I Guess We're Going to Peru After All!

We haven't received official word, but we think we're going to Peru after all. [Note added September 18, 2008: We have received official word because I called the missionary department.]

One of the Biggest Disappointments of My Life
When our mission was postponed due to my heart problems, we were not given much hope of being able to serve our mission in a foreign country, especially not in Peru, where the medical facilities and expertise aren't the greatest in the world. My cardiologist told me "Yes, you'll be able to go on a mission after your operation, but not to Peru."

I was deeply disappointed. I realized that I must have lived a charmed life, because not being able to serve a mission in Peru was one of my top two or three disappointments in my entire life. At times my wife and I decided that we definitely weren't going to Peru on our mission and we started making arrangements for a U.S. mission.

Operation to Cure My Atrial Fibrillation
I had a four-hour catheter ablation on July 10, 2008. It turned out to be a mini-miracle. My heart has been beating almost flawlessly since then. I am up to running five miles, three days a week, and my heart is doing great. I even went on two runs with a heart-rate monitor attached to me, and the resulting ECG showed that my heart was working perfectly (well, nearly perfectly).

I felt so good after the operation that I started praying fervently that we would be able to serve our mission in Peru. I prayed that I would get approval from my cardiologist and from the church to go foreign.

Temple Experience
My wife and I went to the temple just before meeting with my cardiologist seven weeks after my operation. In the temple my wife received the impression that if I asked my doctor, he would write a letter supporting our desire to go to Peru. That's what I did. I met with my cardiologist on September 2, and he agreed to write a letter giving me permission to serve my mission in Peru!

Meeting with Stake President
We met with our stake president on September 9, 2008, gave him the letter from my cardiologist, gave him a letter from me explaining why I felt we could go to Peru, and then he wrote a letter and hand carried everything to the missionary department on September 10.

Approval from Salt Lake
Two days later, September 12, 2008, the stake president called and said that we enter the MTC on October 13, 2008. I asked, "And are we going to Peru?" He said, "I assume so." He said the missionary department will send out an official letter. [Well, he was mistaken. The Missionary Department told me that they do not send out new letters for a simple change in MTC date.]

Word from the Peru Lima East Mission
In the mean time, I got an email from Doug Earl, who is a missionary with the Perpetual Education Fund in Lima. His email said that he had received word from the secretary of the mission that we were coming and that we would be serving a leadership mission. That was all news to us. [Actually, the official description of our call is Member and Leadership Support.]

So we now eagerly await the official letter from the missionary department.

My South American Chemistry Students

In my 30 years of teaching chemistry, I have never had one student who wanted me to explain course material in Spanish--except this summer term. Three students in my current biochemistry class are from my former mission area, Peru and Ecuador. They feel more comfortable conversing in Spanish, and one of them frequently comes to my office for Spanish explanations of what we've covered in class.

In fact, I just barely finished a 1½-hour biochemistry lecture/help session in Spanish with two of these Spanish-speaking students, Bertha and Lorena, both from Ecuador. We covered protein structure, calculation of net charge on peptides, determination of isoelectric point, interactions between biomolecules, and other subjects that will appear on the next exam. I think I learned as much Spanish as they did biochemistry.

I know these sessions are absolutely wonderful opportunities for me to push myself in Spanish and to become more comfortable in speaking Spanish in a wide variety of different situations.

What a great blessing I've received this school term as I prepare for my mission in Peru!

Our Pre-Mission Spanish Training at the MTC

We met yesterday (April 10, 2008) with the woman (Maria Johnson from the Dominican Republic) in charge of language training for couple missionaries at the Provo Missionary Training Center. Wow! Was I impressed. Here's the story:

1. The MTC has wonderful materials to help train couples before they enter the MTC for their missions: books, handouts, CDs (for listening to native Spanish speakers), and computer tutorials.
2. The MTC also has a one-on-one tutor program. My wife's tutor is Katie and mine is Rodrigo, neither of whom we have met yet. For couples who can't go to the MTC for face-to-face tutoring, the MTC has a telephone tutoring program.
3. Before we met with Maria, I assumed that only my wife, who doesn't speak Spanish, would take the classes with a tutor but that I wouldn't, because I speak Spanish already. Not so. I too get a tutor, who will help me review vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, but will also tutor me in Spanish conversation and gospel lessons.
4. We will meet with our tutors for one hour per week, stay another hour (usually) to do computer tutorials, and have homework of about two hours per day. I figure that by the time we are done, we will have had the equivalent of a 2-semester-hour college course in Spanish conversation.

I'm really excited about all this and am eager to improve my Spanish.

By the way, while we were at the MTC, we went to the travel office to get our visa pictures taken. At the MTC travel office, we had a great chat with a woman named Sharon, who was supervisor of our daughter Melissa when Melissa worked at the MTC while attending BYU. Sharon raved on and on about how competent and hard working Melissa was. In fact, after Melissa had worked there for a while, Sharon assigned Melissa to train all the new employees. It warmed our heart to hear someone else say wonderful things about our wonderful daughter.

Other Observations about the Peru Lima East Mission

Here are some more observations about the Peru Lima East Mission:

• The area of our mission covers approximately the same area over which I was a zone leader back in 1965 while a young missionary serving in the Andes Mission.
• When I arrived in Peru in May 1964, missionaries were in none of the cities (except for Lima) currently inside the boundaries of the Peru Lima East Mission.
• After I had been in Peru for a while, one of the first mountain town to be opened to missionary work was Huancayo (altitude 10,600 ft), in the Region called Junín. When I was zone leader over Huancayo, it had no branch of the church, but just 6 missionaries. In September of 1965, the first branch of the church was organized there. Now (2008) there are 15 wards and two stakes there.
• The Peru Lima East Mission includes the following stakes: Cerro de Pasco, Huánuco (2 stakes), Huancayo (2 stakes), Lima Bayóvar, Lima La Molina, Lima Las Flores, Lima Rimac, Lima Campoy, Lima Vitarte, Lima Chosica, Lima Canto Grande. That's 8 stakes in Lima and five stakes in the provinces--in regions outside of Lima. The mission also includes two member districts--Tarma and Huancavelica.
• Cerro de Pasco is the highest city in the world, at an altitude of 14,200 feet above sea level, and hence it is the highest stake of Zion in the church. I've been through Cerro de Pasco six times in my travels between Lima and Huancayo.

About the Peru Lima East Mission

The Peru Lima East Mission:

• Is about 50,000 square miles in size. That is about the same size as Alabama or Louisiana. Utah is 85,000 square miles in size. The map of the mission is shown below.
• Has 15 stakes: 10 in Lima, 2 in Huanuco (which had one little branch when I left Peru 42 years ago), 2 in Huancayo (over which I was zone leader before it even had a branch), and 1 in Cerro de Pasco.
  
• Includes the Cerro de Pasco Stake, which is the highest Stake of Zion in the world, at 14,200 feet above sea level! I didn't specifically read that it was the highest stake, but I did read that Cerro de Pasco is the highest city in the world. I couldn't confirm the latter. Some online sites say that Potosi, Bolivia, is the highest city, but Cerro de Pasco is 1000 feet higher than Potosi. (BTW, there is a Bolivia Potosi Stake, which a friend of mine says has its headquarters upon on a high plateau over 1000 feet above the city center, making Potosi the highest stake in the world. Whatever.)


• Covers an area of Peru in which the rate of poverty is about 60%. I'm not sure what constitutes poverty in Peru, but I'm guessing it's lower than the poverty level in the US. And I can't even guess what the rate of poverty is among members of the church there, but I'm guessing that among active members of the church, the poverty rate is low. (I'm not saying this as a positive thing. I'm guessing that poverty-striken members don't stay active.)


• Includes all eight natural regions of Peru. the major ones of which are the coast (including Lima), la sierra (the high Andes mountainous area), the high jungle, and the low junge or rain forrest of the Amazon basin.


• Includes (on its border) the mountain Yerupajá (locally called El Carnicero, which means butcher, and refers to the sharp-edged knife shape of the mountain), which is the second-highest point in Peru, at 21,758 feet above sea level. (The highest point in Peru is El Huascarán, at 22,204 feet, but it is not in our mission.)


• Got a new mission president in July 2008. Surf around this blog for information on Pres. and Sister Leyva.

Map of Peru, with the area of the Peru Lima East Mission marked in red. Each area on the map is a Region (analogous to a state) of Peru, of which there are 25 regions. Our mission includes the regions of Huánuco, Pasco, Junín, and Huancavelica, as well as a piece of the Lima region and the city of Lima.

Timeline for Getting our Mission Call

Here's a timeline of key events in our mission:

• 1967. In the year that we were married, my wife and I decided we wanted to serve a mission together. That desire has never wavered in the 41 intervening years.
• December 2000-January 2001. My wife and I, and two of our daughters, served a humanitarian expedition to Peru. I considered this part of the preparation for our upcoming mission to Peru.
• February 1, 2008. I'm not sure about this date, but some time around here, we started filling out the LDS church's online recommendation forms, with information about almost every aspect of our lives--past church service, education, special skills (music, computers, etc.), language abilities, and medical history.
• February 15, 2008. We started to get our physical and dental checkups. We needed some shots, and we both needed dental work.
• March 7, 2008. We finished all our medical and dental checkups.
• March 9, 2008. We held our final interview with our bishop in the morning and with our stake president in the afternoon. They both completed their part of the recommendation, and turned over the recommendation process to the assistant stake clerk. We received notice, however, that our physician had left off a couple of items that I needed to obtain from him.
• March 10, 2008. In the morning, I got the needed information from our physician, sent them to our ward clerk, and he submitted the final recommendation.
• Monday, March 10, 2008, 4:00. Our papers were officially submitted, and we received the official notice of "Recommendation Papers Received."
• Thursday, March 13, 2008. We got the official notice that our recommendation had been upgraded to "Ready for Assignment." I was surprised that things went that fast, because my medical profile wasn't the best, because of my history with atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries and atrial fibrillation. But because I recently had extensive tests that showed my heart was in good shape, and because I had recently run a half marathon, I guess the medical staff at church headquarters didn't have any issues with my medical condition.
• Friday, March 28, 2008. We got the official notice that our recommendation has been upgraded to "Call letter sent," which means we'd get on official call in the mail the next Wednesday.
• Wednesday, April 2, 2008. We received our mission call letter. We had been to our weekly service as ordinance workers at the Timpanogos Temple, and stopped by on our way to work at BYU to see if the mail had come. As we pulled into our cul-de-sac, our postwoman was pulling out. We stopped her and asked if our call had come. She said yes, that she had knocked on our door to hand deliver it, but we weren't at home. We didn't open the letter at that point, but waited until our kids who live in Utah could be there with us to open the letter. We got the kids who don't live in Utah on the phone, and opened our letter at 6:30 pm Utah time. I was thrilled by the call: Peru Lima East Mission. My wife wasn't quite so thrilled because she doesn't speak Spanish, but she knows that the call comes from God.

So from the time from when we started the online recommendation form and began our physical and dental checkups to the time that we got our call in the mail was only six weeks.

Why We Decided To Serve A Mission

Ever since returning from a mission in my youth (1964-1966 in Peru), I've dreamed of returning to Latin America to serve another mission there with my wife. At the same time, even before my wife married me, she had a goal to serve a mission. Her patriarchal blessing (a special recorded, personal priesthood blessing) spoke of her serving as a missionary abroad. She had planned to go on a mission in her youth, but I convinced her to marry me instead. (She has since forgiven me, I hope.) So the question of whether or not my wife and I would go on a mission was never considered. The only question was when. About a year ago, as I was having some heart problems, we decided that now was the time to retire and go on a mission. We notified our respective department chairs and the administration at Brigham Young University, where we were both professors, that we were going to retire early--I at age 63½ and she at age 63--on July 1, 2008. We talked a lot about the kind of mission that we wanted to serve, and we soon narrowed our choices to a temple mission (where we would be full-time temple workers) or a proselyting mission (where we would preach and teach the gospel). We finally decided to request to serve a Spanish-speaking proselyting mission. My wife was apprehensive of this type of mission, because she doesn't yet speak Spanish, but she supported me in this request. After making that decision, we just needed to get the ball rolling to start the missionary recommendation process. I'll talk about that process in the next post on this blog.

Why I Started This Blog

As a senior couple missionary (starting July 2008), I want to share my experiences and feelings about my mission. My audience includes family, friends, fellow members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), those thinking about serving an LDS mission in their youth or in their senior years, and all people interested in learning more about the Mormon Church and its missionary program. My wife and I will become missionaries on Monday, July 14, 2008, as we enter the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah. After a time in Provo, learning more about missionary work, we will serve as full-time missionaries in the Peru Lima East Mission. The headquarters of the mission is in Lima, but most of the mission is in the high Andes of central Peru. This is an area where I served as a young missionary 42 years ago, 1964 to 1966, in what was then called the Andes Mission. Am I excited about returning to Peru? More than you can imagine. I hope over the course of developing this blog, you will feel that enthusiasm and understand why I am overjoyed to return to Peru to share the gospel.