At the base of the Huascaran Mountain lies a little town named Caraz.
It is about an hour and a half drive from Huaraz.
This city has about 20,000 people living there,
and two of them are our missionaries...
Elder Cottle and Elder Mendoza.
It is a very traditional mountain town in Perú...
with the traditional clothing and way of life.
But the most famous resident in Caraz is Mama Yuyu.
She is one of our pensionistas
to our missionaries.
And she is known all over the Church here in Perú.
She has been feeding missionaries for 30 years in October...
that was when she was baptized.
That is as long as President Turk and I have been married.
The most amazing thing is that she remembers all of the missionaries
and where they are from and everything about them.
She is not married and her children live in Lima.
The missionaries are her life.
President Turk had the opportunity while we were in Huaraz
to drive to Caraz and meet her.
She was so surprised and excited to see him.
She is so interesting to talk to. She has great stories.
She knows all about Yungay, the city right next to Caraz
that was destroyed by the earthquake in 1970.
A huge mudslide covered the whole town of Yungay
and killed about 20,000 people.
There were only 99 that survived.
And she was there at that time and knows the survivors and the stories.
I need to do a whole blogpost on Yungay.
It is an interesting place. We have Elders there too
One of Mama Yuyu's favorite Elders was the one that she called King Baby
"Rey Bebé"
And that was Elder Retamal that has just returned home to Chile
She has sweet nicknames for all her Elders.
She loves and adores each one.
She really treats them as her own children.
All of our missionaries want to be transferred to Caraz
to be with Mama Yuyu.
We are forever grateful for Mama Yuyu and her dedication
and love for the missionaries and the missionary work.
Thank you is just not enough... We love you Mama Yuyu!
PS - While I was reading up on Caraz on the internet, I found out that
her Sister City Internationally is Mesa, Arizona,
where I am from... Now I have even more of a love
for Caraz Perú!
