Milestones, the Lima Peru Temple, and Joseph Smith

We mark the end and passing of 2011 in Lima Peru as temple missionaries.  We are more than a week now passed Christmas, the Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, and about to enter 2012. The year has gone by quickly as we count down the remaining months until we will leave the work each day, the good friends, this beautiful and incredible land, and return home to Utah. The hardest part for both of us is missing friends, family, and especially the grandkids.  Video chats via FaceTime and Skype bring them closer as compared to prior generations of missionaries using only a telephone or written letters. We are grateful for that.

Christmas 2011 at the Lima Temple

This morning we are off to visit our friend Cesar going to a special market area in old Lima known as La Parada. Cesar has taken us there before and we have found it fascinating. No watches, wallets or cameras in sight are recommended and we don't go there in the evening either. It is at the opposite end of the spectrum from upscale Jockey Plaza filled with its stores and glitz that make it indistinguishable from any other mall in America or Europe.  Our goal today is to find a number of fruits and vegetables that are grown in Peru and sold at this market, including a few different kinds of potatoes or papas that we have not enjoyed before. Also on the list are foods that originated in this hemisphere but have spread elsewhere throughout the world and remarkably did so Pre-Colombian or European.  That is to say, quite an astonishing number of Andean and South American food stuffs and other items traversed both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans prior to the arrival of Spanish, Portuguese conquerers, and English explorers. Multiple tests with gas chromatographic spectroscopic analysis done in European labs have found Peruvian coca or cocaine as well as new world tobacco in the tissues and bones of 3,000 year old Egyptian mummies. The list of goods and items both originating in Peru and arriving here from Asia is significant and merits a post for another day. We'll see how many items we can find in La Parada of things that traversed the ancient world prior to the coming of the Europeans.

This blog site has reached a milestone in recent days in closing out the year having passed more than 10,000 visits since it was launched some 14 months ago. The topics have been, for the most part, narrowly focused on our travels, our life in Peru, and of course the food we enjoy. All of this being outside of the experiences of working in the Lima Temple. Properly so, the things that transpire that RuthAnn and I have shared in that special place remain there and are not to be published here. They remain private to us and are special. They are hidden away in the places of the heart and our souls.

The most widely searched and visited post on the blog is about food. It is clearly the single most searched after topic of anything we have written about or experienced. It is about cebiche, that unique uncooked but processed with a marinade fish I have come to enjoy so very much. Cebiche is also on our weekend schedule to share with our friends the Ramos on Monday. They too are nearing a milestone in their two years as missionaries in the Lima Temple.  When the temple closes again for maintenance in February they will return to their home in Arequipa. We will miss these very good and wonderful friends.

Absent from this blog in 14 months has been any statement or expression on my part about my feelings and thoughts concerning faith and the religious experience that ultimately is the basis and reason we are here and not home enjoying our family and grandchildren among other pursuits. It is therefore appropriate and overdue that I should write several lines to close out this blog for 2011.  Joseph Smith, as much as any man in American history, has been investigated, written about, praised by those who admire him, and maligned by those who oppose him for what he did and has come to represent. I believe he deserves a few lines here based on my personal respect and admiration. No, he was not perfect.  In so many ways he has been found wanting in the court of critical opinion in political or social correctness. But he was perfect, and I am eternally appreciative for him, in his giving it his all -- all that he had and cherished, for his sacrifice to the cause of faith and laying the foundation of this great Latter Day Saint work. I make no apology for him, as he needs none, and I make no apology for my love and belief in him and all that he did and accomplished.  Few people I have associated with, on a non professional historian level at least, over the decades have read more or studied about our history in critical ways than I. Family traditions and stories have been handed down creating a personal link to him through a grandmother in Nauvoo. Some have left the Church over related issues such as ours and lesser matters. My personal court of opinion has weighed all of the information, good and ill. Everything that I have read from and about our history, both within and without, at year's end I raise my voice in respect, love, and 'Praise for the Man.'

With love and affection too, for family and friends with whom we share these things -- We thank you for all that you mean to us, your support, and with anticipation look forward to renewing friendship and association once again.

And here's to you Brother Joseph: http://youtu.be/k5id63Twddk -- a link to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square performing their "Praise to the Man."