From Salt Lake City to Lima to Ica to Lima to Ayacucho!

We arrived in the mission Monday night at midnight. The Outgoing Mission President and Wife met us at the airport and took us to our new home. They then went to their hotel, and would come and orient us the next morning.

Day One: Boyd already covered Day One.

Day Two: We met our first group of Missionaries: the missionaries of Lima. That is about half of our mission. Over one hundred missionaries! We spent the morning with them, and after lunch we traveled to Ica with our Assistants. That took about four hours of intense driving on the Panamericana Sur! Glad it was Boyd driving and not me. We stayed in a nice hotel in Ica, although we didn't have much time to enjoy it. As soon as we arrived we went out with more missionaries. Boyd with two Elders, and me with two Hermanas. 

We (the sisters) had an adventure with a large dog who was very threatening. It was very disconcerting to have a small young missionary put herself between me and the dog - to protect me. These missionaries are wonderful and sweet and loving and protective! The dog sniffed around each of us one by one as we stood like statues, and then he circled around again. I was sure he was going to choose the meatier one (me!), but he eventually just left us all alone.

I thought the roof of the hotel was lovely to look at.

I don't know what these giant cacti are, but they are TALL!

And they have flowers!

This is a lovely tree.

Beautiful architecture and lovely tile floors everywhere.
They keep them WELL polished. I have learned to watch my step so I don't slip.

Day Three: We rushed right off the next morning to meet all our missionaries who serve in the South of our mission: Chincha, Cañete, Ica, Pisco, Nazca, and Marcona. After our meeting with them we drove back to Lima!

Day Four: We unpacked our bags and started to settle into our new (to us) home. And we bought some groceries.

Day Five: We got a real early start as we flew to Ayacucho bright and early and had to be at the airport for 4:30 am. Which meant we left our home at 3:30 am. Not much sleep!

We spent the day in Ayacucho. The morning was spent in our Meet and Greet with the missionaries, and the afternoon was spent with Boyd interviewing each missionary one by one, while I got to visit and chat with the rest of the missionaries who were waiting for their turn to be interviewed (I'll explain more about interviews later.). It was fun!

Afterwards we came out to a beautiful sunset above the mountains. This was the first time we'd seen blue sky for five days, and it was wonderful!

Sunset!

The chapel were we met is on the left. This is a view of Ayacucho at dusk.

So happy to see the sun!

The Elders were trying to catch a taxi for us to take us back to the hotel at the end of the day, but they weren't having any luck. There was a soccer match going on, and Perú was playing. There was a small bodega with a TV, and there was a large crowd gathered around outside the store, on the sidewalk, and into the street, watching the game. When Perú missed an important chance to score,  all the taxi drivers walked back to their taxis and we finally got our ride.