Hello, All -- just a note to say there won't BE a blog this week.  The temple is closed for its semi-annual cleaning and maintenance, and we are leaving at 7:00 tomorrow morning for a 5-day visit to the Sal Uyuni (the largest Salt Flats in the world - 4,000 square miles!)  We expect to see vividly-colored lagoons, a rare breed of flamingos (who knew they could live at such a high altitude?), a volcano (hopefully extinct), and of course the salt hotel (truly - built entirely of salt, even the headboards of the beds, etc.)  I think I can promise you some great pictures for the September 2nd blog! Until then -- have a great week and vayan con Dios!

I promised a picture from the annual Devotional we had at the temple on August 11th.  Here it is:

As far as I know, these are ALL the temple workers, though there may be some who come from far distances once a month to serve and couldn't be here for this meeting.  There are several couples in the picture who make the trip from La Paz (8 hours on the bus) once a month, and scheduled their service in August so they could be here for the Devotional.  IF you can make the picture bigger, you can count in from the top left and barely see me (fifth person in) and Farron (sixth person).  Actually, what you will see is the top half of our faces - that's all.  Front and center of this group are the temple presidency.  Again counting from the left:  the 4th and 5th persons are Elder and Sister Cabrera (he is an Area 70 as well as the Temple Recorder).  Next President and Sister Diaz (he is first counselor in the temple presidency.)  Next Sister Crayk and President Crayk, then President and Sister Norman (he is the second counselor.)

Below is a much better picture of the temple presidency and the Cabreras, taken before they changed out of their whites.  This is our "outgoing presidency" - President Crayk is being released on November 1.  The Normans are actually going home this Thursday.

On Monday, we (all the temple missionaries) were invited up to Elder Cabrera's home for a BBQ.  His home is about 1/2 mile north of the temple in the foothills.  It's a steep climb and consequently, their view is breathtaking.  Unfortunately we don't have a camera that can do it justice, but here are a few attempts.  This first one is looking southwest across the city.

This one is looking southeast, toward the Christus statue.  (It's on top of that hill in the center.)

This one is looking straight south and down to the street below.  I'm standing at the edge of the retaining wall. There is quite a steep drop-off down to the next street (and so on, for each level, very much like the hillside building in the canyons around Los Angeles.)

This is looking southeast again, from the carport past the edge of the house and their beautiful, bougainvillea-shaded veranda.  Imagine sitting there at night with a balmy breeze blowing and the lights of the city below.   On the right you can see the steps going down to the flagstone (or tile?) patio area they built.    That's where  we had our get-together.

This is looking from the BBQ area back up to the house.

And finally, the view of the temple and city center from their veranda.  At night when it's all alight it must be a spectacular sight.



Here are some pictures of our festivities.  First a shot of all the hermanos.  Left to right, front row:  Elder Cabrera (with the blue baseball cap), Lynn Crayk, Elder Mogrovejo, President Diaz, Elder Otondo (with the cap on backward.)  Back row, left to right:  Eldon Hurst, Bill Johnson, John Norman, Farron, Elder Gironda, and Elder Perez.  For some reason, President Crayk is missing from this picture.

Next a picture of ALL the hermanas.  Front row, left to right:  Sister Perez (Venezuela), Sister Delgado (Chile), Linda Johnson (Spokane, Washington), Sister Mogrovejo (La Paz, Bolivia), Elizabeth Diaz (first counselor's wife, from Cochabamba), Modesta Gironda (from Tarifa, Bolivia), Sister Otondo (also from Tarifa).  Back row, left to right:  Dawn Hurst (Bonners Ferry, Idaho), Diana Crayk (President's sister-in-law, from Salt Lake City), Teresa Cabrera (our hostess), Me, Adriana Monroy (born in Ecuador but now from Denver, Colorado), and Connie Crayk (President Crayk's wife).

Here's a casual picture of the outgoing temple presidency - a little contrast to the picture of them in their temple whites.  They aren't in quite the same order, either.  L/R - the Normans, the Crayks, the Diaz', and the Cabreras.  I do think the Cabreras are a handsome couple, don't you? 

 Lastly, a picture of us missionaries eating lunch (so naturally a bunch of us were caught with our mouths full.)  Most of us were at this long table - you can see me about halfway down on the right and Farron beside me.

Here's the small table, though the grouping may have been different. Bart Eames (Mesa, Arizona) is facing us, with his wife Suzy on his right.  Elder and Sister Perez have their backs to us.  Lynn Crayk in the black shirt and Elder Gironda with the baseball cap.

Altogether there were 27 of us there.  You can see the patio area is large and beautifully appointed.

It was a lovely couple of hours.  The weather was perfect - about 80 degrees with a mild breeze blowing.  I told Farron, "I wish we could clone this house, pick it up and set it down on our lot in La Verne."  Alas, we don't have those powers!

This last week we have seen the grass from much of the temple grounds removed by hand and they will replant.  About every 7 years they do this because there is a weed that they can’t control. 
These workers are just north of the hospedaje.  We had to remember to keep our windows closed so the dust wouldn't blanket everything.  They use mattocks to tear out the grass, but they do it in big chunks so it can be replanted elsewhere (where the people don't care about the weed, I guess.)

Here's a section that's all-but-completely cleared.

Here's a truck hauling away the sod to put in a soccer field.  It's free for the taking; I don't know how many different organizations/schools came and got some. 

I guess when we get back from vacation all the new planting will be in and the temple grounds will look like the Garden of Eden again.

That's all for today.  Take care and have a great week!

Hello, again --

I have just a couple of things to share this week . . .

First of all, we had a combined Family Home Evening for all the temple missionaries (Latin and North American) and it was not only a potluck dinner but also a little "farewell" for John and Christine Norman who are going home in 10 days.   This is the comedor (dining room) at the hospedaje (temple patron and missionary housing).  I wanted you to see what a nice big room it is.  I think they can seat at least 200 people for dinner (long tables, of course.)


This is a picture of the dessert table (we have some great cooks among the missionaries).

And this is the "main dish" table.  As President Norman often says, "You will probably think all we ever do is eat."

 

This is Christine Norman, giving her little "farewell talk" . . .



. . . and this is President Norman, doing the same.

Incidentally, notice the two full kitchens behind - one to his left and one to his right.  That is so people can buy groceries and cook their own meals while staying at the hospedaje.  Alternatively, they can order food from the temple kitchen and bring it down here.  There are plates, glasses, pots and pans, cutlery, etc. in the cupboards.

After dinner, somehow or other (I'm still not sure how), the subject of dancing came up and it was discovered that Elder Mogrovejo (in the plaid shirt below) used to teach dancing.  In fact, he was in the Bolivian National Folk Dancing group that toured Europe a couple of times.  So at everyone's urging, he demonstrated how you teach beginning folk dance (Bolivian style) to Lynn and Diana Crayk and Tammy Cardon (closest to the camera.)

 

 

 Then the Latin missionaries really got into the swing of things and almost all of them demonstrated their folk-dancing abilities.  My favorite was Elder Mogrovejo and Sister Cabrera (below).  She is the wife of the Temple Recorder.  He declined to dance in front of all of us, but Elder Mogrovejo offered to partner her and they were the most graceful pair of all.

It was certainly an unusual Family Home Evening - never happened before and may never happen again - but what a treasured memory.


These next pictures are from last Tuesday - August 6th - the Bolivian Independence Day.  The temple was closed, giving us a 3-day weekend, so Farron and four other missionaries hiked up Mount Tunari (one of the mountains behind the temple).  President Crayk took them in the car to the gates of the park and they hiked from there. The elevation at the trail head is 9,200 feet.  They got all the way to the 12 km mark on the map below.

The road is the zig-zag and I think the straighter line is the trail they followed.


Here are the other four hikers at the beginning of the hike:  Franklin Perez (Venezuela) in front, then Dawn and Eldon Hurst (Bonners Ferry, Idaho), and then Bill Johnson (Spokane, Washington.)



This is view of some of the farm land that borders the park - taken near the beginning of the trail.  These small fields are still plowed by oxen (or in one case, by bulls - not real oxen.)  Not sure if you can see it, but the land is actually terraced.  The workable fields are small - maybe 150 to 200 feet square.


This is the view of the city from the foot of the trail.


This was taken a little further up the trail.  Notice the brown haze over the city.  It is a combination of smog (which I identify as car/motor fumes, industrial pollution, etc.) and plain old dust (because of all the dirt roads, empty lots, and desiccated dog poo) . . . and just think, we're breathing this in, every day!

This is a view from even higher up the trail. The first picture is sort of a wide-angle view.  Note the blue sky at the top and the haze over the city.  In the second picture, you can just barely see some blue sky at the top left corner; the rest is smog/haze from the city.  Also notice the Christus on the hill in the center.  It towers over the city, but looks very small from up here.

This is some kind of tree - Farron doesn't know what - but it's very colorful.  It's winter down here, so this is its winter foliage I guess.

 

 

Here are the hikers again, farther up the hill. You can see Elder Perez on the right; the trail was quite steep at times.

 

Up near the top, there is a big recreation area that must have been beautiful at one time.  As you will see below, there were covered picnic areas, a playground for children, rest rooms, and so on.  Obviously a lot of money was spent in the beginning.  Nothing is functional now.  All the buildings have been gutted and anything that could be taken away, has been.   It's sad that apparently there wasn't money in the budget to take care of the place.

Incidentally, the elevation here at the playground was 11,200 feet.  That's about 4 miles from the trail head.

 

This is one of the kinds of wildflowers that are blooming right now.  These have a particularly lovely scent, Farron said.  The stalk looks like the palo verde bush we have in some California desert areas.

 

And this is another kind of wildflower . . .

 

Here's a picture of Farron at the top of the trail. 

There was supposed to be some sort of an atalaya (watch tower) about a mile beyond the picnic areas, but if so, nothing remains.  The group hiked to the spot and found this open area but nothing else.  Elevation here was 11,600 feet or a little more.  They ate their lunch and turned around and hiked back down.  It was about 11 miles altogether.  They left at 7:00 in the morning and got home at 5:00 in the afternoon.

Okay, that's all for today.  Yesterday we had our annual devotional at the temple for all the temple missionaries.  Next week I will post pictures from that, and from our BBQ at Elder Cabrera's house today.   Have a great week . . . vayan con Dios!!

 

 

Hello, All --

We spent the morning in La Cancha (the GIANT flea-market-type place on the south side of town, of which I have posted pictures in the past.)  Parts of La Cancha actually have proper stores (the area where computers and electronics are sold, for instance.)  Other vendors have pushcarts, some have just a space alongside the street, some are actually in the street and/or spread their wares on the sidewalk, and others are under one big roof but divided into individual "stalls".  It's all extremely confusing even if you have a map of the market, which we do, thanks to the Hursts who know La Cancha like their own backyard.  We went on our own today instead of asking them to lead us to the things we wanted, and we felt (or at least I felt) quite proud of the fact that we actually found what we went there to buy.  All except getting my watch repaired.  The little woman who had a sidewalk stand where she was selling watches and batteries (and incidentally had the tool to take my watch apart) was gone.  Darn!

Tomorrow is the Bolivian Independence Day and everything will be closed of course.  The streets (and especially La Cancha itself) were as crowded as any imaginable mall on Christmas Eve.  We will not make the mistake of going down there on the day before a holiday again (at least not if we can help it.)  The bus ride down usually takes 20-25 minutes.  Today it took an hour because the traffic was so bad.  That's why I'm a little late getting started on this post.

This was an interesting week.  On Monday the 29th, President Crayk arranged for the temple engineers to give a tour of the "inner workings" of the temple for all the temple missionaries who wanted to go.  He also said anyone who wanted to could climb all the way up in the tower to where the Angel Moroni is.  Here's a picture of how far that looks from the fountain in front of the temple.
The Angel Moroni is just barely visible against the afternoon sun.

(This second picture is from Elder Hoopes' blog, via John Norman's blog.  Thanks to both!)

Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures inside - not even of the huge hot water pipes and the boiler room and so on - but I wish I could show you a picture of the boiler room.  As you know, Farron spent many hours of his professional career in boiler rooms analyzing, teaching, inspecting, etc.  He has never seen a boiler room as clean as those in the temple. You could eat off the floor!  I think it's pretty amazing that all the parts of the temple no one but the engineers and maintenance staff see are kept as pristine as the rest of the temple.  President Crayk said that for at least the last two years he has received a letter from the Temple Department in Salt Lake City congratulating him on having the cleanest temple in South America.  We have seen the proof,  and what a huge compliment it is to the men (and in the case of the laundry, women) who work so hard to keep it that way.

After we toured all of the underground area, they took us up on the elevator to the 3rd floor (we work only on the 1st and 2nd floors) and we saw some more of the "working parts" of the temple.  We also were able to go out on the roof and look down.  Here's a picture of Sister Norman (wife of the 2nd Counselor in the temple presidency) and me on that part of the roof (maybe half-way up to Moroni?)  Behind us are President and Sister Crayk.

From this level of the building, Farron took this picture looking up at the Angel Moroni (still several levels above us.)


He also took this picture looking south toward the hospedaje and, beyond the temple grounds, the city itself.


From there, those who wanted could go on up - by climbing ladders from floor to floor - until they came out just below Moroni's feet.  This is what the ladders looked like (photo courtesy of President Norman.)

Here's a picture of President Norman standing in that area with Elder Mogrovejo facing the other way behind him.  (I haven't figured out yet how Farron took the picture.)

While Farron and President Norman (and several other hardy souls) were up there, of course they took pictures.  Here's what the other half of our group looked like from up above.  They are in the area where the air conditioning "chillers" are located, behind the temple.

Looking down on one-half of the north gardens from the tower.

Here's the view looking south toward the hospedaje, which looks tiny from here, doesn't it?  That round thing in the center of the concrete circle is the fountain from which we took the first picture above.

Here's a picture of all of us on the front steps of the temple after the tour.  We not only had all the temple missionaries but also President and Sister Dyer (he's in front on the right, she's behind him) of the Cochabamba Bolivia Mission.  It was a very interesting afternoon and we really enjoyed it.  I thought I already knew how hard the maintenance staff worked to take care of the temple, but I have a whole new understanding and appreciation for them now.

On Wednesday evening we went to the nearby University Stake where the 5 BYU students I mentioned last week, along with about half the Youth Symphony students, gave a wonderful concert.  It was even better than the mini-concert the BYU kids gave us here at the hospedaje.  The stake center was packed – literally “standing room only” – and at least a third of the people were not members of the Church, so it was a success in every possible way.  The whole goal of Public Affairs is to build bridges of friendship, trust and understanding with other faiths and with the public in general.   Here are a couple of pictures from the concert (courtesy of President Norman.  We weren't sitting where we could get any photos at all.)  You can see what I mean by "Standing Room Only." Those three empty seats were for the soloists who were playing when this picture was taken.

 

 

This was Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins in C flat, 1st movement, featuring two of the BYU Students (Erin Durham on the left, then Will Vernon), then Fito (Adolfo Taborga, the director of the Fundación Sinfonica) and one of the young students, Sara Quitón.  

 

 

The next day (Thursday) we worked the afternoon shift for Lynn and Diana Crayk so they could attend the same concert at a different stake center (ours, in fact.)  I understand they had an SRO crowd too – and this in spite of the fact that the street in front of the stake center is impassable!  Everyone who came had to figure out how to get there by back streets, and they still came.  (Street work down here can mess things up for months at a time.  It’s been this way since June and we understand won’t be cleaned up until at least September if not longer.  They have even shut off the water to all the buildings for several blocks – which means, as you can guess, that the bathrooms in the stake center are non-functional.  In the States we wouldn’t be able to use a building under those conditions but here they just shrug and ignore it.  Que será, será.)

As to the rest of the week . . . things have begun to slow down at the temple, but we still had a couple of small groups from out of town.  These two ladies are sisters (and the man is the husband of the one in back). 

Their little group came Thursday and stayed until Saturday afternoon, so they were just bringing up their luggage and waiting for their bus when I came home from working the Saturday morning shift.  This was the first visit to the temple for the sister in front and I happened to be the one who worked with her quite a lot both Thursday and Friday.  They both came to give me a hug and thanked me for "showing them so much love" which was very humbling. I told them - truthfully - "We do love you!"  Indeed, one of the greatest things about serving in the temple is the love we feel from Heavenly Father and the Savior and for these people who are so good and so faithful.  (Incidentally, that orange shawl is gorgeous.  I hope you can get this picture to full-size so you can see it.  They are wearing their traditional skirts, too.)

One of our brides on Saturday was this little 85-year-old lady and she was so sweet in her white dress and veil.  She and her husband are from La Paz, I think.  The other couple are Brother and Sister Quenta, who come monthly to serve here and acted as escorts for this elderly couple.

Saturday was a great day, in fact.  The temple presidency had challenged our stake (Jaihuayco Stake) to attend the temple every Saturday for a 6:30 a.m. session (!) for three months:  August, September and October.  (In May, June and July it was Sacapa Stake coming at that hour.)  Anyway, sure enough we had 60 people in that 6:30 session (and that's as many as the room will hold), plus there were another 56 in the 7:00 session.  These are all people who have to go work all day after they finish at the temple, yet they made the sacrifice to get up that early and come to the temple first.  Isn't that wonderful?  They will be greatly blessed for their faith and service; this I know.

Okay, that's all for today unless I remember something important I forgot to tell you.  Have a beautiful first week of August!   Vayan con Dios . . .