Our Visitors from Lima, Peru

Henry and Samuel came to train us and help us understand all that we need to do during our mission. Henry (one the left) is in charge of the Centro de Servicios in Lima and also supervises those in the other four countries in the Area. Samuel (on the right) is the Area PEF Coordinator for the South American NorthWest Area. This area has the largest number of participants in the world except for Brazil. It is also one of the first areas that PEF began working in back in 2001. We have a lot of success stories accomplished and, unfortunately, many old loans that have been neglected because the location of the participants has been lost. These men are great and they both speak English so that made things easier.

Samuel is young and dynamic and a whiz with Excel and the computer. He operates without paper. I enjoyed watching him with the stake presidents because he was able to interact with older and more "distinguished" men with a respectful ease that was comfortable but he took every opportunity to train and enlist their help in our cause. He was able to stay for five days. Henry is ebullient, always positive and passes out candy frequently. He stayed till the end of the second week and helped us create and set up our service center before he left.

We had a busy schedule. We met with the Country PEF Committee. Lewis is the executive secretary of that committee and it meets once a month. Our chairman is an Area Seventy and he lives in Guayaquil at the other end of the country. Here is a photo of us after the meeting:

The first man is responsible for Welfare and is in charge of the Employment Center. The second is Elder Maldonaldo, the chairman; next is Samuel and the man responsible for our finances, then Henry and Grandpa and I. The man who is responsible for all the temporal affairs in Ecuador had to leave before we took the photo. He is in his office behind us.

We also had the opportunity to have dinner with the stake presidents of Quito in the Institute building. Elder Maldonaldo invited them to come and Samuel explained that we needed some mature service missionaries to contact and provide active help to the participants of PEF. They were so very supportive and one stake president told his story of when he was starting his family and trying to finish school; he received a bit of help that made all the difference. He is now an important boss in a multinational German company that makes fertilizers. They all promised to talk with their Bishops. We are still hoping for more but received one miracle the very next week. Brother Morales came to our office and said that his Bishop had asked him and his wife to be PEF service missionaries and what does that mean? Brother Morales is retired now but previously worked for the church in finances as well as in several Ecuadorian companies. We are thrilled that they are willing and able to help us. They also work in the temple and are getting some training there so they will not begin working with us until the middle of February. He told us that he was baptized 36 years ago -perhaps about the time that my brother David was serving in the Quito mission. Here are some photos taken that evening with the nearby stake presidents: