This week we had a couple of farewell parties for the outgoing temple presidency.  (John Norman, former second counselor in the presidency, who went home in August, used to say "sometimes it must appear that all we do is socialize and eat" - and that's what this post will look like!)

This was the first party, on Monday night, October 21st.  It was held in the clubhouse at a gated community on the hill above the temple, where the Temple Recorder (Registrar) lives.  It was invitation-only (75 Bolivianos per person), and everything was beautifully planned and organized.  We were assigned to specific tables.  The table at the right where you can see a woman and man sitting was "the North American table", I guess.  We were one of two North American couples who weren't seated there.  I guess that's a compliment, since we were seated with exclusively Spanish-speaking couples.

Here's a picture of Farron and one of the couples at our table:  Carlos Salazar and his wife (can't remember her first name, sorry!)  His brother and sister-in-law were supposed to be at our table too, but they were unable to attend for some reason.  Later - after this shot was taken - Brother and Sister Leaños (former president of the Lima Peru Temple) and their daughter and her husband joined us. 

This was taken early on, before most people had arrived.  This couple (seated at the table next to ours) are Luis and Rosario Garcia.  He will be the First Counselor to the new temple president (who arrives this Thursday) and of course Sister Garcia will be an assistant to the Temple Matron.  

Doesn't she have a beautiful smile?

This was a surprise party.  Here are President Crayk and Connie arriving and being very surprised to see the big crowd waiting for them.  The gentleman on the left is Elder Rene Cabrera, an Area Seventy for the Church as well as the Recorder/Registrar of the Temple.

The professional photographer hired by the Cabreras took the Crayks around and snapped a photo with the guests at each table.  The North American couple on the right are President and Sister Dyer of the Cochabamba Bolivia Mission.  President and Sister Crayk are in the back row (she's wearing a red blouse).  After the party, all of us were given copies of the photo of our table - really a nice touch, I thought.

 

This is the band who played for dancing after dinner.  During dinner, we had lovely recorded music (from the Crayks' high school years) and it was soft enough we actually could talk to each other.  When the band started to play, it was so loud we had to shout even to the person sitting right beside us.  It was a good band and he was a great singer, but oh.my.goodness WAY-Y-Y-Y too loud!!

One shot of the dance floor.  Very few people didn't dance.

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This was the view from the clubhouse, looking down over the city at night.

Notice how beautifully the temple stands out!
Also, I always think how beautiful any city looks at night,
when you can't see the problems, so to speak.

On Thursday, October 24th, we had a much more casual despedida (farewell) at the Food Court of the Cine Center (the big movie complex a couple of miles south of the temple).  This was President and Sister Crayk's table.  We met for lunch after the morning shift at the temple.  Everyone patronized the fast-food establishment of his/her choice, all of which is very inexpensive, so everyone was happy.

This was President and Sister Diaz' table.  These three Anglos are (L/R):  Jack Hoops (full-time missionary here with his wife from Idaho); Suzy Eames (temple missionary here with her husband from Mesa, AZ); and Lynn Crayk, President Crayk's younger brother, here with his wife (temple missionaries) from Utah.

Here's a shot of the Perez table, where we were seated.  Just FYI,  in the background at the far left is "Tropical Chicken"; next, "Dumbo's" is a hamburger and ice cream place; Tuesday's, in the center, is also hamburgers and hot dogs; and Eli's (on the right) is a pizza place.  The pizza is not too bad, actually.

These are Elder and Sister Hurst - temple missionaries from Bonners Ferry, Idaho - with one of our Bolivian temple workers, Sister Daizy Equino.  She is standing on her tiptoes and barely reaches their shoulders.

 This is a shot of President Crayk with Hermano Tejada, who was the very first missionary ever to serve a full-time mission from Bolivia.  Subsequently, he was the first stake president in the country.  He also has held leadership positions in the region and in the South America Northwest Area.  He wasn't always this short.  Some years ago he had back surgery and the surgeon made a terrible mistake of some kind.  Now Hermano Tejada can't stand up straight (as you could see if you were looking at him sideways) and he has to walk with a walker.  A tragedy, yes, but you would never know it to talk to him.  

He is small physically but he is a giant, spiritually!

From left:  Lorna Hoopes, Connie Crayk (outgoing Temple Matron), and her sister-in-law Diana Crayk --
three extremely capable and wonderful women.

A shot of us with President and Sister Diaz.  He is the First Counselor in the Temple Presidency

and will be released this Thursday evening.  They have served for three years.

Now just so you know we DO have other activities than socializing and eating - here's a shot of the dentist's office where we went last week to get our teeth cleaned.  This is the dentist the Mission uses and many of the temple missionaries have had work done here.  Were it not for their recommendations, I certainly wouldn't have had nerve enough to go to a South American dentist.  However, what they told us was true:  the place was as modern inside as it appears from the outside, and the staff are both competent and nice.  We paid $40 USD for the cleaning and 100 Bolivianos for the "consultation".  Altogether about $54.37 for each of us.  I have no idea what it would cost in the States, because our insurance pays for it, but I'm sure it's a bargain.

Lastly, a picture of Farron with the Primary children from one of the wards here in Cochabamba.  The Primary president brings them here once a year just to feel the peaceful spirit here on the grounds, to talk about what the temple means to their families, and hopefully to inspire them to have temple attendance as their goal when they are old enough.  President Crayk wasn't available to meet with them, so he asked Farron to substitute for him.  At the end of our little "meeting", we took them out on the hospedaje steps and took a picture.  I should have had Farron in the center, but I didn't think fast enough.

Okay, that's all for today.  Have a good week . . . . y vayan con Dios!

This weekend we had a whirlwind trip to Sucre (the provincial and historical capital of Bolivia), to help the temple president with a meeting he had scheduled on Sunday evening.  We left early Sunday morning and came back midday Monday, but even though the trip was so short, we had a wonderful time, as I hope the following pictures will show.

First of all, this is what the country looked like between here and Sucre - range after range of mountains and SO dry.  Of course we are at the end of the dry season and waiting for the spring rains to come, so . . .

As we got closer to Sucre, we started to see development in the valleys here and there below us.

This is what the countryside just outside of Sucre looks like.  Again - high and dry.  

That's what central and southern Bolivia are.

This big monument is outside the Sucre airport terminal.  Sorry I can't tell you what it all means.

From the airport, we dropped our bags at the hotel and immediately went to lunch because President Crayk said the restaurant where he wanted to take us would be full by noon.  On the way to the restaurant we saw these two dinosaurs.   There is a national dinosaur site here in Sucre - footprints in the rock, etc. - and so they have dinosaurs downtown and (as you can see a little better in the second picture), the dinosaurs have telephones in their tummies.  (?!)

This was simply a beautiful building we saw on the way to the restaurant.

I loved the bougainvillea.  Notice it is almost two stories high.

This is another building, far more typical of downtown.  In fact, the city of Sucre has more than one name.  It is also known historically as Charcas, La Plata (because it's where the silver from nearby mines in Potosi was/is processed), Chuquisaca (the Quechua Indian name), and La Ciudad Blanca (the "white city", because ALL the buildings in the old historical part of town are - and are required to be - painted white.)  It's beautiful. 

We passed this beautiful cathedral but I don't know the name.  You will see some more pictures of it later because our hotel was on the other side of it, and I got some great rooftop shots.

Also on our way to the newer section of town, we drove down a big street with this beautiful median - lovely flowers and trees everywhere.

The restaurant faces this statue of Bolivar.

I am standing with my back to the restaurant to take the picture.

Every city of any size in South America has a statue of Bolivar
because he is (understandably) their HERO.

This is the front door of the restaurant.  When we got there at 11:00, it was almost completely empty.  

When we left at 1:00, every table was full and there was a long waiting line.

This is our group at lunch.  There were 14 of us:  8 temple missionaries, President and Sister Crayk, and our four drivers (church members who chauffeured us around all day.)  Please note the size of the steak on the plate at your right.  This meal included a salad, one of those enormous steaks, a big plate of freshly-prepared amazingly-good French fries (see them at bottom left), and a bowl of arroz con queso (a kind of creamy rice and cheese mixture) - and the whole thing was about $8, American! The food was DELICIOUS - you can see our happy smiles.  (And by the way, that brown bottle near center front that looks like beer is some kind of juice - can't remember the name.  They are big juice-drinkers down here, unlike us North Americans who all had either water or soda.  That's mainly because none of us are fond of lukewarm drinks, and juice is always served tepid.)

After lunch, they took us back to the hotel so we could officially check in and rest a little bit before our meeting at 4:00.  Here is a picture of the front of the building, and just below it, a shot of the entrance to the hotel.

This hotel is HUGE and it's a bit of a maze.  It was originally two enormous colonial homes, where a couple of families of the Spanish ruling class lived back in the 1600's.  A very wise (and apparently very wealthy) man bought both homes and combined them into this hotel, restoring as much as possible the original design and materials, and putting real antiques everywhere throughout the building for people to use and enjoy.  Below is a picture of half of the hotel lobby.  Notice the brick ceiling.  You would think it would fall down and crush everyone, but I guess it works on the same principle as an archway built of brick or stones - pressure/weight on the stone at the center keeps everything else in place (or something like that.) These ceilings are everywhere throughout the hotel.  Also notice the antique desk, and the cabinet (on the right).

At the opposite end of the lobby is this lounge area, if that's the right word.  There is a 10-foot antique sofa on the right (you can just see the corner) and those beautiful doors in front of you are the doors to what was in the 1600's the family chapel.  Now it is the dining room of the hotel.

This is just a view of one of the hallways leading off the central courtyard.  That's another antique sofa on the right - about 10 feet long.  Recovered and restored, it is surprisingly comfortable.

Here are three pictures of the central courtyard.  This one is facing south (my back is to the street, the lobby, and the front door.)

This is facing the street (see the front door in the center).  

Isn't it cool that there is a live bougainvillea plant growing inside the hotel?

This is a picture of Diana Crayk (one of our temple missionaries) and me by the bougainvillea.

Behind us you can see the stairs going up to the second floor.

There is an elevator tucked away around several corners, and since we had luggage, we used it instead of the stairs.  When we got up to the third floor, this was the view as we looked over the balcony.

This is a typical bedroom (the shot I tried of our room didn't turn out because I was shooting toward the light.)  The chair in the corner is an antique, as is the table on which the TV is placed.  The beds have antique metal frames but modern mattresses (thank goodness).  Our room just had one bed (queen-size).

This was taken just outside our room.

More antiques -  the wall hanging, the chest, and the metal bowl on the chest.

This is the view from inside our bedroom.  The door to our bedroom was behind me here, but we also had a door that opened onto this walkway.  There was a railing between us and the walkway, so to sit in these chairs and enjoy the view, we would have had to walk out our front door and around.

We went up on the roof and took some pictures of the city, but first here's one of us.

Here's that cathedral again and now I think you can see the statues better.

I think maybe they are the 12 apostles, what do you think?

A long shot of the cathedral and some others (looking south.)  Every city in South America has LOTS of cathedrals.

This was a shot of the city, looking east.

This was one of 3 or 4 "lounge" areas up on the roof.  This is looking east.

This is looking north.  There is a door to Farron's right and STEEP stairs leading down to the 3rd floor.  Aren't those potted geraniums pretty?

This is looking north toward a monastery -- see the long white building with the row of arched windows?
I think this monastery is still in use, although it is also open to the public (for a fee).
We will visit it the next time we go to Sucre.

Here are some more pictures of the furnishings around the hotel.

This is the far end of the lobby, which I mentioned before.  That couch is 10' long.  

It has a very "regal" feel to it and unfortunately is not very comfortable but it surely looks wonderful.

This is a closer view of the antique coffee table.

When we got back from our meeting, we had a chance to go down into the basement, which has a whole lot more rooms that are in the process of being readied for use - or in some instances are being used already. Also, the proprietor has some museum-type displays down there - these are a few of those displays.

I love this one, especially those authentic stirrups and spurs.

I'm betting this was some short of shrine originally, 

but right now that big book (that I expected to be an ancient Bible)

turned out to be a civil history of the City of Sucre or some such thing.

More displays in the basement -- with luck, next time we go the proprietor will be there and he gives tours and explains all this stuff.

This is one of the rooms that's ready to use, but we're not sure when or by whom.

This is a hand-carved wooden screen.  Hope you can see some of the detail on it.

Another antique table and chair - beautifully restored.

And another one of those 10' sofas, restored and recovered in authentic Indian weaving.

What you can't see are the several chairs covered in the same cloth that are in this same room.

We all went up on the roof after it got dark, to look at the city lights.  Here's that big cathedral again.

And to our surprise, there is an ENORMOUS lighted cross on a mountain to the west.

This is the best picture I could get.  You can just barely see some of the city lights below.

After a wonderful breakfast (courtesy of the hotel, in that gorgeous old chapel-now-dining room), we made our way back to the Sucre airport.  You can see from the size of this waiting area that the terminal is very small.  Fortunately, it has long enough runways to accommodate jets even if it doesn't have a huge terminal.

And this is the beautiful plane on which we flew home.

We loved our visit and can't wait to go back.  There are many museums and cathedrals to visit, plus a hat factory, a chocolate factory (with chocolates that are melt-in-your-mouth delicious), as well as the dinosaur site.  So when we get a chance to go again, I'll have a whole new set of pictures for you.

Have a great week . . . y vayan con Dios!