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 . . .