Monday, March 4th: Today we had to go shopping for
groceries. We tried to leave the fridge
empty and so we were lucky that we had been invited to Pres. Dyer’s house for
dinner yesterday. We also did laundry
and cleaned the apartment. In reality,
we spent most of the rest of this week reading, playing cards with other
missionaries and cooking Chinese food.
It was a very lazy week with the Temple closed and by the end we were a little
bored.
Sunday, March 10th:
Mom and I decided to go to Cala Cala and Temporal Wards. President Crayk
was still out of town, so we had his car.
We first dropped off Lynn and Diana Crayk and Bob and Tamera Cardon at
their ward house. We then went to the
chapel where both of these wards meet.
We were both asked to speak in both sacrament meetings. These impromptu talks are getting easier and
easier. As Pres. Crayk says, “You have
enough arrows in your quiver, you don’t need to prepare any more talks.” We both felt good about our talks and how the
meetings went. We came home and had
lunch at Lynn and Diana Crayks with the Cardons. I had also invited Victor Acevedo, a visiting
temple engineer from Caracas Venezuela, who just got here today for some
training with our engineer. Diana was
kind enough to let me invite him to their dinner. Lynn and I went and picked up Pres. and Sister
Crayk at the airport at 8:30pm. We had
to wait for them for a little over an hour.
But they arrived back from their visit to Utah, none the worse for wear.
It is good to have them back.
Monday, March 11th: We
had a good family home evening with everyone.
The Dibbs were in charge and talked about the first year of their mission
in LaPaz, as member and leadership support missionaries. We then played some games and had treats (or
course).
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| Mom trying to stack plastic cups. |
Tuesday, March 12th through Saturday, March 16th: The temple has been closed for 2 weeks. It was fun to return and see all the work
they had done. All the carpeting had
been changed and there were several workers here from Salt Lake restoring the
gold leaf in the Celestial room and in other areas of the temple. This temple is now 12 years old, but it is kept in pristine
condition, just like all the temples.
During the week, we have had
quite a number of missionaries come to receive their endowments. But overall, it has been pretty slow. Saturday was another story. I was on shift for the morning. Pres. Crayk went to the airport early to fly
to Santa Cruz for a stake conference. We
knew we would be busy because the Cobija stake had made an appointment to bring
all of the sisters from the stake to celebrate the birthday of the organization
of the Relief Society. They have done
this every year and so we knew we would have a lot of sisters. We had planned on 2 sessions for them and
with the overflow in initiatory, baptistery, and sealings. We started the first session at 6:30am with 51
sisters and 10 men. Remember there are
only 50 seats. We added folding chairs
for the extras. At 7:00am we started
another session with 46 sisters and 14 men again setting up an extra 10
chairs. We filled up the 2 booths in initiatory
and Brother Garcia started a sealing session.
The Baptistery was full and we still had about 30 people sitting in the
chapel. We decided to have a third
session that would start at 8:30am, after the 6:30am session ended and that I
would take 10 or so and start another sealing session. We had 4 weddings later in the morning and we
ended up with almost 1700 ordinances having been completed. It was the busiest I have ever seen the
temple and we survived. We got home and
our feet hurt, but we had to get a quick bite to eat and go to the airport to
pick up a new senior missionary couple, the Harrison’s from California. Mom and I had to wait for almost 2 hours
because their fight was late coming from Santa Cruz. We got them settled and then mom and I hurried
to the evening session of the Universidad Stake Conference where we were
assigned to speak. We both spoke and it
was a good meeting. We got home about
9:30pm and I think I was asleep by 9:45pm.
Sunday, March 17th: We
took the Harrison’s and Connie to the Universidad Stake Conference. Sister Crayk was invited to sit on the stand
with mom and me. I leaned over and said,
“You better get ready, you are going to
have to talk.” Sure enough, Sister Crayk
was asked to bear her testimony. Mom and
I had both been working on new talks for this stake conference because we had
spoken so many times in this stake. Both
Cala Cala and Temporal Wards are in this stake and we had just spoken to them
last Sunday.
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| Stake Conference University Stake |
The theme of the stake
conference was Self Reliance. The word in Spanish is Autosuficiencia. I spoke about the idea that we need to be
Self Reliant with regards to our testimonies and what we need to do in order to
always have strong testimonies. One of
my thoughts was that we need to attend church each week and renew our covenants
by partaking of the sacrament. I then
read a quote by Elder Nelson on the culture of the gospel and that we should
put aside anything in our lives that is not in harmony with the culture of the gospel. I then chastised them for coming to church
late and missing the most important part of our Sunday worship, the sacrament.
I told them that this needs to change because it is not in harmony with the
culture of the gospel. Just as I was
making my point, a cell phone started ringing really loud and I flippantly said
and that this also is not in harmony with the culture of the gospel. Later I felt bad for embarrassing the woman
whose cell phone went off and for being so critical. I could have made my point in a much kinder
way. But there were some in the congregation
who said I did a good job and that sometimes “we need to hear it said with
tough love”. I hope it was ok. I certainly learned a lesson, next time I
will be kinder. (In presidency meeting
on Tuesday, March 19th, I apologized to Elder Cabrera for being too
harsh. He was not in the Stake
Conference, but his wife was there and she took notes and told him I gave an
excellent talk and that it needed to be said.
He told me that it is more difficult for a Bolivian to be so blunt, but
that it needed to be said and as a “gringo”, it will be more accepted coming
from me.)
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| Stake Conference Choir |
We then went home and when
Pres. Crayk arrived back from Santa Cruz, we had lunch at Pres. Crayk’s home
with the new couple, the Harrison’s.
Monday, March 18th: I
went with Pres. Crayk this morning to help the Harrison’s buy food and some
things for their apartment. We had a nice
family home evening with North Americans.
The group, that went to Machu Pichu, during the closing, showed pictures
of their trip.
Tuesday, March 19th:
During our walk this morning I took pictures of some of the flowers that
are ever present here on the temple grounds.
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