Christmas at the Temple

I decided that was a good title for today's blog, and here's why.

First of all, on Monday, December 2nd, we had our monthly "Combined Family Home Evening" (all the Latin temple missionaries and the North American temple missionaries).  We have these Family Home Evenings here at the hospedaje in the comedor (dining room).  Diana Crayk, one of the temple missionaries, is a professional interior decorator and (with no budget at all) she made a very utilitarian room look great. There are 32 of us altogether so we had this one long table and another smaller table for 8.

Diana bought this beautiful nativity set at a store downtown.

She'll probably need an extra suitcase to take it home when they leave in February,

but she says it's worth it.  (We're happy she feels that way.)

Here's one of the centerpieces she created.  As I mentioned last week,

she also decorated the Mission Home, and she did ALL of this

while running back and forth to see her husband
who was hospitalized twice in the last month with severe diverticulitis.  

She is just an amazing woman!

Each couple had one of those pretty red boxes as a "party favor"

and inside it was this darling little nativity.

Notice it's inside a jug of some kind.

Wasn't that kind of Diana?

After dinner we had a program and as usual, I was involved in the music.

We had a little "Nativity Play" (and if you think adults are too old to enjoy this kind of thing, you're wrong.) We sang Christmas carols in between each two speaking parts.  Sister Monroy was the angel.

Farron was the innkeeper.

Next we had two shepherds (Elder Chalmers on the left and Elder Otondo on the right.)

Mary and Joseph (Dawn and Eldon Hurst) entered next.

And lastly, our Wise Man (Elder Eames.)

We only had one, because we couldn't spare too many men

or we would have had no audience.  :-)

The Eames left for home the next morning, 

so this was a nice way to celebrate their last evening here.

This is the Christmas tree Diana decorated.

Truly this was about the scrawniest, ugliest fake tree 

I had ever seen until she got hold of it.

Didn't she do a great job?

After the Family Home Evening, we moved the tree out to the hospedaje lobby, so all the people who come during December (especially the children) can enjoy it.

That was last Monday.  Then yesterday (Sunday, December 8th), we had the 4th Annual Christmas Choir Devotional on the temple grounds.  It was to start at 4:00 pm and we (the presidency and wives) were asked to be in our seats at 3:30.  This is what it looked like when we came out of our apartment.  The forecast had been 60% chance of rain all week, so (even though we desperately need rain) there were many prayers for "dry weather on Sunday" being said.  This is looking north to the temple and the mountains. 

This is President Jensen giving the welcoming remarks.  

(Look at those black rain clouds - but they stayed 

over the mountains and away from us!)

This is what the crowd looked like at 3:30 - looking east.

 And this is looking west. 

The entire parking lot of the temple was filled with chairs (2,000 of them).

Now - Latin America being the "land of mañana" 

(meaning many people are late to everything),

here's what the area to the east looked like 

an hour after the program started.  There are people all the way to the fence. 

Here's the crowd behind us - all the way to the front door of the hospedaje.

(The presidency and wives were seated front and center - weren't we privileged?)

And here's the crowd to the east.  Altogether we had "Standing Room Only".

They estimate between 1,500 and 2,000 people were standing, in addition to the 2,000 seated.

This is the first choir (from Santa Cruz).  Each choir represents a stake.

I apologize that I don't have a closeup.  I was trying to get all the instruments in.

 Choir #2, also from Santa Cruz.  (This is a 12-hour bus ride away.)

Choir #3 from one of the Cochabamba stakes.

Choir #4 - another one from Santa Cruz.

Incidentally, I love their outfits, don't you?

How clever (and economical) to have them wear different colors of scarves.

Most women here automatically have a black dress, so they didn't have to have anything made.
The men just wore any color bright tie they wanted and it was bound to match someone's scarf.

Choir #5 - also from Santa Cruz.

The two girls in front (in black and in red) were soloists.

Choir #6 was from Tarifa - even further away than Santa Cruz (down in the jungle).

Choir #7 was an Institute Choir from Cochabamba (all college students, from various wards/stakes.)

Choir #8 was from Sacaba (a stake here in the Cochabamba valley.)

Choir #9 is called the Coro de Cochabamba and it has members from various stakes,

but mostly from the University Stake in central Cochabamba.

This choir will perform in 2014 for the program

celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the LDS Church's presence here in Bolivia. 

Incidentally, each stake (choir) was to take 10 minutes only - and had they done so, the program would have been 2 hours long.  However, several of them stretched the rules, especially the choir above.  Instead of doing the maximum 3 numbers any other choir performed, they had 5 numbers. (!)  They also had the most fantastic pianist I've ever seen this side of Shawn Kirchner or Dean Mora (hope I have that last name right - he used to play for the Bonita High School Chamber Singers.)

Choir #10 was not from one of our congregations but rather was a choir of retired people called the Fundacion Coral Mozartino.  We were delighted to have them (and in fact, would like many more community groups to participate, but it takes time to convince them to do so.)  Anyway, this group was good and they got a huge welcome from the crowd because everyone wanted them to know how happy we were that they joined us.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to talk to any of these singers.

This lady - who is at least my age - was their soloist.

WHAT A VOICE!

She must have been an opera singer - or at least trained for it.

I was blown away by the quality and power of her voice at her age.  Wow!

Our stake (Jaihuayco) had a choir of mixed adults and children, and it was extremely good.  They also had children putting on a little nativity play as they sang.  I wanted you to see the size of the group.  The tenors are on the left in front of the steps (on the grass) - there were 7 of them, I think.  The 6 basses are standing on the grass over at the right, and the steps are entirely filled with the women and children.

Here's a picture of our little Nativity Group when they were all in place.  

Don't you love the sheep?

Lastly, the Los Alamos Stake (here in Cochabamba)

had a children's choir rather than an adult group.

The children are dressed in traditional native costume.

Here's a closeup of some of them, so you can see the costumes better.

They weren't the world's greatest singers, but they really had the songs down and sang with great enthusiasm.

They did 2 carols in Quechua (the dominant native language here) and 1 in Spanish.

They were accompanied by these 5 men playing (for the most part) traditional native instruments. The man on the left played a chime sort of thing and the guitar. The next man to the right (Carlos Salazar, one of our temple workers) played a mandolin (or lute?) Number 3 man was the BIG drum and he also used the tambourine and another rhythm instrument that looked like a bunch of big seed pods tied together with a ribbon (sounded like maracas). Then the man next to him (#4) played two different kinds of Indian flute. And #5, the man on the right, played the violin. They were as much fun to watch and hear as were the children.

All in all, the devotional lasted 3-1/2 hours, but it was worth it.  At dusk (about 7:00) the Christmas lights came on, so as people were leaving they were able to see and enjoy those.  Here's what they saw.

First, there are two parallel rows of trees wrapped with silver-blue lights.  This is looking west . . .

. . . and this is looking east.

Obviously I took these pictures last week when there was no one around.

This beautiful tree and star were built by our temple engineers.

Are they talented or what? 

 

 This life-size stable and nativity scene is put together each year by the gardening crew.

Of course the engineers take care of the lights.

 

 And this is what it looks like from the gate where people enter the temple grounds.  Sorry it's kind of skewed; that's because it's on a hill and try as I might, I couldn't get rid of the curvature effect.

But this is what we see (in reverse, of course, from the front door of the temple)
when we come out at night.  The lights will be on for the whole month of December.
We are truly blessed!

Okay, that's all for today.  Have a happy, healthy, safe week -- enjoy the Christmas spirit --  y vayan con Dios!