what an opportunity

Lots of traveling this week.  We went to Lima, we've made 3 trips to Marcona (Curt is on his 4th trip this evening), tomorrow morning at 5:30 we jump on a bus to Ica for the day. All in all about 30 hours of riding on a bus.
We had a truly wonderful experience this week.  Lima East Mission, Lima's Mission Training Center and Lima South Mission gathered at the Mission Training Center and we were able to hear from an apostle of the Lord.  Elder Ronald A. Rasband and his sweet wife came to Lima and talked to the missionaries.  They took time to shake every missionary's hand and even had a little conversation with each of the senior missionaries.   In Elder Rasband's address, he talked about the process of calling missionaries and said he'd had the opportunity to assign about 190 missionaries the week prior to their coming to Peru.  He prays each time he has that assignment to know perfectly where these individual missionaries are to be assigned.  We were encouraged to go about doing good with a smile on our faces and a sparkle in our eyes.  I was so impressed with Sister Rasband, in her travels throughout the world with her husband, she tries to give at least a part of each of her talks in the native language.  What a considerate and brave lady!  Elder and Sister Godoy also spoke and they are fantastic and have the missonaries so engaged during their talks.

Peru Lima South Mission.  It's not very often that the entire mission gets together so this is a pretty special picture.  Thanks to Sister McGinn for sharing her pictures of the day.

Elders from our zone; Moran, Rosario, Romero and Larricilla

Time to get organized.  The missionaries starting to gather together as zones.

Sisters Herrera and Russell are enjoying getting to say hello to old companions and friends.

Pres. Boswell (Lima East) and Pres. McGinn (Lima South) enjoying a minute with their missionaries.

Curt's food adventure for the week:  grilled stomach, gizzard, intestine and heart.  I tried it and I can say ... it was chewy :)

Elder Romero on P-Day getting his computer time as they help us fix food for a zone activity.  We have one zone activity each transfer and we really enjoy spending this time having fun with the great missionaries serving here.

Cinnamon rolls for the missionaries.  We bought tortillas while we were in Lima so we made burritos.  Of course when we go to the store that morning there was no hamburger so they got an upgrade on their burritos.

Elder Larricilla makes some amazing salsa!

An empty vitamin bottle will have to do for our salsa container today.

I'll get our p-day activity on here in a couple of days.  Curt has those pictures on his camera.  It's almost ten and when he called, he was still waiting for the van to fill up to get him home from Marcona. He's going to have a short night.

It's been a busy week.  We're glad we can serve and know this is where we need to be.