El pueblito de Boyacense.

We have this little village or pueblo in our mission. It is a very colorful little pueblo that is very popular with artists. Many people go there to paint or play music.

An interesting couple.

On Christmas Eve, we were in Paipa and heard about a tour to go and visit some little pueblos and see their wonderful Christmas lights. We met this couple in our last pueblo. They were dancing in the town plaza for about one hour. They were dancing a dance called the Carranga. This is a dance that is local to the area in Boyaca. Both of these people are professors of socialogy in Bogota. They invited us to go to their hotel. It belongs to the lady's family. We had a nice visit with them. The man said, while he is in Bogota, he has to dress like a professor, but when he is in this little pueblo, he can let his hair down and dress the way he wants because his students are not watching him.

Visiting these little pueblos was a delightful experience.

Five different churches in five different pueblos.

Many beautiful lights were in all the pueblos.

The public bathroom.

This was the public bathroom in the last pueblo we visited. It looks like it should be a shower stall, but it had a toilet with a shower curtain for the door.

Want to come back?

While driving in front of this house. We stopped to take a photo of these men getting ready for a family party. They love to cook their meat over oven fires. They invited us to come back later and est with them/.

Preparing the Ajiaco.

These family members were preparing the vegetables for the food for the family fiesta.

All milked by hand.

When one gets outside of Bogota, there are many herds of cows. This was a good sized herd, and everyone was milked by hand e very morning and night. In this case their were three children doing the milking. One boy was about 16, one boy was 14 and a 10 year old girl. They put the milk in the milk cans and then carry the cans to the road to wait for the milk truck to pass by.

A Boyacense pesebre.

I bought one new pesebre or nativity this year. This shows how some of the country people from Boyaca dress.

Colorful purse.

Colombia has many talented people that make all kinds of beautiful hand bags. This is one that I bought.

A birthday visit.

We had five of our special sisters came to visit us with a gift for my birthday. They are always surprising us with gifts.

A visit to Panaca.

The stake president in the Granada stake invited us to go with some of their members on a stake activity to Panaca. We didn't know what it would be, but we had a delightful day with the members seeing many farm animals and watching them perform.

Green mango.

President Mantilla bought everyone a cup of green mango. The people often buy this on the street. They like it with salt and lime juice over it.

The Panaca pig race.

We enjoyed seeing the many activities with the farm animals. I think this was the first time I have seen a pig race.

The Bucaramanga 2 stake choir concert.

The two stakes from Bucaramanga always puts on a beautiful Christmas concernt. They had four different choirs. The first was the missionary concert with 38 missionaries. Then they had a primary concert, next the youth concert and ended with their adult concerts. It was a wonderful evening.

On the road to the airport.

The day after the choir concert we tried to get home. It had rained so hard that there was a lot of mud slides and rocks that had fallen on the road. When we got to the airport, the airport was closed because of the poor visibility with all the rain. We had to wait for the next day.

Elder Centurion and his bread.

Elder Centurion is one of our assistants from Argentina. One day I was busy in the kitchen and he asked if he could help. I let him make the bread. A few days later he was in our house and he put some of the dough to raise and here he is taking the master piece out of the oven. We all enjoyed the crumbs of his labor.

A street en Ucequen.

This narrow street is in Bogota in an old colonial area. Today it is more of a tourist stop, but there are many artist that like to go there and paint, and there are many restaurants.

Our last group of new missionaries for 2010

These four young men were very excited as we picked them up at the airport. They are so enthusiastic and eager to start serving their mission. We feel it a blessing to serve with them.