Marches and Missionaries

These are the two missionaries who took very good care of us when we first arrived, Elder Cuellar and Elder Gonzales.  This was Elder Cuellars (he's on the left) last day in the mission, he is on his way home to Peru.  Sister Dibb cried.

One morning these school kids were demonstrating against a number of things.  We found out that the demonstrations were sponsored by the Social Science Dept. at the large University known for its protests.  Apparently the young people have special instruction on how to demonstrate.  Seems reasonable, since Bolivia is famous for its frequent protests.

Here are the kids in Plaza Aboroa handing out pamphlets and carrying signs.  They seemed to enjoy their demonstration under the watchful eye of University professors and students.

A picture of the 11 year old young men at their mini CCM (MTC).  They looked very missionary like in their dark suits, white shirt, ties, and name badges.  Those young men on the right are returned missionaries who did some of the training.

Elder Dibb is explaining somewhat about the early history of the Church in La Paz and other parts of Bolivia.  They were interested to know how few members there were.  To them, the Church has always been part of Bolivian life.

You can see on the small table pictures of all our children and their families.  Sister Dibb talked about what a great blessing it is to have missionaries serving in your family and how the missions of our children have been a blessing to them.

Hermana Francia and the Archeological Museum

Here is Elder Dibb with Hermana Lourdes Francia.  We have had a baptism date scheduled for this coming Saturday.  She has accepted all the teachings and has a testimony of the Gospel.  She really wants to be baptized, but her husband won't sign the permission slip.  We are all unhappy about this turn of events, but will continue to work with her and be patient.  Because of her desires, a way will open for her to become a member of the Church - maybe not on our time table.

We walked up to the Archaelogical Museum on P-day.  It has been closed for at least a year, as we have tried to visit it before.  So we thought it may be open again.  No such luck.  The guards said that it may be open by the end of the year.  We'll believe it when we see it.

These are the gates into the building.

This is the entire building.

Because the museum wasn't open, we walked around and visited a few of the "5 star" hotels.  This one had a nice rock garden.  Then we ate lunch in another "5 star" hotel.  It was really quite nice, however, our bodies are not in tune with the food in Bolivia right now.  And even though, things tasted good, we have "growling" stomachs today.

Today is P-day and we decided that we would go around the city and take some pictures of things that we see and do every day.  This is our "florist".  She has a stand on the street and we get flowers here nearly every week.  They are beautiful and she arranges them into nice boquets.

When we first arrived in Bolivia, we went to the bank to get money, but found that we were sitting and waiting for a long time - until our number came up.  So we have opted to use the teller machine.  They are all over the city and are much easier and faster to use.

This is our "ice-cream lady" in the park.  We only buy "Rockies" from her and she knows when she sees us that we need a Rockie.  She has a really nice smile.

This is our "fruit lady" on the street near the market.  It's funny how you get to use one person and always go back there for the things you need.

This is the "fruit lady's" little girl.  She is a year and a half and is really tiny, but so cute.

This is our vegetable lady in the building where the market is.  It is about 2 blocks from our apartment and she always seems to have some pretty good vegetables.

We found this "meat market" on the same street.  The beef is much more tender when you buy it here rather than in the supermarket.  Notice the sides of beef in the background.

This is the panaderia where we can get some pretty good bread.  They also have lots of pastries, as you can see.

This is one of the signs they put up on the "one-way streets" when they changed the direction of traffic.  We woke up one morning, looked out our window, and the cars were all going the wrong way.  We still aren't used to "which way to look" when crossing the street.

We had a delicious lunch at the Hotel Camino Rial.  Because Elder Dibb had steak on a hot platter and it sometimes splatters, he had a bib that the waiter put on him to protect his clothes.  We had a nice, relaxing day around the city and walked along a new road, through trees and even up past the President's (of Bolivia) residence.  The guards out front asked us to cross the street so we wouldn't walk in front of his house.  We were happy to oblige and continued our relaxing walk.