A night to remember.

When we go to Duitama, we stay in our old 500 year old hotel, but on this night we were delighted to have a group come in to the hotel for a midevil event. Everyone arrived in period costumes. They were very entertaining.

A midevil night to remember.

The evening was full of a lot of entertainment. Everyone was in costume. We saw people on stilts, jugglers, and people playing fluts.

A working coal mine.

We really enjoy going to Duitama now because of the 500 year old hotel that we have found. When we are there, we like to go out for walks in the countryside. We found this old mine that is being mined. We had no desire to go in, but it was closed for the day anyway. I don't think OSHA is working here.

Wooden rails.

The coal is brought up out of the mine in a little cart and when it gets to the end, the man pushes the cart around by hand until the rails line up with the rails in the background. He then pushed the cart over to the end and tips it our into the container below.

Coal waiting to be picked up.

The coal is dumped in this container and sits there until the dump truck comes to pick it up. The driver pulls out about three of the wooden slats in the front part of the container and then pushes the coal to the opening to the truck below.

Passing through a pay booth.

This is not an every day occurrence at our pay boothes, but on this day, we had these men greetings us as we drove through the pay booth. They are in the uniforms of the revolution way back in the Eighteenth century. I was a little late in getting the photo.

Our two Hermanas from Chile.

Our two Chilean hermanas from Chile, came over one afternoon and taught me how to make Chilean empanadas, sopaipillas, and a yummy postre. We worked, laughed, and remembered Chile. We loved our three years that we lived in Chile.

Busy day in the kitchen.

Hermana Robles-Via was a great teacher. She made sopaipillas and this postre. I can't remember what it is called. The sopaipillas were very common in Chile.

Looks professional.

Hermana Faundez made the dough and taught me how to make our pastry here as well as the dough for the empanadas.

A Chilean fiest.

The end result was very colorful as well as tasty. Now if I can do it on my own.

Local meat market.

This is the local meat market in Giron. The meat is always cheaper here than in the supermarkets.

The streets of Giron.

I never get tired of visiting the colonial pueblos. They are very historic. They are always very clean with the cobblestone streets, white building and usually balconies on the second level.

The heart of Bogota.

I took this photo right in the heart of downtown Bogota outside of the Gold Museum.

Good friends from San Gil.

We attended a stake conference in Bucaramanga last weekend and we had a special treat. Nearly fifty members from our little branch in San Gil made the long bus ride down through a steep canyon to attend the conference. They are not part of the stake, but had been invited to attend by the stake conference. It was good to see them.

Packaging tape is the trick.

Elder Morris had to return to the states for a surgery the end of last year. After several weeks of recovery, he returned to the mission and was continuing his recovery when he had an emergency appendectomy. We are planning on using some packaging tape to hold him together. Happy to report he is doing great.

Getting ready for Easter.

We have not seen any Easter egg dye, but there is no need for it. These are naturally colored blue and green eggs. Easter does not seem to be a commercialised holiday here in Colombia. It is so refreshing to have it a religious holiday.

Good to the last drop.

Watermelons are soooo sweet here in Colombia. We sometimes have to get out a straw to suck up the very last drop of the juicy watermelons. We have them year round. Thank goodness we have two and a half years to go.

No excuses.

One of the best treats of living in Colombia, is that you can get your shoes shined for 2,000 pesos. This is like spending $1 for a top notch shoe shine. There is no excuse for dirty shoes in Colombia.

It's a race to the top.

We stopped for a photo before we climbed our own Mt. Everest. Doctor Malouf and Sister Malouf climbed with us. We are outside our building. Only in a country like Colombia would you have a parking lot made of bricks. Labor is very cheap.

Homemade tamales.

This special lady was selling her homemade tamales while sitting on the sidewalk. Her hat, and cape are very typical from the area of Boyaca. She was a very sweet lady.

A portable store.

This man has his car full of many tasty treats. At the end of the day, he takes his treats and goes home. This type of business is quite common.

Two of our wonderful sisters.

Hermana Faundez and Hermana Robles-via paused with me outside their apartment after we had had an afternoon of interviews. They later took us for Chilean empanadas.

Yummy empanadas.

These empanadas tasted better than I even remembered. They brought back wonderful memories of Chile. We can not wait to go back to get some more.

New missionary time.

One of our extra bedrooms is always full of our new missionary supplies. We are glad we have a few extra bedrooms.

Bag of goodies for the new missionaries.

Every new missionary gets a garbage bag of essentials for their mission. Inside is a new pillow, a new set of sheets, and a mattress protector.

This was our biggest group.

This was our biggest group of new missionaries to arrive to date. We had 19 new missionaries arrive from Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and two from Colombia. We are very happy to have them serving with us.

Farewell time again.

This was our biggest group of missionaries to return home. Homes were in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. We only had one sister and she was returning to Peru. They were a good group.

One of a kind.

Elder Jimenez from Argentina would always take my hand and do this little bow when he would greet me. I will miss these little greetings. He returned home to Argentina.

Selling gas in Cucuta.

Cucuta is situated right on the border of Colombia and Venezuela. Gas is very cheap in Venezuela, so the locals cross over the border and buy the gas and take it back to Colombia and sell it along the street. We have been told that gas in Venezuela can sell for twenty five cents a gallon. Water on the other hand is very expensive there. It is much cheaper to buy a gallon of water than a gallon of gas.

Everyone with a smile.

These missionaries are from the Bucaramanga zone. They were smiling before they had their competition shown below. They are happy because Bucaramanga is such a great place to do missionary work.