Work and Fun

Hello family and friends,

It is so nice to finally see some of the light at the end of the tunnel. This week I met one of the elders that needed to do biometrics, and nine other Missionaries that needed to pick up their carnet de extranjeria. I was so happy that now they had two lines to go inside, one for migrations and the other one for everything else. And that is good because before there was only one line and it was so huge and it didn't have anything to do with what we were doing there. The Missionaries came at different times and that's why it was a little bit crazy because as they were coming, I needed to go and register them at the front and at the same time I needed to be with them when they were going through the procedures when they were being called. But we were able to do it and we finished early. Also, one of the elders had a dentist appointment and even though he was not there on time, he was able to leave on time for his appointment. Two other elders needed to leave early and it worked out fine.

It is incredible what you can do in 3 hours.  I woke up at 5:50 AM. I ended up getting up and I cooked and mopped before I went to the office at 8:50.

I have been working on all the flights for the Peruvians and Ecuadorians that are finishing their mission and have to go back home. I was able to request all the flights. I had flights already purchased for the months of February and March.  All of a sudden, I was contacted by a leader that is part of a program called PIA.   It is a program that the Missionaries in our area returning home will take once they arrive in Lima for the Peruvians, in Guayaquil for Ecuador, in Santa Cruz for Bolivia and in Bogota for Colombians. This program helps them prepare for life after missionary time. Only these 4 countries belong to our area and have this PIA program. There is a difference between the dates that the missionaries have to arrive and the day that the PIA starts in the other three countries. They are a week after the release day and that is not good.
The leader was asking me if we can change the dates for the two Missionaries that are going back to Ecuador next week, instead of leaving on the 12th, leave on the 19th. The tickets had already been purchased and I had asked him before I purchased them if that would be a problem. He said the leaders in Ecuador will take care of it. Apparently, that was not right. We are the ones that have to adjust the date and get them on the correct date to start the PIA. So, I had to look for new flights and thank goodness we don't have to pay a penalty for changing the dates, but we do have to pay the difference in airfare. I also had to change 3 of the flights for the month of March and add Santa Cruz city for the Bolivians, because they don't live in that city. After PIA they have to take another flight to go home to their respective cities. It was a bit crazy but it was done.

I like bread, so I decided one night to go after I got home. I am so glad that I was holding onto the rail when I was going downstairs because unfortunately, there's no light on the stairs and I almost fell. Thank goodness God gave me good reflexes and I didn't. The Lord has sent his angels to hold me. At the store I ended up buying tamales and bread. 

Today I have been working on the SOP. It is manual to do the work that I am doing right now. This will help the people that will come after me.  Each secretary has to do the same thing. We also went to open Plaza, the finance secretary, his companion and I. I needed to open an account at the bank because there is a person from the US interested in funding the marriages for the people that have not been married but are living together, so they can get baptized. It is not so easy to get married in Peru, there are several requirements and each one takes time and money.  For example, there is this brother that we tried to help almost a month ago to get his ID, we tried to do it at the office. But it seems that the app platform to take the picture for the ID was not working, because it kept taking a bad picture, at the end we wasted the whole month. To go to the actual government office is not good, they have to be there at 4 am to the line and only by 9 or 9:30 they will know if they got in.  This is every day.  The app was fixed on Feb 1, and the brother went back to our office.  This time the picture looked much better and we submitted the form once again.  We are hoping that they accepted this time.

I wished that would be all that was required, but no.  They want more documents for the marriage. We will see how long it takes us to get everything ready.

Yesterday, Saturday I woke up at 5 AM because the relief society had an activity programmed to go walking to a reservoir. We met at the park at 6:15 AM and we were back by 8:45 AM. It was a nice activity. We were able to walk and talk and get to know each other. It was only 7 of us. We almost cancelled the activity, because it was raining when we walked up.  And where we had to walk was dirt or sand, so they were afraid that we would find lots of puddles but the rain stopped and there were no puddles. We even did some exercise when we arrived at the reservoir. We had fun! They are trying to organize another outing for next month, but this time it will be 2 hours away.  I hope that we can go.

Well family and friends it will be until next week.

I love you all.

Doctrine and Covenants 82: 10 I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.

Hermana Malpica

Office Specialist

Peru Piura Mission

Pic 1  A couple of Elders in their area of teaching.

Pic 2  Some of the missionaries waiting to receive their carnet de extranjeria in MAC.

Pics 3-4-5-6  Our little excursion to the reservoir. 

Pic 7 & 8 Tamal Peruano with and without the cover. I had to send some food pic.

Pic 9 & 10 Missionaries on their activities.