Week in Review - May 22, 2016 - May 28, 2016

Well, usually I have stories for you guys each week of how we, (and here in the office) adapt to normal missionary life here in Perú, with Local Customs, Traditions, and Gringo Personalities react with each other in harmony.  So, with that little introduction, I will present the following.

They have been working on our office nonstop for the last 2 weeks now.  Finally finished with the painting, both interior and exterior we are ready to move on.  Carpet tiles.  Yea!  I had 72 carpet tiles 1m x 1m dropped off yesterday to the office, and bright and early Monday morning they will be installing (with our help) at 6AM, starting by removing EVERYTHING we own from the office, then quickly installing the carpet tiles one by one until we are done.  I'm not sure yet how the weird Blue Carpet will go with the new Yellow Walls, but we shall see.  

Next door, they have been continuing on building that monster of a building, leaving nothing behind.  As you can see in the far out picture, progress seems normal on this building. Until you zoom in a bit.  And see what is really happening.  Toothpicks holding up the building that is currently drying (Those aren't screwed or mounted, simply put as sticks to hold up the roof) and men standing on 2x4´s  while installing new rebar at that height.  I seem to remember a story of New York when they experimented with Brick Buildings at these heights, and how after a certain number of floors, the base floors began to give out. Hmmm... Well....

The house.  Oh my.  I thought I could escape all of this and come home, and you know - take a good poop (Sorry mom, but it is necessary for the story) - Well I was wrong yet again! As shown in the pictures, they are working on our street, working on installing a new one, which means new Sewage lines and water lines need to be installed (There are no underground gas lines or Electricity Lines, so no problem).  Well, I think we missed a community meeting or something, because they disconnected our Sewer (Without us knowing) and suddenly we noticed all of our Houses Waste (7 Elders, and kitchen waste)  in the street. Yum.  Truthfully, we thought that there was just a leak, I didn't have time to look at it in great detail, until the evening. 

Well, in the evening we get home, and begin doing normal cleaning in the Kitchen to prepare for the next day.  We turn on the water in the kitchen sink.  Mistake #1.  After turning that on, we hear a large flow of water in another section of the house.  We head on over, and find out that our reserve tank of water that is underground (off, but functional, we have yet to activate that additional tank of water, good thing too!)  is filling up with our waste that the house has been producing!  NO!  Our poop water, kitchen sink water, etc, has begun filling that tank below the house!  But how!?  We thought that our pipe that was leaking would at least send it to the street, not back into the house.  Well, what happened was the following.  I have attached a picture of a pipe filled in with cement.  

Yup, that is our sewer line.  They filled it.  So, all of our waste has been building up in our house, until it found its way into an unknown emergency line in the house - the same emergency line that the underground emergency water tank uses if it overfills with water. Great.  So, thanks to that we have shut off our water to our house and deemed it a dry zone. Nothing.  And I asked how long, and in Peruvian time (oh no!) they said a few days... That's not good.  I'm worried. So, once we get this all figured out, we get to go into the underground tank and start cleaning that lovely thing up too!  And, in the meantime, all of our poor little stomachs at 6:15 AM need to use the bathroom. So what do we do?  Well, here in Perú there are many little hotels all over the place (very convenient for those who wish to break the law of chastity) but also convenient for us that need a bathroom to shower and poop.  So, we pay the guy rent for a room basically just so we can do that.  Ugh.  The things I have to do here to poop!  

This last P-day we went over to Concepcion and decided to climb the little mount where the Peruvian Version of the Statue of Liberty is.  Her name is, the Conception Virgin.  Oh how lovely.  Like the Statue of Liberty, you to can climb up inside her body to her majestic crown, of which you can get a beautiful view of the valley.  Warning!  This statue is NOT a cement or copper statue.  Following tradition, it is a mud Statue created in the early 2000´s.  Hmm... Along the way we went past a few Statues that represent the war between Chile and Perú and the victories that were had here in the Concepcion valley.  

Outside of that, I have been working on Immigrations like a madman. So many things to do in the next few weeks, and so little time.  But, today we are going to escape and climb another mountain.  Hope you guys like those pictures!

Love you all!
-Elder Holmes
Misión Perú Huancayo