John and Christine's Adventures: July 9th through16th

I have just posted a couple of my journal entries. Hope you can get an idea of how busy we are by the July 12th entry.

July 9^th: Today is P-day but I don’t feel like doing much of anything. Still have a bad cold, runny nose, sore throat and cough. But mom wants to get out so Pres. Dyer and his wife and mom and I took off about 9:30am to go and visit Tarata about an hour and a half from Cochabamba. I wasn’t a lot of fun, the convent was interesting and the town was quaint. We got home about 3:00pm. Mom went to a FHE and I stayed home sick.

Street in Tarata

Church in Tarata main square Pres. Dyer

Courtyard of convent in Tarata

Mom and I in Tarata

Wine press and wine jugs at convent

Mom and the wine jugs careful dear no tasting!

July 12^th: We had the morning shift today and the temple is still very busy. It is winter break and the kids are out of school so we have many groups here at the temple. The guest house is overflowing. We were very busy today in the temple. On the way up to the temple a Stake Pres. from Santa Cruz stopped me and asked if someone could talk to their youth in the afternoon. I said yes of course and made it a point to talk to Pres. Crayk about who could speak to this group. Well after talking to Pres. Crayk he assigned mom and I to talk to them. After our shift we hurried home and got a quick bite to eat and as we were waiting to go to the auditorium here in the guest house, Pres. Crayk called and said there was a stake primary at the temple and they had arraigned for someone to speak to them. He said he had forgotten all about their coming and could I go and talk to them. He was sending them down to the guest house and I could use the cafeteria to seat them all. So I grabbed a ceramic piggy bank that mom had bought on our outing on Monday and we hurried down to the cafeteria stopping at the auditorium to tell them we would be a little late. There were about 50 primary kids and 20 adults (moms and leaders). Mom gave a shot talk and then I talked to them about Samuel the Lamanite (see story on Blog). It was a quick little meeting but the kids really liked the story. We then hurried back to the auditorium and we spoke to a group of Aaronic Priesthood boys from Santa Cruz. Mom gave a cute talk, taken from the back of a Zucaritas box, frosted flakes, on winning with passion. I gave a talk about how we are all (Priesthood holders) obligated to serve missions. We were the only speakers it lasted about an hour. We got home about 5:30 and mom had agreed to go to the Family History Center and help teach people how to do family history. There were about 4 deacon age boys with little scraps of paper with names and dates on them. Mom was helping one of them set up an account on the web site so he could get the family cards printed for the name he had brought. Mom thinks that their leader said you can’t come on this trip if you don’t have someone you can do the work for. Well mom got all the info in the computer and it would not let him have an account. This took about an hour. The guy in charge come over and said oh I’m sorry he is only 12 and you have to be 13 to be able to have an account on the church web site. So mom starts over using her account and logging on as helping a guest. They get all the info in again, another hour, and it won’t let them print the cards. The man comes over again to see what the problem is, and looks at the information and says oh I’m sorry this person has only been dead for 9 months they have to have been dead for at least a year. At this point mom looks at this boy and says “you are not old enough and he is not dead enough” 2 hours of helping in the family history center, Good Times!

Brother Cusiconquis youth group from Santa Curz

Some of the young women we spoke to from Santa Cruz

Group arriving from Chile

Group from Santa Cruz

July 16^th: We went on our monthly outing with all the temple missionaries today. We had a double-decker tourist bus come and pick us up and take us on a tour of Cochabamba. It lasted for 2 hours and everyone seemed to like it. Mom officially has my cold and I’m about 80%.