Meeting the Motts

Thursday morning I was at home until 11am, when I went to the mission office to help Sorella Thacker with some Excel and Windows shortcuts. She is doing very well but feels inadequate as she comes up to speed on a big new job, so I just told her how wonderful she is. We will have them and the Balzottis come help us at our Thanksgiving dinner on November 30th (a week late because next week is too full, and nobody here really knows when Thanksgiving is anyway 😀). From there I went straight in to the Institute. Finally I know the way to drive downtown from the office, which is different than leaving from our apartment. Dee had yet another dentist appointment for her implant, so she stayed home a little longer and went there on the bus, then joined me at the campus just after 4pm.

When I got to the Institute, I emptied the trash, which was full from the big night before. We rarely have to empty it ourselves, since our cleaning serving comes twice a week, but when there is an extra activity we need to do it. I cleaned up, put away the chicha morada drink into the fridge, which barely has room. Then I spent much of the afternoon working on lesson prep for Friday. My Sunday School lesson prep will have to wait for Saturday. About 5pm I went down and picked up my two new suits, trying on the pants to make sure they got the hem right. Gino also gave me a very nice tie for free.

Meanwhile, Dee made a carrot cake for the English students, expecting that several of the nonmember kids from dinner the night before would show up. Sure enough, Katerina and Samira (a cousin and a friend of Almendra) came and seemed to enjoy the class, along with several of our GANS. They asked if they could invite their friends next time, to which of course we said yes! The carrot cake was very popular -- everyone had two pieces.  Linda Di Martino, our nonmember gal from Battipaglia here for school, also dropped by for a visit and was happy to help us polish off the crack chicken from last week. Almendra finished making the chicha morada which we never got to enjoy the night before, adding  the lemon and sugar. It is a drink made from cinnamon, anise, and black corn, very popular in Peru. We all had some and it tasted great! I like Peru a lot more now than a few days before. 😉

Linda, Jomar, and Anziano Mansell with carrot cake

Ylenia and Dmitri

Almendra at work on the Chicha Morada

 

Tasting chicha morada

  

After we got home, at 10pm we had an hour-long Skype video call with the Motts, the couple called to replace us here in March. He served a mission in Rome from 1973-75, right before Dee arrived here. They will be wonderful! We answered a bunch of questions and told them a bit about our daily and weekly routines as well as our apartment, with them taking notes. There is still a lot of info we want to share with them, and we will write up a list to send to them soon. It was late when we finally got to sleep, and the next morning would be early, but we were thrilled to have met with them and know that the Institute will be in good hands.