(Almost) My Last Peru Post

These are the last to post of my own pictures that I took in Peru, but I will make one more post about the Catacombs when I can. These pictures are from the same day as the changing of the guard. We walked from there down to tour a Monastery. The Catacombs were underneath the Monastery; it was all one tour. I mentioned before that I couldn't take pics in the Catacombs without getting in trouble, so I don't have any of my own. Sigh!

 My tourist pose

 Policia!

 Creepy faces/heads seemed to be in a lot of the artwork on the older buildings

 Miranda-Panda! ;)

 Interesting building along our walk

 The Monastery. If you look closely, you can see tons of birds in the crevices of the walls. These pigeons were EVERYWHERE!

 Weird statue in the window... It's so sad the things that are idolized that have absolutely no power to save somebody. There is only One God, and His name is Jesus!!

 Another tourist pose

 We called this color mountain. :) They looked brighter in person...pardon the fogginess!

 We also toured Museo del Congreso y de la Inquisicion. Inside were the actual torture chambers where they killed people who stood up for their faith. Amazing...
I will spare the pictures of the mock people being tortured. It's horrible to think that this actually happened. Also, there are tunnels leading from the torture chamber to the Catacombs under the Monastery... And they try and say that those are all people buried there that were rich or that served in that church; Yeah right! Those, I believe, were many people who stood up for what they believed in.

 The girls and I, from L to R: Miranda, Trinity, Me, and Bell.

 Zach being a weirdo in the back, and us trying to look normal. lol

 While we were in line for the museum, a sweet little birdy so lovingly decided to 'grace' Elder Nix's jacket sleeve. Eww. I offered to wipe it off for him with a tissue, but it just kind of...smeared. :( It came out later, though. lol

 Part of the museum

 Mom the explorer! lol

 Me getting a drink! Trinity was like, "Hey, don't drink it all!!" lol jk....

 An 'Anali' wall.

 This is the last church service we went to! We didn't even plan this one, but the pastor wanted us to come, so we were glad to go! This church was in "Gloria Alta, (High Glory) which was actually an area which was pretty poor. Saw more stray dogs, mud, etc.
Funny story:
On the way to this church we were in some crazy traffic. Elder Nix honked the horn to try and get through, and it got stuck! This long "Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!" that seemed it would never end. Needless to say, people got out of our way! lol We laughed about it, but as soon as we had pulled up to the church, the horn went off suddenly by itself! The guys were going crazy trying to get it to stop. People started coming out of the church and looking to see what in the world was going on. It finally stopped, and we got inside. Then, the horn went off again during pre-service prayer. lol I really think God wanted to do something in this service, because from the moment we got there, opposition seemed to be present! During prayer, the chill of a fever seemed to take over my body.

 They had all of our young people come up, and Elder Nix introduced us to the church. Then he had us come up again and sing. Through all of this, I was feeling pretty awful. My dad got up to preach, and Bro. Keith Nix interpreted as usual. During the preaching, Bro. Keith Nix later told us that he suddenly lost his strength. My dad also said he felt like he was preaching through quick sand. It seemed one thing after another; But you know what? We had a great altar service, and those sweet people prayed so hard. Elder Nix said he had never seen them pray that hard before. Thank God for His help!

 This was a group of people that sang together in their language. I believe it was some type of mountain dialect. They were so cute!

 Pic from the museum, out of order.

 Elder Nix and Pastor Soto, Pastor of the church in Gloria Alta. This man is an amazing man; people will have to stand next to this faithful man in judgement. We really have no excuse not to give our best! Bro. Soto is pastoring at 84 years old. His wife is terminally ill, and he takes care of her. Every service he takes buses and taxis, with a ride of about 2 and a half hours one way. He doesn't complain, and he is faithful. He has great love and respect for Elder Nix, and has such a good spirit! What excuse do we have to not give our best?

 Dad preaching

 The guys at the house towards the end of the trip.

 Last tourist pose. lol

Us girls!

 

I was supposed to fly home with my parents, as they had already bought my ticket home with them. The rest were flying standby. I got sick, so I ended up staying and missing my flight. I almost tried to go with my parents, but felt like I couldn't chance such a long flight being that sick. So I stayed back with the rest, and left the next night via standby! We all made it on the flight! God really worked a series of miracles. There were multiple employees that even broke rules and made exceptions for us. I remember praying and asking God to work everything out with the standby seating, and He did. It was like he booted people out of the way for us, opened up the seats, everything... I know it was Him!

We all flew from Lima to Houston, TX. Then I left the group and flew to Phoenix, and then from Phoenix to San Francisco.

HOME!

We made it back!

I am glad to be back, but I do think of Peru often, and hope to return someday for another visit if God allows.