, they decided to serve also.  When they go home they will go back to work until they are officially retirement age.  Hermana Nye is the mission health advisor.  She spends her time helping the missionaries stay healthy, gives medical advice and also arranges their care if they need to go to the doctor.  She is a great mix of a caring mom and a no nonsense nurse.  The missionaries love her. Elder Nye is a pharmacist so he is a great help to his wife.  Besides that he is a super hard worker, willing to tackle any problem to help the mission, and capable of doing almost anything.  He orders supplies for the missionaries to use in their teaching, manages the office, handles packages, technology, various ‘special projects’ for the Mission Leaders….and probably a whole lot of things we don’t even know about. 

The other two young elders have been the ‘office elders’.  The one behind Hermana Malpica has been handling ‘technology’ and the one on the end has been doing finance and housing.  It took both of us to replace him.  In the language of the mission, he is our Dad, since he was our trainer.  Elder Von is brilliant and created all sorts of programs that have made our lives easier.  He stayed in the office to train us for about 6 weeks.  President Van Alfen was happy that we came so that these young missionaries could go out and teach the gospel and invite people to come to Christ.  

You are familiar with the saying, “It takes a a village”.  That phrase definitely applies to a mission.  There is so much that goes on behind the scenes to keep the missionaries healthy, living in safe and clean apartments, with money on their debit cards, necessary travel arranged, teaching supplies in the right places, phones working correctly…..you get the idea.  I am glad we get to be a small part of all of this.