A New Mission President!
- Glynis Neves
- Jul 1, 2019
- 3 min read
A new holiday to celebrate, saying a last goodbye to President Li, and welcoming President Parker.
Glynis here: We had a GREAT visit with Jacob this Saturday. He was able to talk to us about his feelings regarding saying good bye to President Li and getting to know President Parker. While we were video chatting with him, he had us speak to one of the office missionaries, a young man from Guatemala. Jacob and his companion, Elder Roper, are trying to teach him English, and they wanted him to practice on us. He was a darling Elder, and he tried so hard! We also were lucky enough to get to meet the new mission president and his wife. While we were talking to Jacob, President Parker came in, took the headset from Jacob and spoke to us. He told us that Jacob has been a real blessing as he starts this calling. He told us that Jacob has been steadfast and a real example as a missionary. That was so wonderful to hear. After we talked to him for a minute, his wife pushed him out of the way and took the headset. She told us that Jacob has made them feel right at home, and has gone out of his way to help them adjust to life in Peru! She gave him a "mom" hug from me, and it was so wonderful to see them all together! Well, enough about that. On to Jacob's letter.
Hello everyone!
This week was one of those weeks I will always remember. It was the last week with Presidente and Hermana Li in the Perú Iquitos Mission. They have been great! To be able to work with President Li has been a huge blessing. He has helped me to grow in my testimony and to be more excited to work hard.
Before I get to everything that happened with President Li and President Parker I have to tell you about a new holiday (to me). This week was also a Latin American holiday called “Día de San Juan.” Basically, it's a holiday celebrating John the Baptist and his death. It´s really a Catholic tradition, but everyone here celebrates it. Here, in the jungle of Perú, it´s even more different than in other places. They make a special dish called a “Juane” which is rice, chicken and olives wrapped together in a huge leaf which they then boil. They open up the leaf and eat it. It´s actually pretty good. Each family makes TONS of them to give out to visitors, and every family we visited that day wanted to give us 2 or 3 Juanes. I only ate one, because they aren´t my favorite but, oh well. It was a fun experience. They also make a special drink (they actually make it all the time but it´s somehow special on San Juan) called Chicha Morada… purple corn juice. I actually really love it. It is really good! Sometimes they add some lemon in there and it's prime! Supposedly the Juane represents John the Baptist´s head when he was decapitated, and the Chicha represents his blood. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that it was a good day.
Now, back to the exit of President Li. He took us out to eat lunch again to say goodbye, he is really sad to leave, but excited to see his grandkids again. Sister Li started crying a lot and it was really sad, but she is also excited to see her family again. I will certainly miss them both.
Today (Saturday) we are going to go to the airport to say goodbye to President Li and that´ll be sad.
Yesterday (Friday) President Parker got here! We were working in the office like normal and all of a sudden I saw President Li with 2 gringos outside the door. I opened it up and President Parker came in and gave us all a big hug. He´s from Oregon and he´s super funny. He served his mission in the Dominican Republic, so he does speak Spanish, but it was a long time ago, so we are helping him. He´s really awesome. We got to know him and he got to know us and we had a good old time. He wants to do a tour of the whole mission next week… and that´s going to be very interesting just because of how massive the mission is. I've requested his flights to Pucallpa and to Tarapoto and we are just waiting now for the approval from Lima. I´m super excited to be working with him, he seems great, and I´m excited to learn from him.
That was pretty much my week, let me know if you have any exciting things going on or if you have any questions for me. Hasta la próxima! Les amo!
-Elder Neves
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