Feb. 23rd and the first day in Sucre

Saturday, Feb. 23^rd: Saturday was the last day the temple would be open for 2 weeks.  The scheduled 2 weeks for cleaning and maintenance begins on Monday.  We officiated the second early morning session.  It was a nice experience to fill the first session and still have over 25 people in the chapel waiting for their turn.  Pres. Crayk and Connie left early this morning to go to Utah to visit their kids.  He left me in charge.  But in reality, Elder Cabrera will handle any problems with all the work that will be going on in the temple, since we are leaving for Sucre for a week next Monday.  I know all the carpet will be replaced for the first time in 12 years and there is a lot of other work planned.  We were on turn for the afternoon shift and it turned out to be wild.  At 10 minutes after 4:00pm, 2 young men showed up for their endowments.  They were missionaries and would be leaving during the time the temple would be closed.  We hurried and got them on the last session that started at 4:30pm.  I explained that I would need to have an interview with them after they finished their sessions.  I usually have this meeting before the session, but there wasn’t time.  At 4:40pm 2 more showed up wanting to receive their endowments.  I made the command decision to have an extra session.  We got everything done and the session started about 5:30pm.  At 6:15pm 2 more showed up.  There had been a mud slide on the road from Santa Cruz and all these people had been delayed due to the road closer.  Of the 2 that showed up at 6:15pm, one was a missionary going to Venezuela and the MTC in Colombia, the other was an older man from Beni.  Johny and I explained that it was very late and that the missionary could receive the endowment once he arrived in Bogota.  The older man had used most of his money to come to the temple.  Johny explained that there was a fund that we could use to help him when he came back.  He seemed fine and the missionary seemed fine.  Only the father of the missionary was a little disappointed.  I was sad, but we had tried to call Elder Cabrera and get his opinion as to what to do and were unsuccessful.  So Johny and I made the decision that we would not have another session that would have started about 7:00pm.  Everyone on the shift had plans and I had already extended their shift by an hour.  We would also have to have the engineer and maintenance workers stay late on a Saturday night and the last day before closing.  A 7:00pm session would have extended everyone’s day by 3 hours and so we decided to explain to them that the missionary would have to wait till he got to Colombia and the older man would have to come back after the closing.  It was a hard decision and I wonder if it was the right one.  

Sunday we drove the car and went with the Eames to Ticquipaya.  I was asked to speak because the speakers didn’t show up.  The bishop and a member of the Stake Pres. were the other speakers.  It was fun to see all the people we had come to love and miss.  Sunday afternoon was spent getting ready for our trip to Sucre.  We had been scheduled to speak to a group here at the patron housing building at 5:00pm, but only one man should up.  We later found out they changed the meeting location to the Stake Center, but no one let us know.  So we were no shows and they had to scramble for speakers.  Communication is very lacking in this country. 

Monday, March 4^th:  We left for the airport early and checked in with Dale and Linda Dibb, from American Fork, Utah.  They served for a year in the La Paz Mission as member support, but due to some health problems, they have transferred to the temple to finish their mission. We had time to teach them how to play 5 Crowns, a card game that the Kennedys had left us.  We had to wait an hour for a rain delay in Sucre.  Only 3 cities, La Paz, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz in Bolivia have airports with equipment for instrument landings, so we had to wait till it was clear in Sucre.  At least that is what we were told at the airport.  When we got to Sucre, it did not look like it had been raining. We went to our hostel and were pleasantly surprised. 

Our hostel in Sucre.

This was the Dibb's room but our bed was exactly the same.

It was ok.  It was run by an older Belgium man who had come to Sucre 6 years ago to finish an internship for his degree.  Well, he never finished the internship and he never left.  We both had private rooms with our own bath.  The Dibbs had opted for a superior double, which meant that they had a TV and sitting area and a bathroom where Dale bumped his head every day and they got to pay 7 dollars more per day.  We had arrived at lunch time and knew that everything would be closed till about 3:00pm, so we headed to the main square to find a place to eat.

Lunch from a balcony overlooking the main plaza.

Main Plaza.

Lunch from a balcony overlooking the main plaza.

In front of the Cathedral.

After lunch we headed to a church, la Recoleta, which is on a hill overlooking the city.  It had a museum and seemed like a good place to start our visit.

Looking out on the city from the plaza in front of the Recolecta.

Mom amongst the locals in the plaza in front of the Recolecta.

The Recolecta.

On the tour of the Recolecta.

The choir loft in the Recolecta.

This is the last of the cedar trees that were here when the Spanish arrived.  It takes 8 men holding hands to go around this tree.

Mom in one of the corridors of the Recolecta.

With us on our tour were a group of exchange students from Virginia and during the tour their chaperone was trying to translate for them.  She was struggling a little, so I began to help her and ended up doing all the translating by the end of the tour. 

Some of the kids from Virginia.

From there we walked to a museum of indigenous art which really means weaving and textiles. 

City street Sucre.

At the textile museum.

At the textile museum.

At the textile museum.

We then made it to one last museum, the home of a man who had collected some very nice furniture and pieces of art from Europe. We couldn’t take pictures so you will just have to imagine how nice it was or plan a trip to Sucre.