Trip to Trujillo

The Perks of Being a Senior Missionary

On December 26th we headed to the Lima airport for a short flight to Trujillo. And yes we had permission to leave the mission. In fact President Amato encouraged it. (Plus there wasn't much going on during the holidays.)

We landed at a small airport (compare it to Ogden). We took a taxi to the Trujillo Temple.

Trujillo Temple

Thor enjoying the grounds of the Temple

The Trujillo Temple is a beautiful temple. The grounds surrounding it are really amazing and filled with different plants and flowers. We were able to stroll around the grounds for a while. We met some really nice temple workers and temple missionaries when we went inside.

Outside the entryway to the Temple

Trujillo Temple

After the Temple we headed to downtown Trujillo to meet with the owner of the Airbnb that we stayed in. It was a very cosy apartment. We are definitely very spoiled with our apartment in La Molina!

We headed down to the main square. It was filled with people and Christmas trees of all shapes and sizes. We were able to go in the main cathedral. It was open for Christmas mass. It had really pretty murals on the ceiling.  Everywhere we went there were manger scenes. When we went back to the square at night it was all lighted up.

Cathedral on the Main Square

Murals on the ceiling of the Cathedral

View of the main square in Trujillo

The view at night

On the 27th we went to the ruins of Chan Chan. These ruins cover an immense area. Our guide was very knowledgeable (It was in Spanish, so I only got bits and pieces.) Chan Chan was a large city in the Chimu civilization. We were in a small tour group with Diana and Idelso. We spent much of the rest of the day with them as we went to several other ruins and then to the beach. We had lunch with Diana and Idelso. It was some very yummy cerviche. Then we parted ways and we spent the afternoon watching the waves, the pelicans, the surfers, and the boaters.

Chan Chan --The people did a lot of their relief work in Fish, Birds and Nets

Chan Chan--the honeycomb represents nets

This was larger than an Olympic swimming pool-- where they had their water storage.

Notice the size of the walls at Chan Chan

Huaca de Arco Iris--Can you see the rainbow?

Our new amigos--Idelso and Diana at beachside cafe in Huanchaco

The beach at Huanchaco

The next day we headed out to Huaca de la Luna or Temple of the Moon. This is the main religious temple of the Moche people. We had an English speaking guide named Ricardo. It was interesting to learn all the grisly details of human sacrifice in the Moche culture.

Huaca de la Luna--the Moches

Painted murals at Huaca de la Luna

A large area with many different murals on different levels--Huaca de la Luna

In the afternoon we wandered through downtown streets. We finally made our way to the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo where it has one of the longest mosaic murals in the world. They used 30,000,000 1 cm x 1 cm for this project. It covers the walls on two really long blocks. We loved the brightly colored murals depicting the history of Peru. 

Mosaic at the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo

This mosaic show the beach town of Huanchaco

Sunday we went to a church that wasn't too far from where our apartment was. We then revisited the main square and took some diversions to look at old churches.

Monday, the 30th was another plane ride back to Lima.

Old church in Trujillo

Happy New Year

We spent the night playing games with three other senior missionary couples on New Years' Eve.

With the Pratts, Michelsons, and Grahams

When it was midnight we went up on the roof of our apartment building. Then the fun began. There were so many fireworks going off all over the area. We could also see sky lanterns floating up in the sky (think of the movie Tangled). It was really noisy and then it got really smoky. After it got smoky it was difficult to see the fireworks that were in the distance. This lasted at least 30-45 minutes.

Back to Work

We had two trainings this week. One on Tuesday for the Doce Semanas group. Translated that means the missionaries have been here twelve weeks. They have completed their missionary training which includes reading the Book of Mormon. 

Graduates of Doce Semanas

The second training was  on Friday. We traveled to the Lima Peru Central Mission. Their mission office is in downtown Lima in the San Isidro area. Thor and Brother Miguel Serrano did their first vocational training for the missionaries in that mission. 

Lima Peru Central Mission with their first vocational training.
Sister Strong, mission president's wife is on the left.

Plants of Peru

We found these lovely trees in Trujillo.

We noticed that they didn't have fences around their neighborhood parks in Trujillo.
There are fences around most of our parks in La Molina.

Random Photo of the Week

Picture takers of the graduates at doce semanas.
They all have cameras and are clicking!