Our first Mission Tour

Each year, each Mission is to be visited by a General Authority of the Church.  For whatever reason, our first visit was not scheduled until the last two weeks, well in to our second year.  If the truth were known, that was OK by me.  However, the tour of our Mission turned out to be uplifting, inspiring and instructive.
Elder Juan Uceda, the President of the South America Northwest Area in which our Mission is found, is from Lima, Peru, and served as a mission president during very troubled times in the country, and at a young age.  His wife also served a mission when she was younger, and they married soon thereafter.
By the way, I'm the bald guy who doesn't look as Latin.

The tour of the Mission included three conferences during which all of the missionaries had a chance to learn from Elder Uceda, as well as meetings with all of the local leaders of the Church in the Mission.

We traveled to Huancavelica, one of the more isolated cities of the Mission, and one of the very, very few that the Ucedas had not visited in the past in their various Church duties.

We also traveled to the jungle, and introduced them to our new favorite hotel, quiet, with it's own private jungle.  It was a nice brief respite on the busy tour.

During the conferences, several missionaries commented that I looked stressed.  I pointed out that it was because I was stressed.  

Again, this was a wonderful (though stressful - did I mention that?) experience, and all of us learned from President Uceda's good counsel.  As we approached the airport in Jauja to see them off to Lima, Sister Uceda laughed and said, "It's like grandkids - it's great to seem them arrive, and..."

We hope that you have such opportunities to learn from good men and women.

David & Paula