John and Christine's Adventures: May 2nd through May 11th:

May 2^nd through May 11^th: Other than Saturdays, the temple continues to have small sessions and this will continue for another month or two. We can’t wait till their winter break when the kids will be out of school and we will begin to have large groups come from all over the temple district. Last Saturday the 4^th we had 2 large sessions, one at 6:30am and one at 7:00am. Most of the patrons were from the newly formed Sacaba stake. President Crayk had talked to the stake president about the possibility of having the temple missionaries come and participate in all of the sacrament meetings in his stake. He was excited about the idea and they agreed on the week of May 19^th. The stake president called back the next day and said they could not wait and wanted us to come on the 12^th. So I got the assignment of dividing up all of the temple missionaries so we had 4 groups, each with a musical person, a Latin couple, a member of the Temple Presidency or our trainer Elder Perez, and then divide the rest with missionaries that can speak Spanish well and those that are working on learning Spanish. Since I was making the assignments, I wanted the Cardon’s, so that Sister Cardon could pay her violin as our musical number. The rest of the groups will have to sing together. We had a meeting Sunday afternoon to explain all of this to the missionaries. I think for the most part everyone is excited for the opportunity to try and help this stake improve their understanding of the temple and as a result their attendance. We had decided to attend the University ward for our Sunday meetings, but Sunday morning as I was in the shower mom said she wanted to go to the Villa Moscu ward. We rushed to get ready because it started an hour earlier than the one we had planned on attending. We had a lovely testimony meeting and then we decided to attend the temple preparation class that the Cardon’s teach. Bob had wanted to show a video on the temple and had brought his computer and everything, but had forgotten the DVD. They only had one student who was planning on going the following week to the temple for his first time. Bob and Tammie came on this mission not speaking any Spanish. They had done a great job of learning the basics and for the most part can get by, but they struggle to understand and answer questions. We had the opportunity to answer all the questions that this young man had about the temple and help get him a little better prepared. On Friday we had the opportunity to attend the session with Bob and Tammie where this young man received his endowment. We had a nice Sunday dinner at Pres. Crayk’s home with the Hurst, the Eames, and the Harrisons. I cooked a beef roast. The Crayk’s had been in Yacuiba the week before and had roast beef that was tender and Connie had asked how she had cooked it. The secret was to soak the roast in grapefruit juice overnight and then cook it slowly with a lot of soy sauce. I made a sauce with soy and rice vinegar. It turned out very tender and now we know how to get the meat down here to not be so tough. Monday the 6^th we went to a dinner with the other members of the temple presidency and the Club Deseret, a group of temple workers, employees (gardeners, security, engineers, kitchen, laundry, and custodial). They play soccer and have other activities. There is a real friendship and love between all the workers at the temple.

Mom and I waiting for the dinner to start. We were on time which meant we were almost the only ones there.

Pres. Diaz and his wife, Pres. Crayk and his wife, me and my wife. Dinner with Club Deseret.

Some of the people at the dinner of Club Deseret.

Mom and Sister Diaz at the dinner with Club Deseret.

They served Pique Mixto, beef tongue and chicken with a spicy sauce. I was a good boy and ate all of my beef tongue, mom not so much. It is a real favorite here. Friday Pres. Crayk let us take the car to go and visit Willie Escobar, one of our shift coordinators, and his daughter who had been in the bus accident a few months ago. We decided that the Hursts needed an adventure and so they went with us. First we had to stop and buy a present for Ximena, Willie’s daughter; she has just gotten home from the hospital in La Paz. Mom also bought a present for Dayana’s new baby daughter and her 1 ½ year old son, so he would not be so jealous of the baby’s present. Dayana was one of the women that mom visited when we attended the Ticquipaya Ward. I also had the opportunity to seal Dayana and her husband Rudy. Our second stop was the Ticquipaya Ward House. It is under renovation.

The basketball court is now where they are bending all the rebar for the footings.

Me, the architect and mom.

The old chapel.

We will have our meetings in the Linde ward in the afternoon. There will be a bus in the Tiquipaya square. 1:00 to 1:30

The field next to the Tiquipaya ward building. They will build a larger building in this field and use the old building for offices and class rooms.

They will be constructing a larger building next to the old building to house a larger sacrament meeting room and more and larger classrooms. It is much needed. Next we stopped by Dayana’s home. You can see by the pictures how humbly they live.

Me, Casey, and Dayana in their kitchen.

Dayana's new 2 week old baby Casey.

Dayana and Rudi's kitchen.

She was so glad to see us and both mom and I got to hold her cute new baby. Then it was on to Apote where Willie lives. Willie was not there but we had seen him at church 2 weeks ago and we really wanted to see how Ximena was getting along. It is a miracle she is even alive. She seems to be in good spirits and it was her birthday. We gave her a diary and some candy and colored pencils and pens. Mom was so glad we were able to visit her and Dayana. Thanks Pres. Crayk for letting us take your car. Saturday we were on shift in the morning so we began our day at 5:45am. We knew from last week that a lot of the Relief Society from the new Sacaba stake wanted to have an earlier session at 6:30am. We put up 14 chairs and it started at 6:34am, not a bad start for the day. The next session at 7:10am had 50. We ended up our shift with 208 endowments, 17 new endowments, and 8 sealings. I was helping in initiatory and I was looking into the face of the man and tears were rolling down his cheeks. We had 4 sealings on the 10:30am session. I assigned myself to do the sealings for the brother I had helped in initiatory. It was so sweet, they had 2 small boys. After the sealings he said to me with tears in his eyes “I will never forget you John Norman, thank you for everything.” Of course this reopened up my tear ducts as I gave him a big hug. That makes everything good for at least a couple more months. We got done at 2:30pm. We were exhausted and hungry. I had received a call earlier in the day. In fact Pres. Crayk came in while I was giving the instructions to some new missionaries and said to me, “ you have a call from Salt Lake you have to take right now.” The call was not from Salt Lake, it was from Kory Katseanes the director of the music department at BYU. He is here in Cochabamba and had gotten our name from Kirt Saville who we had met in China and again here in Bolivia last year. Kirt was the director of the music students from BYU that studied in Tianjin while we were there. Kory is here with his wife Carolynn and BYU will be sending 5 music students here in July to teach music. He wanted to get together and have dinner and talk. We were more than happy to go to dinner with them. We had a nice dinner and talk. We were almost neighbors while we were raising our children. They lived in the lower Aves. Our kids probably knew each other. Small world don’t you think? We will be taking them with us to church tomorrow.