Week 3 first post

Monday, Jan. 2^nd: We went to Breakfast with Pres. Crayk and his wife, the Jackmans, and the Cardons. Pres. Crayk drove, he has a large SUV. He wanted to take us for some Saltanes, that is with a nyay. These are like a fruit pie, only with a hard crust and with meat and vegetables inside. I don’t know how to describe them but they are good and cheap. I had two super spicy beef and a drink for about 2 dollars. Then we all headed to the largest open market in South America, la cancha.

Second Week in Bolivia

Second Week in Bolivia:

Monday Dec. 26^th: All of the temple missionaries visited an orphanage for disabled children. We took toys and strollers and hats and treats. The children were very happy to see and receive a little attention. Many of these children were just abandoned by their parents. So they are really not orphans. The women who take care of them are saints. Many of us got more out of the visit than the children, although they responded to being held and cuddled. Mom open your eyes. It really made us grateful for all of our blessings. The rest of the day was spent on normal P-Day activities, washing clothes, shopping for groceries, and such.

Tuesday Dec. 27^th through Friday Dec. 30^th: The mornings were spent working in the temple and the afternoons studying Spanish and trying to get the apartment arranged. We did go to the US consulate and try and get a notary of mom’s signature. The first day we went it was closed. The next day they told us we would have to make an appointment online and that we could not do it there even though we were already at the office. So we went home and got online and found that the next available day for an appointment was Jan. 9^th almost 2 weeks away and that the notary would cost $50.00 US. We were not very happy campers. Friday night found us going to a ward party. We had been informed that it would start at 7:00pm in the evening. Mom had asked the Sunday before what she could bring. They had wanted her to bring papas (potatoes), she had thought this would be too hard so she told them we would bring fruit. She had spent much of the afternoon cutting up fruit and we had a nice big bowl of fruit. We arrive at about 10 minutes to 7:00 and the church is locked up and no one is there. So we wait. About 7:30pm one of the sisters and her daughter and one brother drive up in a taxi and start unloading a propane stove and lots of pots full of food. Still no key, so they start calling every one they can think of who would have a key and about 8:00pm a guy shows up and opens the church up. Remember this party was to start at 7:00pm. We carry everything in and mom and the sister start organizing the kitchen. The brother who opened up the church takes off. The other brother and I start setting up plastic tables and the chairs. All of the seating and rostrum have already been removed from the chapel and that’s where we set up the tables. As time goes on a few more sisters start arriving and one other brother brings in a computer and sets it up so they can play CDs and they take a microphone and place it in front of the speaker and play music over the sound system. It really worked quite well. By 8:30pm maybe 20 people have arrived. Me waiting for things to get started. The sisters in the kitchen have decided that all of the plates and silverware should be washed in cold tap water, with a sponge that looks like it has been in the kitchen since the chapel was built 20 years ago. The two missionaries assigned to the ward show up and through the one North American we figure out that the food is ready but they are waiting for the Bishop to start the party. At 8:45pm mom tells the Elders to get the party started because they are supposed to be in at 9:00pm. They finally agree and welcome everyone and get someone to say the opening pray and bless the food. They start serving at about 10 minutes to 9:00pm. The bishop arrives about 9:15pm. By this time there are about 40 to 50 members there. People continue to arrive, by 10:30pm there are about 80 to 90 people who have all been fed. The dinner consisted of cold cooked beans and carrots served with sliced white onions (mom and an 80 year old sister sliced all the onions) and sliced tomatoes, a baked potato, a cob of choclo (corn, very big kernels) and a big piece of chicken. Notice no fruit. At the end of the meal mom went around the room and offered everyone fruit. We just spooned it into their plastic glasses. Mom was a little irritated that they hadn’t put some on each plate. But what we found out is that they won’t eat fruit with a meal it is more of a desert. Oh well it got eaten. At about 10:00pm they moved all the tables and had just chairs round the outside of the room and started to dance. The 80 year old bishop and his wife along with teenagers dancing away to Latin music, it was quite lovely. About 10:30pm, I’m fading and we say our goodbyes and someone calls us a taxi and we head for home. All in all an interesting evening, but I will never be early for a ward party again.

Sat. Dec 31^st: The temple was only open in the morning. During the preparation meeting they have a short movie on the ordinances and at the end the Temple President asked different people what their impressions had been during the video. He asked one of the Sister missionaries, Sister Cardon, (who doesn’t speak very much Spanish) sitting next to me what her feelings were. The video was on the marriage of parents and sealing of children. Then he said Brother Norman will translate for you. I gulped and said I would try my best. She said that her impression was that the words that they were hearing were the most important words that they would ever hear. Well I get about half way through and you all can guess what happened. I started getting all choked up and the tears are rolling down my cheeks. It was truly the Spirit telling me that what she had said and what I was saying in Spanish was true. It’s moments like that, that make every other thing that is not so fun or even hard worth it. Half way through the shift it was announced that the last session of the day would be in English and all of the English missionaries were to go on that session. Mom and I were asked to be the witness couple. Again I’m sitting listening to the introduction to the endowment and I just start sobbing. Physically shaking as I listened to what the endowment is. Wow it was so powerful. Because we are all at different levels of understanding and I don’t think it is possible to explain in words what the Spirit teaches, I won’t share my exact feelings and thoughts. But I will trust that He will teach you the same things as you ponder and are open to His influence. Needless to say it was by far the sweetest session I have been on, as a patron, in a very long time. Saturday evening 14 of us met and went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I talked to the owner in Chinese and ordered 2 dishes that were not on the menu. They were by far the best dishes. They were of course Gong1 Bao1 Ji3 Ding1 and Yu3 Xiong1 Rou2 Si4 (kung pao chicken and fish flavored meat strips). We all came backed to the guest house and played cards until about 10:30pm. We came back to the apartment and found a movie just starting about the life of JK Rowling. It was interesting but not worth staying up till 1:00am. Yes I stayed up on New Years past midnight. I know it is shocking.

Sun. Jan 1^st. President Jackman (1^st counselor in the Temple Presidency) said he and his wife wanted to go with us to our Tiquipaya Ward. So the 4 of us get a taxi at 8:30am and head to church. Again it started about 9:15am and people straggled in all through the morning. The same man taught the Sunday school lesson and the Priesthood lesson and he talked so fast it was really hard to understand everything he said. But he was a good teacher. We came home and cooked spaghetti, it tasted really good. Ragu sauce and hamburger how can you go wrong. We spent the afternoon writing and studying. I can’t believe it has already been 2 weeks here. The time goes by really fast and there is not much that I don’t love. Mom would not go that far in her endorsement, but she too is enjoying life here. Mom still hasn’t written about our time in the MTC and our adventure getting here. Pray for her to do her part.

First Week in Bolivia

Mom is going to write the story of getting to Bolivia and what happened to our bags. But I thought I should write about our first week here and some of the things that happened.
We arrived late Saturday night and went straight to bed. The apartment is very nice, much nicer than the one we had in China. We even have a kitchen. President Crayk had told us that we would leave for church at 7:30am the next morning. We went to church with him and his wife and his first counselor and his wife, the Jackmans. They picked a Sacrament meeting that started at 8:00am because they needed to catch a plane to LaPaz at 11:00am. At the start of the meeting there were only about 15 people there but by the end there were maybe 70. President Crayk was invited to speak. He gave a great talk. I was so impressed at the ease in which he spoke in Spanish. I resolved to study Spanish every day. We only stayed for Sacrament meeting. We came back and Pres. Crayk took us for a tour of the Temple as he has the keys. The temple is beautiful both on the inside and outside and the grounds are magnificent. He then left, telling us that he had asked one of the other missionary couples, the Ahlstroms, would feed us. We put away everything we had, but not having our 4 large suitcases that didn’t take long. We decided to take a taxi around the city to try and get a better idea of where things are. The guard at the security building called us a taxi and for 30 Bolivianos, 4.50 dollars, we proceeded to ride around the city for an hour. We had arrived after dark so we were seeing things really for the first time. The temple complex is only a few minutes from the city center. My first impressions of the city are that is much like all other South American cities, streets go every which way following the topography of the land and traffic rules are really only suggestions. There is a fair amount of graffiti and trash and there will be very nice buildings, right next to dumpy ones, a mish mash of buildings. But all in all, it is about what I expected, no real surprises. We only rode around for 1 hour, you can see most everything in one hour. We waited around in the apartment for a couple of hours wondering about dinner. About 4 in the afternoon I decided I would go and ask when they were going to feed us. I was hungry. When I knocked on their door (everyone has their names on their doors, except us because we are new) they asked, “Where have you been? We have been knocking on your door for hours.” Well, they thought we were going to be living next door to them, but the Pres. had put us in a different apartment, 201. Anyway, they feed us and it was fun to get to know them.

Monday is P-day and the temple is closed. We got up early and walked to IC Norte, the supermarket , about 15 minutes away. We spent a couple of hours wandering in the store, looking at things and shopping for food and items for the apartment. Then we took a taxi back to the temple. We couldn’t find a lot the things we wanted for the apartment so we decided to go to La Cancha, a huge market covering blocks and blocks, where you can find anything and everything if you know where to look and can endure the crowds. We wandered around and found a few of the things we were looking for. Once inside the labyrinth of narrow passages and stall after stall, it is hard to know where you are. We didn’t know where we were and wanted to get our bearings, so we headed for the street. Once on the street we realized we still didn’t know where we were so we just started walking. We bought some cheese empanadas and as we were walking someone spit in my face and then on my other side a man bumped into me and dropped his cell phone. He pointed at it and wanted me to pick it up. I just put my hands in my pockets and kept walking. I had moved my wallet to my front pocket when we arrived at La Cancha. Needless to say, they didn’t get anything and at that point we felt like it was time to go home. When we left to go shopping in the morning we had asked the guard for help in trying to find our lost bags and when we got back, there was word that they had arrived at the airport. We spent most of the afternoon and evening getting our bags. Mom cheered up quite a bit when we finally got our suitcases and everything was in them.

Tuesday began with us going to the temple at 8:00am. It was fun and exciting to be in the temple. I was able to do the veil that first day without any mistakes. I also worked in the initiatory. We got done about 1:30pm. Pres. Crayk and his wife took us to lunch at a very nice restaurant and then drove us out to the chapel that we were going to be assigned to. The Tiquipaya Ward meets in one of the smallest chapels in Bolivia. It is about 20 minutes by car from our apartment.

Wednesday began with us going with Pres. Crayk to an early morning meeting, 7:30am, with about 100 youth from Sucre. They had arrived at the patron housing on Monday. They had spent most of the day Tuesday at the temple doing baptisms for the dead. Pres. Crayk asked us to bear our testimonies and of course both of us cried as we talked about the temple and I used the scriptures in D and C 128 about how can we not move forward in so great a cause. Pres. Crayk then spoke and continued using section 128 to teach these great youth about the temple and their obligation to go on missions and hold out for temple marriage. It was a great meeting. We then went to our temple shift. In the afternoon we did some more shopping, trying to get all the things that we need for the apartment/ and food.

Thursday: Temple shift in the morning and study in the afternoon. In the evening we played cards with the Jackmans and the Cardons . The men skunked the women. We were taught a new game, “ foot and mouth”.

Friday: Temple shift in the morning and then shopping and studying.

Saturday: The temple was closed for Christmas. In the morning we went to a fruit and vegetable market and stocked up on the same. Then we all met and went to see Mission Impossible, the new one. Then we studied and that evening we had a pot luck dinner with all of the other temple missionaries and Pres. Dyer, the mission president, wife and daughter also came. We played some games, the Latin missionaries really got into the games.

Sunday: We were picked up at 8:30am up by a member, Hermano Escobar, of the ward where we are going to be attending. We only had sacrament meeting because it was Christmas. We were introduced and then asked to bear our testimonies. Mom did a great job and I had gotten up and 4:30am and had prepared a short talk about gifts and explained that even mom and I had exchanged gifts that morning. She had given me a scripture bag and I had given her a Bolivian cook book. But in reality the cook book was for me also because if she learned how to cook Bolivian food I would enjoy the fruits of the gifts. Then I talk about Elder Nelson article in the Ensign about the best gift we can give the Savior on Christmas. Look it up and read about what he believes is the best gift we can give to the Savior. We took a cab home and I cooked a roast and potatoes and gravy. We had the Cardons over for dinner. In the evening we went to the Winkfields to watch the movie, The Nativity. It was really good. We then came home and read the Christmas story in Luke.

In the distance you can see the building we will be teaching in. It is very new and we have access to media in the classroom. We don't start teaching until Sept.21st, so we still feel like we are on vacation. We go out every day to explore the city and to buy something we think we need. Mostly it is just fun to wander around. Tianjin is not a tourist destination, so we are often the only foreigners when we go places. There are a lot of Koreans in the city though. There is a lot of building going on, but the city is clean and has a great energy. I can see why Ginny likes living in New York.

There are beautiful lotus ponds on the campus. They aren't in bloom yet, but still pretty. It's fun to see the students arrive on campus with their parents, suitcases, and sometimes bedding. It's just like campuses everywhere. There are very nice dining rooms close to our apartment for the foreign teachers and students. We haven't found the student dining halls.

This is the entrance into Nan Kai University. The flags are to welcome the new students. I am a little wobbly on my bike, but I haven't caused any accidents yet. Cars and bicycles seem to have equal rights to the road with pedestrians mixed in. You just move forward and try not to stop unexpectedly. We love to ride to the open air market to buy vegetables and fruit.

We last left you with the breakdown of our car as we were driving to Mt. Pleasant. When I (Chris) picked up the car after getting the air conditioning fixed FOR THE SECOND TIME, the mechanic mentioned that the harmonic balancer was well, out of balance. I had never heard of a harmonic balancer, so I made the call that it couldn't be too serious. Uh, wrong call. The result was rather expensive, but we have driven the ever faithful xterra back and forth to Salt Lake all summer. Now we will share with you what we have been doing all summer. This is farmer John, trying to dig up all the weeds in what we affectionately call the "east forty". ( Please notice the chicken coop on the far left.) We realized last year that the weeds would always get the better of us, so we decided to lay sod and have square foot gardens instead.

This is the result, and on July 4th we had several rousing games of volleyball, a super-soaker slide and a perfect spot to watch the fireworks. We also decided to lay pavers all around the storage shed and by the play yard. (See before and after).
I can't find the before.








We are sitting in LAX waiting for our flight to China. My battery is dying, so I will post this and charge my battery and add more pictures of the other projects we tackled in Mt. Pleasant.