Hello, All --

I have nothing extraordinary to report this week, but I will share a few miscellaneous pictures that I hope may be of interest.  We had a wonderful weekend watching the 183rd General Conference (of the LDS Church) on television, in ENGLISH, at the temple president's house.  Today we are enjoying our usual Monday off - but we can't run any errands or do any grocery shopping because today is a “Day of Protest” here in Cochabamba (maybe all over the country, but we’re not sure about that).  Because of it, there is NO public transportation available (no taxis, trufis, or buses) and there are blockades in many of the streets (so the protesters can march there, I guess.)  Isn’t a “Day of Protest” an interesting concept? Farron had to go to a tiny little tienda across the street from the temple to buy several bottles of soda for our Family Home Evening tonight, so he asked the young lady there, "What are the protests about?"  She said they are protesting to the government because the government wants to raise the taxi, trufi and bus rates (along with a lot of other things).  He asked the man at the security gate here at the temple why the public transportation has to shut down - why can't they just drive around the marchers - and he said, "Because they are afraid the protesters will damage the cars/buses and there will be no one to pay for the repairs." Things are definitely different down here.  As we say in the hospedaje:  "You are in Bolivia now."


When our friends the Normans finished their mission and went home in July, Christine gave me this flower arrangement.  It is exactly the right thing for me, because I cannot keep real flowers alive longer than a week. These artificial tulips make me happy every time I look at them.  (The little glass stones on the doily are from President Crayk, to remind us of the stones that lit the Jaredites' vessels as they crossed the ocean - see Ether 3 in the Book of Mormon.)

This is another silly sort of picture, but I have been trying to get one of this particular type of bird ever since we came.  They are EVERYWHERE and though he looks very insignificant here, when these birds fly (even a short distance) they spread their tail feathers wide and those feathers are the most beautiful orange!  We first saw these birds (or their siblings) in Ecuador and I've been fascinated by them ever since.

 

Speaking of birds, there are gazillions of them here on the temple grounds and they sing with all their might (or "talk", as the case may be) every morning.  There is one that sounds like a creaking door - no kidding - but most of them have lovely songs.  It's one of the most beautiful things about living here.


This is the roundabout (or as our friend Bill Johnson says:  The Circle of Death) at the intersection of Avenida America and Melchor Urquidi - which we see every time we go to the grocery store or go anywhere on Bus 3.  It is about a mile south of the temple (and in this view you are facing west.)  We frequently walk down Melchior Urquidi rather than ride the bus. When we get to this intersection we turn right and go about a block to the grocery store. Roundabouts are everywhere here and they seem to work perfectly for South Americans.  We never saw an accident in Ecuador though we have seen a minor one here in Bolivia.  Of course, pedestrians have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHTS and maybe that's why roundabouts work here - because drivers never have to worry about what a pedestrian is doing.  Drivers only worry about other drivers.  It's the pedestrian's responsibility to keep from getting killed.

This past week the gardeners replanted all the flowers at the temple, so I'm glad I took this picture a couple weeks before.  Isn't that huge flower in the middle impressive? It's so interesting that there was only one.  I took a closeup so you could see how really beautiful it is - and one of my favorite colors, too.

This is one of our favorite places - a frozen yogurt shop called "Blueberry".  (You will notice the sign is in English.)  Inside the shop, everything is in Spanish, of course.  It's really nice - much less expensive than yogurt shops in the U.S. - super clean, AND the yogurt is delicious.  Bill and Linda Johnson used to go here two or three times a week.  We aren't quite that bad, but we go a couple of times a month.        

         

Speaking of Bill and Linda, here we are with them on the day they left - September 25, 2013.  We were sad to see them go; they have been our mentors and wonderful friends from the day we arrived.  We look forward to visiting them at their home north of Spokane, Washington sometime in the next couple of years.

Here we are with some other friends - Franklin and Lilia Perez from Venezuela.  They live right next door to us in the hospedaje.  They, too, have been very kind and helpful (also patient with my Spanish), so we took them out to lunch as a "Thank You" last Friday.  The fajitas were terrific!!

I mentioned above that we enjoyed watching Conference this weekend. The North Americans watched it in English at the president's house and the Latins watched it in Spanish in the conference room here at the hospedaje.  Then on both days, between the morning and afternoon sessions, we had a potluck luncheon 

in the hospedaje dining room.  We have a lot of good cooks among our group and there are enough of us that by dividing up the two days, nobody had to work too hard.

Lastly, a picture our friend John Norman took.
He titled it:  The Things They Carry on Taxis Here!
We know we really are in another country when we see things like this.

Okay, that's all my trivia for today.  We wish you a wonderful week - be happy, be healthy, be safe - y vayan con Dios!