We hit our one-month mark last Tuesday (April 16th) - one month in Bolivia, that is (almost two since we left home.)  I am happy to report that the altitude sickness has pretty much stopped - praise the Lord!  Life looks a whole lot more manageable now.

Monday evening - the 15th - we had a Family Home Evening activity for all the temple missionaries at the Cochabamba Mission Home.  President and Sister Dyer (mission president and wife) join our activities as often as they can and were kind enough to host this one, which was a game night (so we really needed their home.)  It was called "Temple Missionary Olympiad" but thankfully (since many of us are NOT athletes), it was more for fun than for athletic excellence. 

We had three events:  a water balloon toss, ping pong, and basketball.  Each missionary couple was a "team" and had to figure out some sort of costume to indicate their "team status".  Here are pictures of some of the couples so you can see what they did for their costumes.  

First, our friends Bill and Linda Johnson, from a little town north of Spokane, Washington.  The insignia on their shirts is/are stickers from "Blueberry's" - the frozen yogurt shop I mentioned in an earlier blog, of which Bill and Linda are devotees. 

Second, Bob and Tammy Cardon, from near Oklahoma City.  They were in charge of this activity and did an outstanding job of planning and executing it.  You should have seen the charts he had worked up (they looked like "Final Four" or "March Madness".)



Lloyd and Christy Bradshaw were by far the most professional-looking, and they won the basketball competition so these exercise suits aren't just for looks. 

This couple are the jokesters of our group:  Diana and Lynn Crayk.  (He is the temple president's younger brother.)  Can you see the MTC tags hanging around their necks?  And his shirt tail was out the entire night.

 

 

Elder and Sister Eames were "The Eames Eagles" - those are eagles (of sorts) on their heads as well as on their backs.

Personally, I thought President and Sister Norman had the most clever idea of all.  Look closely!  They took a pair of pajama pants and cut them in half, then pinned one half to his right leg and the other half to her left leg, so when they stood close together like this, they matched.  Who would have thought of this?  Not me! 

We love President and Sister Dyer.  Their concession to costume was the matching ties.  He reminds us very much of our wonderful mission president in Ecuador, Bill Johns - the same humble, loving, kind, spiritual person.  The missionaries in this mission are lucky to have the Dyers!

We got a lot of praise for our "costume", which was entirely Farron's idea.  Pretty good, hm?

Here's a picture of one of the ping-pong matches.  The Hursts (on the left) are from Bonners Ferry, Idaho - very near my family's home in Montana.  On the right are our temple president, Lee Crayk and his wife, Connie.  (They won at ping-pong and they won the balloon toss, too.)

We had the balloon toss outside in the street that runs along side the mission home.  Before we actually threw water balloons, we practiced with eggs!  The first time Farron threw the egg to me it hit my ring (which had slipped around so the stone was on the inside) and broke in my hand.  Yuck!

You can see why we needed to use the mission home.  They have a ping-pong table AND a small basketball court.  So many of us were so bad at basketball that it took way too long, but eventually we got a winner (the Bradshaws, as noted above.)

 

Actually the whole evening was planned as a farewell activity for these two couples, who left the next day.  The Bradshaws went back to Utah and the Delgados went back to Chile.  The Delgados are applying to serve another temple mission here, though, and we hope to see them again in a few months. 

 

  

I should have put this picture with the others at the beginning but it didn't load when it was supposed to.  This is Elder and Sister Vallenas from Chile.  They are the quietest and most retiring of the Latin couples, but very sweet. 

 

I suspect these social functions are as hard for Sister Vallenas as they are for me.  We have not had this much social activity in our life EVER.  I don't know if all temple missions are like this, but here the President really encourages social interaction in our free time.  I'm sure it will be good for both of us, but it takes a little getting used to.

We finished the evening with banana splits, by the way, but with a twist:  they baked the bananas in foil on the BBQ first!  Isn't that unusual?  Actually, I love fried bananas.  They don't taste anything like over-ripe bananas (as I expected at first) and these baked ones tasted like fried except softer because they cooked longer.  I really liked the hot banana under the cold ice cream.  It really was a surprising and delicious change of pace.  Maybe when we get home I'll try it out on the family and see what they think - a South American spin on a very-North American dessert.

In the last two weeks, we've had four missionary couples leave so we are very busy now trying to get everything done each day at the temple without them.   I'm glad we're feeling so much better and can really give 100%. 

 

That's all for this week . . . que vayan con Dios!