A March Adventure

One of the really enjoyable experiences we have in the mission field is traveling to the missions to meet with the missionaries. Presidente and Hermana Chipman invited us to visit Mission Peru Piura, a 1 1/2 hour plane flight to the north. They asked Dad to speak in zone conferences held over two days. Unlike our experience in Trujillo visiting three different cities in the mission, these two conferences were both held in the same chapel in Piura.

Piura, incidentally, is desert, a Humboldt desert, dry but with high humidity. When it rains, it floods, so the roads are unpaved, rutted, and a 4WD is absolutely necessary. Earlier this year, the rains turned Piura into an island. Food and water was airlifted in.

Sister Chipman asked me to talk for 10-15 minutes about managing stress. Dad also examined missionares with ongoing medical concerns and visited three clinicas/hospitals to establish good relationships with the providers of health care.

One of the really fun things about these trips is seeing the missionaries we knew well in the CCM. These missionaries show such growth from the CCM greenies to hard working, faithful, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed missionaries.

Dad and President and Hna. Chipman talked with an Elder who had suffered with an infected, ingrown toenail for a long time. Dad dianosed the problem, put him on an antibiotic, and prescribed treatment that will keep him from having surgery.

This is one of my favorite shots. What you cannot hear is the "unos, dos, tres" repeated over and over. We didn't know who to look at next. So what we have here is a picture of missionaries taking pictures of us.

Dad is missing from this picture because he was talking with an Elder who had drawn him aside for a "consulta, por favor." This is one zone. The other zone is taking pictures of us.

Finally, only in these small cities like Piura and Trujillo, do we have to walk down stairs to exit or climb stairs to enter the planes. It's OK if it is not raining. Passengers can enter and exit from a door in the front or in the back of the airplane. This security officer didn't like my taking a picture of the plane. I smiled at him and took his picture which seemed to please him and I got the plane. On the day we flew back to Lima, the humidity and heat were overwhelming. We were dripping, really. The waiting room was not air conditioned. Overhead fans gave some relief but not nearly enough. I wet paper towels to wipe our faces and foreheads and the back of our necks. What a relief it was to enter the back door of the plane and have a cold mist coming from underneath the overhead bins.