Our Peruvian Friends

It's hard to believe that we left a year ago to pick Alec up in Peru. A lot of life has transpired in the past 365 days. Alec, Dixon and Kadee all got married, Jake left for Ecuador on his mission, and Janae was able to bag a half dozen trips from Australia to Mexico to Monterey to Oceanside to Indian Wells and to Quilt Camp....among others. And she says she never does anything fun? Me? I just keep grinding it out.

The other night we received a call from Alec. One of the families he met in Peru needed some help. In the year since he has been released, this is the first time they have ever asked for anything more than our friendship. Last year while in Peru, I was able to speak to them in my comical spanish during our visit to Chiclayo. They treated us to dinner in their home on two occasions, and on the last night of our stay, we had them join us for pizza at our hotel.

Jamie is a taxi driver and Betty stays at home. She is a pensionista for the missionaries. A pensionista cooks, cleans, and provides some motherly care for the elders. Alec was lucky to have Betty. Pensionistas get reimbursed by our church for the cost of the food they prepare - all the hours they put in taking care of the missionaries is done gratis.

We fell in love with this family. Bryan and Betsy are their children - they are about 13 and 10 now. Her mother also lived with them - she just smiled all the time. We brought gifts for the family including tee-shirts that had "Las Vegas" written on them. I noticed that Bryan wore that shirt every day while we were there. He was literally clinging to Alec - like a big brother.

They followed our cars to the airport and gave us the best farewell ever. Another family was there too to send us off. I can see how hard it can be for missionaries to leave their mission. I wanted to stay and be the King of Peru.

Anyway, the family called Alec last week wondering if there was any way we could help them with the fee for his taxi license. Alec was eager to help as well. In the end, we wired them the money for the license - it wasn't much - and when they called the other night to thank us, we felt blessed to have met such wonderful people. Alec has kept in touch with them throughout the year. They even called here quite a bit to visit and I bungle through the conversation until I hand off to Alec. I know that we will see this family again - either in Peru, or if they are lucky enough to visit the United States. Jaime's goal for his family is a simple one - to one day take his family to see Temple Square in Salt Lake City. He also said he would like to visit the sacred grove. Such simple things that we take for granted.

We were lucky to have met a number of families on our visit to Piura and Chiclayo as well as spending time at the airport with Tafur, Cayupe and the Hookers (Hermana and Hermano Hooker people, get your head out of the gutter).

These friendships are precious to us. I hope to meet some of Jake's friends from Ecuador next year.