June 10th through June 18th:

Monday June 10^th through Tuesday June 18^th:  It seems that there were some shenanigans going on during the bike trip down the road of death a couple of weeks ago. 

The road of Death

The road of Death

This resulted in President Crayk being accused of causing his sister-in-law to fall over in the middle of a river and then Elder Johnson falling on top of her.  Thus it was decided that for family home evening we would hold a trial to determine his guilt or innocence.  Everyone had a part.  Elder Harrison who wears a patch over one eye was “Judge, An eye on justice, Whoppner.  I was the defense attorney, Dopy.  The prosecutor was the plaintiffs’ husband, Perry Mason Gutierrez.  This was really a one sided trail to inflict a trumped up charge upon my innocent client.  After great defense motions, which were all overruled, in my closing remarks I pointed out that the defendant had the power to inflict double shifts on anyone that voted guilty.  The jury came to their senses and returned a verdict of 4 for guilty and 4 for innocent.  So my client was released on his own recognizance and we will wait and see if the prosecution wants a retrial.  

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She is down for the count.

Elder Johnson piling on.

Diana saves Elder Johnson from getting really wet.

 You decide his guilt or innocence?

Wednesday we had Presidency meeting thus the picture.

Mom and I and Sister and Pres. Diaz.  Presidency meeting.

  Thursday evening, Sister and Pres. Crayk went with us to the recital that Fito had invited us to when he was at lunch last week.  We were all impressed with the quality of the soloists, 3 flautists and 4 violinists.  It will be so exciting when the BYU music students arrive next month.  They will be teaching at the Instituto Sinfonico with Fito.  We are hoping to organize a concert for members and investigators at the end of July. 

Mom working the crowd at the recital.

Sister Crayk, Pres. Crayk and Fito at the recital.

Two of the soloist.

Saturday we officiated one of the early sessions and then at 10:00 am we both spoke to a group of Relief Society sisters from El Alto.  They arrived at the temple early Saturday morning after being on a bus for 8 hours.  They got cleaned up and we had the meeting with them and then they all attended either the first or second session in the afternoon, we were on shift.  First session had 39 sisters and 9 men and the second session had 36 sisters and 5 men.  They then got on a bus leaving about 10:30pm for the bus ride back to La Paz.  They arrived just in time to go to church Sunday morning.  This type of sacrifice is very inspiring and the Spirit was very strong in our meetings. 

1/2 of the group of sisters from El Alto.

The other half.

The four sisters on the second row directly behind mom and I are Aymara.

Some of the sisters from El Alto as they get ready to leave.  It's 9:30 at night and they have an 8 hour ride in order to be home for church the next day.

Sunday, June 16^th:  Pres. and Sister Crayk are in La Paz at another stake conference, but left us the car.  Mom received a call on Saturday and was asked to speak to another group of Relief Society sisters in the Petrolero Ward on Sunday evening.  I was not sure where it was so we got up early and left at 7:30am to go to their sacrament meeting.  I drove right to it after using the meeting house locator on the churches web site.  We also went to the Tiquipaya ward sacrament meeting at 2:00pm in the afternoon.  We left right after to attend a good-bye party for Sister Flores who leaves on Tuesday for her mission to Quito, Ecuador.  It was fun to tell her a little about the food and people of Ecuador. We had to excuse ourselves at 4:30pm to make it back to the Petrolero Ward house by 5:00pm. 

The invited guest at the good-bye party for Sister Flores.

Mom, Sister Flores, her dad, and me.

At 6:30pm mom had already spoken and it was a break so she made a graceful exit and we were back home by 7:00pm.  We were both pretty tired from a long day.  Mom and I both spoke in the first sacrament meeting.  I spoke in the second and then mom spoke at the evening meeting, 6 talks in two days, not bad.  Monday we attempted to visit Willie Escobar and his daughter who are still recovering from their bus accident, but alas they had all gone back to La Paz for a treatment and we missed them.  Tuesday we were off so I cooked Chinese again and had the Perez' and the Crayk's to lunch.  Here they are cleaning up and doing the dishes.

Left to right Sister Perez, mom, Connie, and Elder Perez.

May 31st through June 10th

May 31^st through June 10^th:  My prediction from last week was correct, Friday and Saturday were much busier in the temple.  It was nice to have the sessions near capacity with many new endowments, marriages and children being sealed. Saturday we were up at 5:00am and were on shift until 1:30pm.  In the afternoon we attended Evan’s, our second oldest grandson’s, baptism via Skype.  It was amazing to sit at our computer and watch and hear all that was going on from the prelude music to the Amen of the closing prayer.  We even got dressed up, well at least from the waist up, so that everyone could see we were appropriately dressed for the occasion.  Technology is such a blessing.  We really felt like we didn’t miss a thing. (Except all the hugs and kisses.)

  A picture of our computer as we waited for Evan's baptism to start.

Evan and his cousins sang a song for the baptism service.

Charlotte, Alex and Evan on his baptism day.

After they all got back to Charlotte’s home they Skyped us in again to talk to everyone and congratulate Evan.  Sunday, we went to the Cobija Ward in hopes of seeing Fito and his family.  But after Fast and Testimony meeting we talked to the Elders and they told us he had gone to Santa Cruz and that they should call him on Tuesday.  Mom bore her testimony about how nice it was to attend Evan’s baptism via Skype.  We are going to have Fito, Vivian and their son, Rafael to lunch on Wed.  So we will see them then and find out how they are doing.  Monday was P-day and we shopped and cleaned. I mopped the floors and mom did laundry.  Tuesday we were on the afternoon shift and it was back to being slow.  I am using some of my downtime to try and read the Book of Mormon again before we get home.  Wednesday I got up and realized we still needed a few things for the 3 Chinese dishes that I was planning on cooking for lunch with Fito and his family.  So we made a quick trip to the store and then I started in on prepping all the veggies and getting the chicken marinating.  I made a spicy eggplant and hamburger dish, sweet and sour chicken and a spicy fried noodle, cabbage and chicken dish and spicy marinated cucumbers.  Lunch with Fito, Vivian and Rafael was great.  They are such a lovely family.  We got to know them much better.  They stayed for about 2 hours.  Vivian had made ice cream and so we had lemon cake and ice cream for dessert. 

Fito, Rafael, Vivian, and mom at lunch.

Our Chinese lunch of Spicy eggplant and hamburger, Sweet and Sour Chicken, and Spicy fried noodles.

They invited us to their house for tea on the 29^th and to a small concert a week from tomorrow.  We have that evening off so it will work with our schedule.  We decided not to talk about the church, unless they brought it up, we just want to be their friends.  I got carried away and cooked enough to feed the entire patron housing building.  So when they left we called Pres. Crayk and his wife to come help eat some of our leftovers.  They seemed happy to not have to eat a sandwich that as Pres. said was staring him in the face.  I think all in all the food was pretty good and the lunch with Fito was great.  Sunday, President Crayk was at a conference in El Alto, so Sister Crayk went with us to the Rosedal Ward.  I spoke for a few minutes in sacrament meeting.  We were surprised to see Sister Telles, a woman we had met in Llallagua a year ago while at their District Conference, in the meeting.  She was visiting her daughter who is the ward Primary president.  If you remember, she and mom bonded around a heater during the priesthood session.  It was SO COLD. Mom wanted to visit the Primary and she said it was so great see the children answering gospel questions with such confidence.  

The Primary Valiant Class mom visited on Sunday.

Mom and her friend, Sister Telles from Llallagua. 

We went up to the temple this morning, Monday, for a special session with all the temple employees.  It’s a great way to start the day.  Unfortunately, Mom almost woke up the whole hospedaje at 6:30 am when she put some bread in the toaster and went in the bathroom to finish her make-up.  We have a very temperamental toaster and sometimes it doesn’t pop up.  Several minutes later, when we were about to leave, the whole kitchen was filled with smoke.  We hurried to open the window, turn on the fan, and close the door to the bedroom.  (If the smoke gets to the sensor in the bedroom, it sets off a very loud fire alarm for the whole building.)  We were relieved to avoid that embarrassment, but I got a call from the temple security that we had set off the alarm in his office.     

May 19th through the 30th

Sunday, May 19^th:  There have been demonstrations and road blocks in the streets the last couple of weeks.  So we waited until Saturday to try and find Fito's house so we could tell which ward he would be in.  It depended on which side of the street he lived on.  Sister Dyer said she would drive Chris by while they were shopping.  Chris got out of the car and was looking at the buildings and a doorman came out and asked if she needed help.  She explained who she was looking for and he said, “Oh, he lives on the 5th floor of this building.  Do you want to talk to him?”  Chris said, “ Sure.”  The doorman called the apartment and Chris talked to  Fito.  He said he would need to talk to his wife and could we call later that evening.  We thought, “Oh no, he is getting cold feet.”  But later that evening he called us and he said that he didn't know if his wife and son would join him, but that we could pick him up at 9:30am.  We thought we had checked the time of the ward he would be in.  Well, we picked Fito up and his wife, Vivian, came with him.  Their son stayed home.  We got to church and figured out that the Cobija ward started at 8:00am and we thought it started at 10:00am.  But we met the Elders in the hall and introduced them and then the Bishop came by and talked to them.  He is one of the guards here at the temple, great man.  Many members stopped and met them.  The Elders did their job and asked if they could come to their house and answer questions.  So they have an appointment on Thursday at 11:00am.  We went ahead and attended the other ward that started at 10:00am.  I asked the bishop if I could have a few minutes to talk.  The first 2 speakers were a husband and wife who talked about marriage and the importance of treating each other kindly and being good examples to your kids.  I then had an opportunity to talk and share the joy and happiness my marriage has brought into my life.  I got a little emotional.  I can't remember all I said, but the Spirit was powerful.  They decided they wanted to attend a class.  After Sunday school they said they needed to head home and check on Rafael.  So we walked them home.  It was no more than 10 minutes.  We got to ask them about their impressions.  They both said they felt something.  I think Vivian loved it.  She asked, “Is it like that every week, where they talk about relevant things that we need in our life.  Can we visit next week?”  They really liked the interaction of the members.  She was also impressed that during the class they would read a scripture and then everybody would talk about it.  They invited us in and we had some orange juice and talked a little more.  We met Rafael, their 11 year old son. Chris is adopting him as her Bolivian grandson.  She likes giving him hugs—and in Bolivia, 11 year old boys will still hug you back.  We felt like real missionaries.  Kory, thanks for letting us take them to church.  I think it was a great success.  We will now wait and see.  Next week is stake conference for that ward and I am assigned to speak at all 3 meetings.  Maybe I will see them next week also.  The week was pretty normal until Friday when during our morning shift a bishop from Sucre approached me and asked if I could speak to his group of about 30.  I agreed that mom and I would talk to them that evening at 6:30pm.  We had a very nice meeting with this group of saints from Sucre.  Sucre is about 8 hours south of Cochabamba.   It was fun to interact with the youth and I talked about eternal life and that eternal life should be everyone’s goal and what we need to do to obtain it.  Mom talked about the growth of the church in her lifetime.

The Group from Sucre.

Saturday, 25^th:  We started the morning early, helping get the 6:30am and 7:00am sessions going.  We attended the one at 7:00am.  Then we came home and I worked on a new talk for stake conference on Elder Bednar’s thought that we need to be agents that act, not objects to be acted upon.  We went back up to the temple for our afternoon shift.  We were pleasantly surprised that the first session in the afternoon had 54 and the second had 59.  President Crayk came up and replaced me so that I could go the Cobija stake conference.  I spoke in the Priesthood session and used a white board for the first time in my life.  I used my new talk and got a lot of compliments afterward.  I then left and drove back to the temple to pick up mom and the Hurst’s who wanted to attend the adult session.  Mom and I both spoke in the adult session.  Mom is getting very comfortable and doing a great job speaking.

Sunday, 26^th:  We said good bye to most of the North Americans this morning.  Twelve of them are headed to La Paz where they are going to have a fireside with the young single adults and then on Monday they are going to ride mountain bikes down the road of death.  We are praying that no one gets hurt and that they all come back alive.  We arrived at conference for the general session and to our surprise, sitting in the middle, about 6 rows back was Fito and his son Rafael.  We left the stand and went down and greeted them.  It was a good meeting and the opening song was “Sweet is the work”.  I had planned to use my talk on the word Dulce which is sweet in Spanish.  That just clinched it.  I had to give that talk.  I was very happy with how the talk went and mom did a great job also.  We were interested to learn that there are 25 missionaries from the Cobija Stake in the mission-field and another 12 have received their calls.  "Catch the wave".

The Stake Choir.

Left to right 1st counselor Pres. Arias, President Paredes, 2nd counselor Pres. Alvaro and me.

Right after conference ended.  You can see Fito if you look close.

After the meeting Fito and Rafael said they enjoyed the meeting and that they would come back to church next week.

Fito, Rafael, mom and Sister Castellon a temple worker.

We then talked to the full-time missionaries who had met with them and told them not to mess this one up.  This is a really great family and they are looking for something more in their life.  In the afternoon, we Skyped in with our kids and viewed the blessing of Ginny and Sam’s daughter, Willa. 

Ginny and Sam's family at Willa's blessing.

Technology is such a special blessing.  It makes being so far from family tolerable.  After they had dinner, they dressed all the grandkids in tee shirts that Jill and Char had made and took family pictures. Kirstin had seen this idea and every family had their own color of tee shirts and then every child had a number designating their number in the grandkid birth order.  (Badger is #1 (almost 10 years old) and Abby is #14 (5 months.)  We were included by Skype and enjoyed watching them try and herd 14 kids (9 of them 4 years old or younger!) for a group picture.  Like herding cats!! 

14 of the cutest grand-kids in the world!

Blue are John and Jill's, yellow are Charlotte and Alex's, green are Kate and Bryce's, red are Ginny and Sam's and purple are James and Kirstin's.  Love them all.

3 little girls born within 4 months of each other while we were in Bolivia.

5 little monkeys ages 3 to 2.

On Monday we also talked to some of them while they were visiting graves for Memorial Day.  Tuesday and Wednesday was back to normal and now it is Thursday and 3 buses have arrived from Santa Cruz and so we should be busy for the rest of the week.