Well, we made it through our first week in Bolivia.  It was stressful, but I hasten to admit that all the stress was self-imposed.  However, I have faith that things will get better - and I'll get better at finding my way around this BIG beautiful temple, better at fulfilling my various responsibilities, and better at speaking Spanish.  So in the meantime, here are a few more notes and pictures . . . . (remember you can double-click on the pictures and they will come up full-screen size.)

First, I wanted to give you a little better idea how BIG the temple grounds are.  Six acres is hard to visualize, but here's a picture taken from across the street that may help.  The white building on the left (with the pink roof) is the Temple President's home.  In the center is the BIG hospedaje where we live - in fact, it's the biggest thing in the picture.  And on the right about halfway down the picture, you can see the temple spire. 

Now here's a picture of the hospedaje itself, so you can see how big it really is.  Our apartment is on the top floor and faces the temple.

Here are a couple of pictures of our apartment.  It's very cool, clean and convenient.  There is NO heating or air conditioning built in - it all works on a "natural climate" system.  When it's hot, you open all the windows and turn on a fan.  When it's cold, we will close all the windows and (probably) move the little space heater they've given us from room to room as we need it.  <smile>  It doesn't get colder than 60 degrees (we hope), but that can be pretty chilly, as we learned in Ecuador.  We have lots of blankets and I brought sweaters, so hopefully we're prepared. 

This is our dining area and the front door on the right.  I am standing with my back to the kitchen.

 

Next, here's the living room.  I am standing with my back to our windows, facing the front door.  There's a couch to my right that matches the two chairs.  A big flat-screen T-V is out of sight to my left.  We haven't turned it on yet <smile> though I hear there's a possibility of getting the "March Madness" games and if so, I think our abstinence from T-V will cease.

A look at our bedroom - I am standing in the doorway with my back to the living room.


And the kitchen . . . small but efficient.  Note the "American" stove - flat electric burners, and an oven with a thermostat.  You can't get much better than that.

There are some things about this mission that are really different from Ecuador – and I think this is the reason we are struggling a little to get acclimatized.  First, there is the location. It is SO high here (almost 9,000 feet) that we are gasping for breath when we climb the stairs to the temple.  We’re thirsty all the time (and yes, we’re drinking water constantly to hydrate), plus we’re tired.  I haven’t had this little energy in a long time and I can only ascribe it to the altitude, which means we should get used to it eventually.   Second, in Ecuador we started right out working with the members, living in an apartment building, and because it was a smaller city and we were living near the city center, we could and did walk everywhere, thus getting our bearings and getting a feel for the place itself.  Here we are of necessity insulated from the city proper – plus the temple is in one of the nicer residential areas rather than near city center – and because we are so unsure of ourselves in so many aspects (learning our responsibilities, my weakness in Spanish, etc.), we aren’t pushing the ticket to get out and see what’s here and interact with the people so that we will begin to feel at home.  (Plus, anywhere we walk is going to be downhill, which means a tough uphill climb coming back, so we’re not making that effort yet.)  Third, in Ecuador we knew how to do what we were called to do – work with the members, help the branch and district leadership, help the missionaries teach occasionally.  Here, we are learning something totally new – like changing employment and learning a new job - and in a foreign country at that – and we all know how unsettling such things can be! 

So . . . as of yet, we really haven’t recovered our equilibrium physically or mentally, but it will come.  We know we are where the Lord wants us to be.  We know, and have a deep conviction of, the beauty and eternal significance of the temple ordinances.  The temple really IS the Lord’s house, so what better place to be?  I’ll just be a whole lot more relaxed and able to appreciate it after I have learned my way around AND learned all I need to know in order to function effectively and efficiently.

 

Lastly, to end on a positive note, here's a picture of us ready to go and serve in the House of the Lord.  I accidentally included both pictures and can't figure out how to remove one, so . . . sorry for the redundancy.

 

Until next week, vayan con Dios . . .

 

Okay, here we are.  We got up at 3:30 a.m. (at the MTC) on Friday, March 15th to get ready for an 8:15 flight out of Salt Lake City.  By the time we got to Cochabamba on Saturday, March 16th, we had been traveling about 39 hours and by the time we got to bed that night, we had been up 42 hours with hardly any sleep (maybe 2 hours on the night flight from Miami to La Paz.)  Thank goodness that trip is OVER and I don't have to think about it again for 18 months!

Here are a couple of shots from the plane on the last stage of our journey (from Santa Cruz, Bolivia - which is lower and - at this time of year - hotter than here - to Cochabamba).  You can see, I hope, how rugged the Andes are, and they are 12,000 feet and higher - but it's literally "high and dry".  This is the rainy season and look how brown the hills are.  The fourth picture is our best shot of the city as we came in for a landing.

We were thrilled to learn that Cochabamba has its own Christus like the one that is so famous in Rio de Janeiro.  We've been told this one is even bigger.  This is just a shot I took from the car as we were driving through Cochabamba to the temple.  Sorry it's so blurry.  One of our first P-day trips will be to taxi and/or climb up there and get some really good shots.

The airport is on the south side of Cochabamba; the temple is on the north, up in the foothills.  The area is called "Queru Queru Alto" (because there is a Queru Queru that is further down in the city.)  The temple grounds cover six acres.  We live in a 3-story (4, if you count the basement) building called in Spanish el hospedaje (literally, "the lodging".)  It is very large.  About 1/3 of the 2nd and 3rd floors are apartments for us temple missionaries.  The other 2/3 of all three floors are lodgings for the people who come here to the temple from all over Bolivia and parts of Peru, Argentina and Chile. I think someone here told me they can sleep 200+ people in those lodgings.  They also have BIG shower/bathrooms and a huge kitchen/dining room with two large cooking areas.  It is actually closer and cheaper for the people in southeastern Peru, northeastern Chile, and northwestern Argentina to travel here to this temple than to any temple in their own countries, although each country has at least one of its own and sometimes more. It appears Bolivia is the least expensive country in South America for travel costs, food, etc.

Anyway, we missionaries have our own big laundry room (on our floor) - 4 washers and 4 dryers - and each couple has a nice 1-bedroom apartment (8 to a floor).  Ours is on the north side of the building (#307) and we have a gorgeous view out our living room and bedroom windows because we are looking straight up the hill at the temple.  Here are some pictures I took Saturday afternoon and evening from our living room window.  Unfortunately, I can't open the windows wide enough to get any bigger shot.

The temple grounds are on a hill, as I think I said. This view above is from the third floor of the hospedaje and I think you can see that the temple is quite a bit higher than we are.  Can you see the flights of steps leading up to it?  When we leave the hospedaje to go up to the temple, we come out some beautiful big double doors on the basement level and there are 7 short flights of stairs to climb to the front door of the temple itself.  This afternoon I went down and took some pictures from that vantage point, which is more of a "straight-on" view.  The first one is from the basement level, right outside the double doors.  You can see how much higher the temple is - and I realize you can't see much of it - but I wanted to get the Bolivian flag flying by the hospedaje.

I went up the first two short flights of stairs and took the next two pictures.  The second one is to give you a wider-angle view of the temple grounds, which are absolutely beautiful.  Keeping up the grounds (with all the trees and flowers AND those in the median in the street beside the temple, which the Church also maintains) gives several church members full-time employment. In fact, it's probably one of the better jobs around here.

 

The only problem is that you can hardly see the Angel Moroni from this far away, but oh well . . . we can't have everything (at least not while I'm taking the pictures.) 

Now that we've had a couple nights' sleep, we are feeling slightly (but only slightly) less overwhelmed.  It simply takes time to get used to such big changes in one's life, and of course I want to be fully adjusted and competent immediately.  By the time I post next week, I hope my nerves (and my stomach) will have settled down and we'll both be almost back to normal.  In the meantime, this beautiful view does much to comfort and strengthen us.

Today was our second day of training at the Provo (Utah) Temple.  The focus (or motto, or mantra, or whatever) is "How can we make the temple experience as uplifting and beautiful for the patrons as possible?"    (Patrons are those persons who come to attend the meetings at the temple.)  In South America and other parts of the world where there are not as many temples as in the United States, coming to worship at the temple may mean an all-night bus ride and a significant sacrifice of work-time and income.  Our goal is to help the patrons feel that every ounce of sacrifice was worth it because their experience at the temple was so spiritual, uplifting and strengthening.

We have fourteen couples in our training group.  We all started at the Missionary Training Center on March 4th and had one week of proselyting training (even though it's highly unlikely any of us will be doing any proselyting.)  Today we gathered after our training session and snagged a friendly passer-by to take our picture.  Here it is:

Sorry I can't make it bigger, but hopefully if you click on it, you will be able to.  Front row, L/R:  Elder and Sister Dominguez, going to the Mexico City Temple; Elder and Sister Bassett (age 80!), going to the Tegucigalpa, Honduras Temple; Elder and Sister Wade, London England Temple; Farron and I; Elder and Sister Gray, Santo Domingo Dominican Republic Temple.  Second row, L/R:  Elder and Sister Day, going to the Tampico Mexico Temple; Elder and Sister Jackson, Palmyra New York Temple; Elder and Sister (Garth and Jean) Morgan (whom we knew for 18 years in the La Verne Stake), going to the Boston Massachusetts Temple; Elder and Sister Crowley, Apia Samoa Temple; Elder and Sister Yorgesen,  Johannesburg South Africa Temple; Elder and Sister McEwan, Washington D.C. Temple; and on the very back row, Elder and Sister Barrus, going to the Papeete Tahiti Temple.    The picture below is just so you can see the Provo Temple itself, behind us.

We are having a lovely time this week, spending most of each day in the House of the Lord.  It is a beautiful, peaceful, uplifting place to be.  We are going to LOVE our mission!!

Today is the last day of our first week of training.  Boy, are we tired!!  It's amazing how exhausting just sitting in classes, preparing for teaching experiences, and participating in those experiences can be.  I think we might not be so tired if we could have gotten outside for exercise, but it's been too cold to do any walking in the evenings after dinner.  Last night we went into the exercise room across the hall from our apartment and spent 15 minutes on the treadmills and 15 minutes on the stationery bikes.  (Compared to some of our super-fit children, that's a laughable amount of exercise, but hey!  It's better than nothing.)

We're supposed to get snow tonight, maybe.  It's very cold today but no precipitation of any kind.  Speaking of snow, here's a picture of the mountains last Saturday.  They really are beautiful, aren't they?  (Even so, I am praying for no more snow while we're here.)

This is a picture of our district at the MTC.  Front row, left to right:  Elder and Sister Meese (pronounced meesey) from Utah, going to Manchester England as MLS missionaries (Member and Leader Support) replacing David Hancock's parents who are on their way home;  Elder and Sister Wade, going to the London England Temple.  Back row, left to right:  Farron and me; Elder and Sister Chatfield from Boston, Massachusetts, going to Portland, Oregon as MLS missionaries.

At last we are here at the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, Utah.   We will be here eleven days.  There are 44 couples and 2 older sisters in our training group.  Interestingly, one of the couples - Elder and Sister Meese - are going to the Manchester England Mission, from which our son-in-law David Hancock's parents are returning later this month.  We are sending good wishes to the Hancocks but I'm afraid the Meeses may get there after the Hancocks have started home.

We had a delightful conversation with this missionary couple outside our room this evening.  Their name is Bassett and they are from Wyoming.  This is their fifth mission - and all have been outside the United States.  They served twice in Tegucigalpa, Honduras - then once in Mexico, once in Costa Rica - and now they are going back for a third time to Tegucigalpa.  It has been 27 years since their first mission and this time, one of the little girls they knew and taught back then will be the translator for whichever member of the Presidency of the Church goes to Tegucigalpa to dedicate the new temple there on March 17th.  This is like going home for them, because they know so many people and have developed such strong bonds of love over the years.  But here's the real eye opener:  they are 80 years old!  Isn't that amazing?  I am so impressed. They are really remarkable and admirable people and I am in awe of their dedication and selflessness.