Arriving in Lima: The Lima Temple (July 23, 2010)

This was a day to enjoy some time at the Lima Temple, here Maralea and David with Hermana Gladys

The flight that took us from Chiclayo to Lima - out of David's mission, a bittersweet event

            Despite the fact that we all set our cell phones were set to go off at 4:30 a.m., I was up at 4:20 a.m.  I dreamed that we slept through the alarms and awoke at 7:00 a.m., having missed our flight to Lima.  So, I was waking up every 20 or so minutes to make sure we did not oversleep.  I may as well have stayed up all night and actually gotten something done.  Anyway, we scurried about and got packed and downstairs in the lobby by 5:10 a.m.  After a short snack, we boarded the shuttle for the airport.  David’s bags are pretty heavy and we wondered if we would get hit with an added fee.  We did: $48.00.  Oh well.  We boarded the plane by exiting the terminal, walking outside and entering the plane from the back.  As the plane left the runway, David was seated by the window staring at the homes near the airport.  That is the area where he lived while serving here and he pointed out his former apartment to us, located near the Parra home.  I recalled hearing a plane fly overhead last night at around 10:00 p.m.  Flights are far and few between there, perhaps four or five a day.  I suppose David may wonder whether he will ever return to Piura, Chiclayo or Chachapoyas, Peru.  Time will tell.  But, I am sure he glad he came - we all are.

Desert area just north of Chiclayo - yikes

Area of Chiclayo where David served

            It was not easy to sleep on the plane.  We were tired and would loved to have just checked into our hotel and crashed.  We were met at the airport by Hermana Gladys, mother to my nephew Matthew Kelly’s wife, Erika.  She was present with her daughter, Rocio.  Neither speak English.  Hermana Gladys called Matthew on her phone and handed it to me without identifying who was on the other line.  She just put the phone to my ear, nodded her head, and said: “You, push this, speak.”  We went through that a couple times before I finally figured out that there was actually someone on the other line.  We had been talking as a group about some flight issues we were having and I initially thought that Hermana Gladys had called someone from Star Peru.  (That really was not a reasonable thought since she did not know what we had been talking about due to the language barrier.)  Matthew said: “So, I hear you are having some problems with your trip.”  I still did not know it was Matthew.  Hermana Gladys did not introduce him.  We exchanged a couple sentences before I realized who was on the other line.  At that point, we then talked a lot.  We got our bags together and walked to our hotel, located at the airport just across from check in.  Matthew stayed on the line as we continued our conversation, and I eventually handed the phone over to David.  In fact, we stayed on the phone with Matthew until we arrived at his mother-in-law’s home about . . . 45 minutes later.  David had him on speaker phone.  Matthew spoke freely about his in-laws in English, confident they had no idea what he was saying.  They did not.  It was actually quite funny.  Matthew, David and Erika will have so much in common with their Peruvian connection.  That was pretty cool.  Erika got on the phone and spoke with David in Spanish.  She has quite the sense of humor.  We said goodbye to Matthew and Erika as we exited the taxi to enter the home of Hermana Gladys, where we enjoyed some breakfast.  After about an hour, we left for the Lima Temple.

Maralea and Hermana Gladys at the Lima airport

            I thought driving in Chachapoyas, Piura and Chiclayo was crazy, but those places have nothing on Lima.  Wow.  I sat in the front passenger seat in our small car, with four in the back.  (Six people squished into a four seater is not unusual.)  I was so fatigued from just a couple hours sleep.  I kept dozing off - which was a blessing because staying awake meant fretting over each near miss.  Our driver, Freddy, was very good.  He is LDS, served a mission in the Peru Lima East Mission, and had on Church music (a nice change from other taxis).  But, it is a “dog eat dog” world out there on the streets where the timid, courteous drivers get left behind.  Freddy was not timid.  The aggressive driving is just the way everyone drives.  Period.  They turn three lanes into five, cut in and out of traffic, and it did not matter if it was taxi vs. semi - the driving was aggressive.  That was the biggest difference in Lima: the number of larger vehicles that could have squashed us.  I can live with taxi on taxi aggression, but the taxi on really big vehicle stuff was more of a challenge for me.  Still, we made it to the Lima Temple safely.

A little parade just outside the home of Hermana Gladys in Lima

            Hermano Jorge had told us in Chiclayo that they no longer allow photographs to be taken directly in front of the Lima Temple.  I figured that was just folklore.  Sure enough . . . as we were taking some photos right at the front we were asked to move away.  I suspect it is because there is really not much room there to do that and you block the front door, because we took photographs around all other areas of the temple with no problem.  Anyway, David and Hermana Gladys had become pretty good friends during the trip to the Lima Temple, talking non-stop in Spanish.  They were talking and laughing as Maralea and I tried to sleep.  I could see how David became so close to people here - he is a good listener and loves to talk with others.  I stuck by David’s side within the Lima Temple - as I was anxious about my inability to speak Spanish.  It was David’s first time in the temple since leaving the MTC in Lima in September 2008.  We had lunch in the cafeteria on the temple grounds - where we had the Peruvian dish: Tallarin Verdes (another dish I like to order from Mi Peru in Henderson).  It was really good!

David and Hermana Gladys talked non-stop!  They got along great.

At the Lima Temple

Opposite end of the temple from the picture above

            We arrived back at our hotel in the late afternoon.  I was hoping for a nap, but it was not to be.  Still, it was nice to just hang out in our suite, which was pretty nice.  It had one of the biggest jacuzzi bathtubs I have ever seen.  Sweet.  David and Maralea went to dinner without me.  I was fine just lounging, catching up on some personal writing time.  I received a phone call to the room by a guy who responded to my “Hello” with: “Hey dude, what’s up?”  I said: “Oh, are you calling for David?  This is his father.”  The person on the other end of the line seemed a bit startled.  It was Eddy Matchacuay, one of David’s missionary companions who had met us at the airport earlier in the day upon our arrival on his way to work.  We had invited him to come over to the hotel after work.  He said he was downstairs, that he had called David but David did not answer his cell phone.  That is because David did not have his cell phone, but left it in the room.  So, I went downstairs to meet Eddy, who speaks very little English.  I said Maralea and David were eating somewhere.  I did not know where.  As it turns out, they were sitting at a table at a restaurant just outside the hotel lobby, about 30-40 feet away, where they were even in sight of us through a window.  But, it never occurred to me to look there, so Eddy and I went to the airport terminal to check out all the fast food restaurants there.  With no luck in our search, we went up to our suite to visit and just wait.  David and Maralea arrived about 10 minutes later.  It was funny to learn we were so close, yet so far from finding them earlier. I took Eddy and David back to the same restaurant to get Eddy some dinner.  Maralea stayed in the room, working to get us organized for the next day. I sat at the table with them, writing on my computer, as David and Eddy just went on and on speaking in Spanish.  They are clearly very close friends.  Eddy had told me earlier that David was “one of my very favorite companions.”  David was telling him stories and showing him some funny things on You Tube I had introduced him to earlier in the day.  I would say something like: “Oh David, tell him about [fill in the blank here].”  David would laugh and tell the story, continuing to laugh.  He spoke with such animation and Eddy was just laughing with him all the way.  That went on for about an hour before we said our goodbyes.  Eddy, like all the other missionaries and former missionaries we met here, was so incredibly friendly, respectful, kind, gracious, and mucho likeable.  Eddy said he works for the LDS Church in the Perpetual Education Program.  He said he is aware of David Robertson, the new controller in this part of the area for the LDS Church who just moved his family to Lima - and promised to say hello.

David's former companion, Eddy Matchucuay, met us at the Lima airport on his way to work

            Our plans for an early evening retirement went kaboom.  I think that just is not really in the cards for us.  I was intent on wanting to enjoy the room a bit and just relax.  (Sleeping is apparently no relaxing enough for me.)  I tried to update the family on our adventures here, but that will have to come later.  Finally with bags all re-packed, organized, ready for Cuzco and the jungle, cell phone alarms set, we got to bed at about midnight.