Five graduate music students from BYU have been down here for a month helping the non-profit Youth Symphony of Cochabamba. The Foundation that runs the symphony and teaching program was unexpectedly unable to provide housing for them after they got here, and President Crayk arranged for them to stay in the temple housing. As a "Thank You" for that, they gave us a mini-concert last night, here at the hospedaje.  It was WONDERFUL!  Here are some pictures.

First, the whole group.  The man on the left is the Director of the Foundation..  His real name is Adolfo Taborga but he goes by the nickname "Fito".  He was kind enough to come and participate in this little concert, bringing his wife Vivian and their son Rafael (who is a member of the Youth Symphony).  The dark-haired lady is also employed by the Foundation but I'm not certain in what capacity.  Her name is Silvia (don't know her surname, sorry) and she is originally from Italy.  She also brought her husband and their two small children (so he ended up out in the hall with them most of the time.  Elena and Esther are about 2 and 4, respectively.)

 

The BYU students are, from left:  Erin Durham (violin) from Utah; John Leavitt (piano) from Colorado; William Vernon (violin) from Utah; Zachary Hansen (viola) from Idaho; and Ben Major (flute AND alto sax) from Utah.

Here is a picture of Erin and Will performing the 2nd movement of Vivaldi's Violin Concerto for 2 Violins.

Here are Will, Erin, Fito and Zach playing a composition by John Leavitt (the pianist), called "Divertimento".

This was REALLY interesting.  They had an exquisite Tschaikovsky piece for string quartet (can't remember the proper identification, but it's very famous - I've heard it many times) and the 4th movement from Dvorak's "America" for string quartet.  However, a string quartet is usually two violins, a viola and a cello - and no one in the group plays the cello - so Ben played the cello part on the alto sax!  If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it.  The sound was beautiful! (although when the piece got really soft, Ben had a hard time - it's very hard to play a sax that softly.)

Just to show you how talented Ben is - the next number was a flute duet with Silvia - also very lovely. 
 

Fito played "Meditation" from Thais by Massenet - one of my all-time favorite pieces of music.  He and I agreed that it is truly celestial music.  John accompanied him and is an amazing pianist.  He reminds me of Shawn (Kirchner) in his intensity, his desire to compose, and his talent.  Of course Shawn is quite a way ahead of him right now, but I could see John becoming like Shawn in another 15-20 years.

At the end, they sang "I Am A Child of God" - and it was beautiful 5-part harmony.  They sang the first verse in Spanish (3 of the 5 served Spanish missions and are fluent), Will sang the second verse in Mandarin and then played a violin obligato while the others sang it in Spanish, and at their invitation we all joined in on the third verse.  It was a lovely ending to a lovely evening.

Obviously that concert last night was the highlight of our week, but there were some other really nice happenings too.  Friday morning we had 6 wedding parties on our shift.  We were running around like crazy (or as near running as you dare do inside the temple) trying to find all the families and friends for each group and get everyone to where they needed to be.  One young husband-to-be (with lamentable but typical Latin timing) arrived so late that his fiance went through her endowment session without him! (The temple president talked to her and asked if she wanted to wait but she said "no".  It would have thrown their entire day - reception, pictures, the works - 90 minutes off schedule.)  The husband-to-be was already endowed so when the session was over we got them together and in the end things worked out.  They are from La Paz.  Both had their parents and other family members in attendance.  Here are a couple of pictures (you'll notice some traditions are the same everywhere.)

President Norman performed the sealing (marriage) ceremony.

Another sweet couple from Santa Cruz were married that same morning (that is - their temple marriage, for eternity.  They had been married civilly for 30 years.)  Usually the older couples don't dress up this much, but she had a proper wedding dress and I thought it was WONDERFUL!

That's all for today, I think.  Have a wonderful week . . . . vayan con Dios!

I have something unusual to share today.  Below is a quote from the blog which the second counselor in our temple presidency, John Norman, writes each week.  I thought this entry was so exciting I just had to share.  (The italicized paragraphs are John speaking.)

Thursday, after our shift at the temple, we met with Brother Luis Garcia, the public affairs director for all of Cochabamba, Brother Meneses, the public affairs director for the Jaihuayco stake and Fito, the director of the Fundacion Sinfonica Cochabamba.  We now have a date for 2 concerts, one on July 31^st in the Universidad stake center and one on August 1^st in the Jaihuayco stake center.  The concerts will feature the Juvenil (Youth) Orchestra from the foundation and the 5 visiting BYU students.  We took on the job of getting a flyer made by next Monday so that President Dyer’s missionaries could distribute 4,000 flyers.  We then met with the BYU students over lunch to bring them up to date. 

Sister Norman and the 5 visiting BYU musicians (they are violinists, cellists, and pianists, but I don't know which is which.)  They are here teaching the youth/children of the Youth Symphony, I believe.

Friday we worked on the flyer and during our afternoon shift, we got the samples back from the printer.  We settled on one and got them in the queue and hopefully they will be done on Monday. 

The finished flyer for the concert.

Isn't that just the coolest thing?!?!  We are still on the morning shift the week of July 31st so we will be able to attend either or both concerts.  I assume the program will be the same for both.  We will probably go to the one at the Jaihuayco Stake Center since that is the stake we attend each Sunday and - since it's on the south side of the city - my feeling is that it might not be as well attended as the one up here (University Stake Center), though what do I know?  With 4,000 flyers going out, we should get an SRO crowd at both concerts.  I am just thrilled!

Now as to other odds and ends of this past week . . .

 

As we were leaving the temple after our morning shift, we saw this family preparing to leave for home also.  The lady in the center is what we call a "cholita".  Let me hasten to say that you do NOT want to use that word in North America; it is a racial slur there.  Here it means the following:

All of those of exclusively Native American ancestry (i.e., the indigenous Bolivianos);
Those with predominantly indigenous ancestry, independently of their social status;
Those with any noticeable amount of Amerindian heritage further categorized by socioeconomic status (the poorer classes).

Anyway, it was a unique chance to get a picture of one of these indigenas with her trademark hat.  The American couple with them are Diana and Lynn Crayk.  Lynn asked how this lady keeps her hat on, but all she would say was that it just "stays there".  Apparently there are no pins or anything.  None of us can figure out how it works.

 

 

We had a couple of weddings at the temple Saturday.  This was the family group of one of the couples.  Both bride and groom are returned missionaries so they have a lot of family who are also active members of the Church.

 

 

This couple below are converts of one year.  Obviously they were married civilly some time before (see the pictures with their children below), but as you know, civil marriages are "until death do you part".  In the temple, they are married "for time and all eternity" - something that can't happen anywhere but in a temple and something which means a great deal to all of us who have temple marriages.  They wanted to have their picture taken with us.  The wind was blowing like crazy, as you may be able to tell if you enlarge the picture.

  
Here's a much better picture of this lovely couple with their two children.  Aren't they beautiful?



Yesterday (Sunday) a new family were confirmed members of the Church at the ward we attend (Jaihuayco Ward, Jaihuayco Stake).  They are the Choque family and really lovely people.  Here they are with the missionaries who taught them and, on the right, President and Sister Dyer (he is president of the Cochabamba Bolivia Mission and she is the "mission mom").

Also on Sunday, President and Sister Norman (mentioned in my first paragraph), visited the Sipe Sipe Branch about an hour west of Cochabamba.  (That's pronounced  see-pay see-pay.)  Most of the people there speak Quechua, which means they are mostly the indigenous people.  Brother Norman took pictures of two of the little children and they are so cute I wanted to share them.  Here they are:

 

Okay, that's everything for this week.  Vayan con Dios!

Hello, again --

Just a few random things this week.  July is our BIG month here at the temple because it's one of two months in the year when children are out of school (the other is February, which we missed in 2013 because we didn't get here until March 16th.)  Anyway, here are some pictures to show you a little bit of what it's like this month.

First, they come in busloads.  The day this was taken, two more buses arrived in the afternoon.  The red bus is a double-decker so it seats about 80 people.



This is what the lobby of the hospedaje looks like right after a couple of buses pull in.  The hospedaje is divided into two sections:  1/3 is housing for us temple missionaries, with "real apartments".  The other 2/3 is dormitory-type housing for the patrons who come from all over Bolivia and parts of Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Chile.  Each room in that section has 5 single beds and a bathroom (with shower, not tub).  There is a BIG kitchen and dining room for the people to use.  They can cook their own food or they can order food from the temple kitchen and it is brought down to the hospedaje for them.  (The dining room in the temple is surprisingly tiny; it only seats about 30 people.)  Last week the temple kitchen served 400 meals at lunchtime, Wednesday-Friday (bringing the food down to the big dining room in the hospedaje.)



This is a picture of President Crayk with one of the busloads of teenagers who came from a stake in the city of Santa Cruz, to do baptisms at the temple.




Saturday morning the temple was a beehive of people with literally hundreds of youth in the Baptistery; and every regular session we had to bring in extra chairs, to the point we were over capacity.  We had many first time attendees and a number of marriages.  It made for a very busy morning.   Here's a picture of one family from way down by the Argentine border (one whole busload was from there; I think the whole Branch came.)  The parents were first-time attendees, so they attended an endowment session, then the family were sealed for time and all eternity.  Everyone from their Branch attended the sealing - there were 42 people in the sealing room in addition to these five.  I think that may be the largest group we've ever had in that room.  Luckily one of the sealing rooms is quite large so it could accommodate everyone who wanted to be there to share in the joy.

Now just a random thing that you might find interesting.  We were surprised, walking to the temple one morning, to see the gardeners putting white sheeting (not plastic but some kind of permeable mesh) over all the big expanses of grass.  They do this to protect the grass from the effects of the cold temperatures at night.  (Incidentally, the sprinklers aren't shut off and the water goes through this stuff.)  Anyway, we thought it was really unusual and took a couple of pictures.  This first one almost looks like snow, doesn't it?  You are looking southeast - we took this standing by the fountain directly in front of the temple.

This one I took as we walked up to the temple in the morning.  You are looking northwest, and you can see the upper level of (covered) grass and a little bit of the lower level.

Lastly, I snapped this as Farron walked ahead of me while I stopped to take the pictures.  It's about 7:55 in the morning.  If you could see me, you would find that I was wearing a turtleneck sweater because it's so chilly, but true to form, Farron is in his shirtsleeves.  It's about 55 degrees at that hour, though it gets up to 80 by 2:00 in the afternoon.

Okay, that's all for today.  Have a wonderful week!   Vayan con Dios . . . 

As always, I am posting on Monday (our P-Day) and, as you know, the temple is closed both Sunday and Monday, but there appear to be several families walking around the temple grounds.  We also see an unfamiliar 10-or-12 passenger van in the parking lot, so we are thinking maybe they came today to be ready for the first session tomorrow.  We are now in one of the two busiest months of the year at the temple (July and February) and have been told to expect a couple of busloads coming in tonight.  In fact, the hospedaje is booked solid through the month of July, so we will "earn our keep" for the next three weeks at least.  <smile>

This last week was busy too, but not too busy for us to celebrate the birthday of one of our temple missionaries - Elder Franklin Perez  (standing, with the yellow tie below) - who turned 68 on July 4th!  So after the evening workers finished their shift, we all gathered at the Perez apartment to sing "Happy Birthday" to him and have some birthday cake and ice cream.  (The cakes here are NOT like cakes in the U.S., by the way - they look the same on the outside but are vastly different inside.  That's a story for another time, however.)


We North American missionaries had our Independence Day celebration on Saturday, July 6th because Saturday is the only day the temple closes early (at 6:00 pm).  We met at the Cochabamba Mission Home which is just across the street from the temple on the north.  All mission homes are huge because they have to accommodate from 20-30 missionaries at a time when a bunch are coming in or going home.  Here are a couple of pictures of the dining area.  Sister Dyer had decorated each table in red, white and blue - and as I hope you can see from the second picture below - she has room enough to have one long table, two shorter tables (5 feet, maybe?) and a round one, without being at all crowded.




We had a semi-traditional 4^th of July potluck dinner:  barbecued chicken, potato salad, baked beans, deviled eggs, and (Sister Monroy’s tradition) a tomato-and-avocado salad.  She also brought corn on the cob, but it was Bolivian corn (also known as choco) – which looks like the same thing but definitely isn’t.  The kernels are about 4 times bigger than our corn and, as someone said sotto voce to me, “The only flavor this corn has is the butter and salt I put on it.”  But it was a nice idea, even if it didn’t work.  We had this table full of desserts to choose from, both traditional and not.  The one thing we didn’t have was watermelon, but it’s so cold down here we didn’t even miss it. 

 

After dinner we put on our coats and went outside in the street and had Bolivian fireworks.  Apparently they sell fireworks here for New Year’s, so last December Bob and Tammy Cardon bought a bunch and saved them for now.   They had about 10 of the kind that go way up in the sky and then explode in a big pattern (like you see at a fireworks show only of course not so big).  I can’t remember what they are called – not Roman candles, but ???   Anyway, he also had some long tubes which, when you lit the fuse end, shot 6 or 7 rockets-type-fireworks about 30 to 40 feet, maybe even 50.  One of the men said, “I feel just like Harry Potter!”  (Maybe that gives you some idea of how they worked.)  And of course they had firecrackers, really LOUD ones.  It was fun – especially dodging the cars that came down the street while the men were in the middle of the street trying to light the rockets.  All the South American temple missionaries were invited to this shindig and they surely enjoyed watching us gringos celebrate our Independence Day. 

Below, President Norman with one of the "firesticks".


Below, one of the "Roman candles" about to go off.


A picture of all of us enjoying the fireworks.


Lastly, this is a "flag" that Sister Dyer made from men's ties and (worn-out) white shirts.  Isn't it clever?  I think even I could do something like this.

 

We had quite a few people at the temple Thursday, Friday and half of Saturday from La Paz (8 hours away by bus) and from Aruquipa (even further away - down on the Argentine border).  The latter group only get to come to the temple once a year because it's so far away.  In these groups, we had several couples who had come to the temple to be married for "time and all eternity", (not just "until death do you part") - AND some of them were couples who had been married civilly for a while and had children to be sealed to them.  Not all the brides are young, by any means.  Below is a picture of a sweet older couple, probably in their 60s, who were sealed on Saturday. Notice her beautiful veil.  It came down to her knees (sides and back) and was very sheer with embroidered roses on it.  Her dress was the traditional Indian/native dress.  Usually they are very bright-colored but for a wedding they use either gold or silver or this white satin-y material.  

These two little girls belong to one of the friends who came along.  Aren't they adorable?

And this is a picture of a younger family who were married/sealed also on Saturday.  What a beautiful family they are.  It was a JOY to see their happiness!

 

Lastly, I thought I would share the changing colors of our temple flowers with you.  Below is the fountain as it looked when we got here in March (autumn in Bolivia).

 

 

Then about a month ago, they replanted - not just around the fountain but everywhere and we have pansies galore.  I always thought pansies were a summer flower because Farron's mother had them in her garden.  In fact, I think of her whenever I see pansies anywhere.  Apparently they are a winter flower here.





Here's what the flowers in front of the temple looked like in March and April (again, autumn).

And here's what they look like now.

There is a full-time staff of gardeners here and they are kept very busy.  The temple grounds cover six acres and they are responsible for every inch of grass, plants, trees, shrubs and flowers.  They do a fantastic job.  This may be the most beautiful place in all of Cochabamba; certainly it ranks in the top two or three.

Okay, that's all for this week - more, next Monday.   Vayan con Dios!