Shoes from the Kuna women of Colombia.

These bright shoes are made by the indigenous women of the Kuna people. They live on the border of Colombia and Panama. The women make up their own design and then the fabric is taken and made into crafts, purses, pillows, etc. All the different colors are different pieces of fabric and are sewed on by hand. Some of these shoes have leather straps, but not usually.

Every shoe is different.

These are the shoes I bought. I can not wear them outside my home while as a missionary, but I will when I get home. The fabric is made by the Kuna women and then they sell it to a company in Bogota and they make them into these delightful shoes. No two shoes are alike because the fabric is always different. Not even the two shoes with in a pair are alike.

Beautiful purses.

They also make beautiful purses out of the fabric. I use my purse all the time. They are so bright and cheery.

Wherever you can see a different color, it is different fabric, and all of the colors are sewed on by hand.

A busy preparation day.

Elder Pelero on the right is from Argentina, and wanted to cook us milanessa before he ended his mission. Elder Williams from Las Vegas helped him. They used their preparation day to cook for us. Elder Pelero will end his mission in two weeks, but will join his family in Spain now. Luckily, he already has the language.

He loves his milanessa.

Elder Pelero was a great chef and you could tell he knew what he was doing. He even wore his plaque while working in the kitchen.

Doesn't have the picture.

Elder Williams doesn't have the picture of how one eats milanessa. You put the mashed potatoes on the side not on top of the meat. It takes away from the flavor of the milanessa.

A meal for a king.

The final result was a delicious authentic Argentine meal of milanessa with all the trimmings. I now know how to cook it, but I would rather have the Elders do it for me. It was yummy.

A hen party.

These gals have flown the coop and are heading for the table. This was their last real hen party.

The jetway that leads to no where.

We have jetways at the airports, but we don't get to use them. We leave the airport and go down stairs to go to the planes and then we walk up the stairs to the airplanes. Then we do the reverse when we return home. We wonder who gets to use the jetways?

Getting ready for stake conference.

These Elders were creative in a collage they made to use for a display table at a stake conference.

Table of literature.

After all our stake conferences, the missionaries set up display tables with all kinds of literature for anyone interested. They are always a big success.

Our singing Elders.

The missionaries love to get together, and after the zone conferences are all over, some like to just stay and sing. Their harmony was beautiful.

Going home.

Elder Oyarzun was our only missionary that went home in February. He is going home to Chile. Best of luck to you Elder.

Always traveling.

We are making a tour around the mission every three weeks. We spend about 40-50% of our nights in hotels, and so we are always happy when we find one that is enjoyable. This hotel or hacienda is now a national monument. It is over 500 years old and was built by the Jesuits as a monastery. The King of Spain later kicked them out and it has changed hands many times, but it now is owned by the government. Simon Bolivar, the liberator of Colombia, stayed here two nights back in 1819. During the Revolution, it was a hospital for a while.

One of the oldest trees around.

This is a 280 year old Eucalyptus tree growing in the middle of the courtyard of this old hotel. The hotel or hacienda is out in the country with cows and sheep around. I went to the parking lot to get something out of the car, and a man was milking the cows by hand in the pasture in front of the hotel.

A very old hotel.

This hotel has a very special charm. It is very old. The original parts are over 500 years old, but the newer parts are about 300 years old.

Our new friend.

Don Quiote is very special in our home. If we had $2,000, we could take him home with us. He was a guest in the Hotel Hacienda del Salitre.

Duitama's first escalator.

Duitama is not a large town, but they just built a new little mall. When it opened up, the mall was full of many people going to see the biggest attraction in town, the moving stairs. At first I wondered why there was literally hundreds of people riding up and riding down and waiting in line to use the escalators. I wondered what was so interesting on the second floor. I went to check it out, and found there was NOTHING there. I figured out, it was the first time the people had even seen, let alone ride an escalator. In the photo, are the missionaries after zone conference.

The Lanceros de Colombia.

This is a very impressive monument near the little town of Paipa. This is a huge monument built to honor the 14 Lanceros that helped win the Revolution in early 18th century. The horses and the people are life size. You can see and feel the emotion of the Lanceros and the power of their horses. This monument was built on the very spot of a very bloody war that was one of the last battles before independence was won.

Duitama zone.

This is our missionaries in the Duitama zone. We are leaving after a great zone conference. We have missionaries from many countries here.

Bags and bags of carrots.

Going home from Duitama we stopped to watch the people bag many bags of carrots. We never saw the fields where they were raised, but we sure saw a lot of bags full.