Friday Baptism and Saturday Trip to Junín

We went to the Church on Friday night for our music and Book of Mormon classes, and found out that the missionaries were holding a baptism. So we cancelled our classes and attended the baptism. Four children (all of whom are Beverly's piano students) were being baptized--three children (Isaac, Brenda, and Sharon) of a woman (Claudia, in the white cap) who was baptized last month, and one child (Diana) of an investigator (Rosanna, the other woman in the picture). The two missionaries are Elder Castro (on the left) and Elder Per (on the right), both from Guatemala:

The daughter of the investigator got frightened because of the cold water and backed out of the baptism. Scott interviewed the mother the next night, and she and her daughter will both be baptized on Sunday in La Oroya where the font is heated. [Note added later: They were indeed baptized in La Oroya. In her testimoney after the baptism, Roxanna thanked "Presidente Zimmerman" for explaining the miracle of forgiveness and giving her the courage to be baptized.]

Today, we went to Junín. While Scott was waiting outside the church for his class to start (trying to keep warm in the sun), he met a woman and her daughter. The woman was walking by the church, saw Scott, and became curious as to why some large, strange-looking gringo was in her town. So she stopped to ask him some questions:


Scott was equally curious about her because she was walking along knitting a "panti," one-piece leggings that the mountain women wear to keep their legs warm. (Even Beverly wears them in cold Junín at 13,600 feet.) She was knitting at a high speed without even looking down. She demonstrated her technique to Scott while her shy daughter clung tightly to her side:


In the meantime, Beverly had already started her piano class. Here she demonstrates how to play a hymn to four boys of the Junin branch:

She had about 12 kids in her class. Four of the kids were under the age of 5, and came because their mothers wanted a babysitter! Beverly finally "dismissed" them from the class because they were keeping the other kids from learning.

Have we mentioned that life here in Peru is always an adventure?