The chapel in La Villa and the sunset in town.
Today's pday is "companionship" pday. He wrote that his president "recently took away our freedom of pday. Now one has to be cultural, one playing sports, one for cleaning our room and one as a companionship. For our sports one we played soccer and volleyball (big surprise) in Pisco. For the cultural, we went to the Natural Reserve of Paracas. It's just miles of coast with beaches, caves, cliffs, arches and stuff. It was pretty cool. I tried to get permission to go back this Monday to go look at Paracas in a boat tour instead of taxi. The rule book says we just can't go in private boats or planes and I figure that a tourist boat isn't private. But President vetoed that one. And for our companionship pday last Monday, members wanted to take us out for a day. They planned it all for us. Johnny and Synthia Lainez. They came and picked us up in their car, we went to San Andres (the area right on the beach0) and we ate at the restaurant on the beach. It was really nice actually. Felt kind of weird being in a real restaurant again. I had seafood with a rice plate that was really good. I've grown to like this condiment they always serve with fish here. It is one of those purple onions cut up and you squeeze a couple of limes in it and some salt. A lot of the time for breakfast I just eat that mixed with a can of tuna with Ritz crackers. After lunch they bought us a big tub of ice cream and we went and drove past the new Hilton hotel that just opened over by Paracas and all these big mansions that foreigners have built right on the beach. He was telling me that to buy the land ( they are on 1-3 acres) is only about 30,000-40,000, and the actual house is only about 50,000. I couldn't believe how cheap they could build these big old nice houses with pools and tennis courts and everything right on the beach for."
He hasn't had a phone line for a couple of weeks and won't for another 5 months. Not that we can call him or anything. But I'm sure it is inconvenient for him when he needs to contact people there. He said the the road that goes from the highway (Panamericana Sur) and La Villa into Pisco is all torn up and they messed up the telephone lines. To get to Pisco now, they have to take old, bumpy roads that take "forever!"
"Conference is tomorrow. I'm excited for that. We should have a room to watch it in English. A year ago I was there in the conference center. Weird."
"Well, it is Monday afternoon. Conference went well. It was great to be able to watch all the sessions of conference in English. It just isn't the same in Spanish, not hearing their voices and what not. Having learned another language, or I guess I'm still in the process, has made me appreciate a lot more all of the foreign speakers in conference. Especially President Uchtdorf. It is amazing to me that he has mastered English so well. I can't imagine being that good at Spanish."
It is a humbling experience for him to serve the Lord on a mission. What a great thing! We feel very blessed for the opportunity Justin has to serve as a missionary for the Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment