Summer to winter.

This photo shows what the parks are like in Bucaramanga in the summer months. This was taken last December. Who would have ever thought the grass would grow back in the winter time, but the next photo tells the story for the month of August.

The color winter green.

I can now understand what the color winter green indicates. This is a park in Bucaramanga where we like to walk around in the early morning hours when we are in Bucaramanga. The month of August is winter time and noitice how green the grass is.

JAS convention.

We attended a JAS or (Young Single Adults) convention in San Gil. Everyone wanted to have their pictures taken with us. The gals as well as the guys. We felt pretty special. The two girls on the left are twins and have become very good friends of ours.

An old colonial bridge.

We can only imagine the Spaniards crossing this bridge many hundreds of years ago. We are glad it is still standing.

This is really street food.

This horse is eating on the job in Bogota. The horses and carts are always entertaining. They are used to move people's home supplies , carry the equipment for the gardners, collect garbage and anything else you can think of.

Fifteen hundred million years old.

This fossil was very interesting. We were told it was fifteen hundred million years old. This head is about six feet long. The whole fossil was about forty feet long. When it was found by some farmers, the farmers took one of the legs and the tail bones before the government stopped them. This is right where it was found about fifty years ago. They have built a museum around it. It is about ten minutes outside of Villa de Leyva. It had a head like a crocodile, but it always lived in water.

An abrubt ending.

We were so sorry to have Sister Berrios mission end on a sad note. Her father was killed in an accident just a few days before she was to go home. We were very grateful for all that she did on her mission. We wish her well.

Keeping everyone awake.

These missionaries taught us a new game called Ninja. They loved it. The object is to be the last person to have someone touch your hand. It can involve a large group.

Playing Ninja.

This was such a fun game. It was good to play right after lunch when everyone was getting tired. It was good to wake them up. Where you hand stops, you have to hold it there until someone tries to hit it.

Learning from each other.

Missionaries are always learning from each other. Some of our missionaries are new in the mission and others are getting ready to return home.

After four days of training.

Here we have the zone leaders, district leaders, and the trainers for over half of the mission. We repeated the training to the leaders in the other part of the mission.

Always a white shirt and tie.

The missionaries never have to decide what to wear, it is always a white shirt and a tie.

It is hard to count and do push ups.

There are many ways to teach a lesson, and we needed them to keep everyone interested for four days of training.

People not lessons.

We learned the importance of teaching people not lessons.

Good listeners.

Here we have another teaching moment. We all learned from this lesson.

The yummy lunch.

The missionaries were very hungry every day, and they knew it would be good. This does not show how big this portion was. She gave it to me, but it was later divided into food for three. No wonder it is hard to lose weight.

Part of the missionaries in our 4 day training.

The missionaries in all the world are receiving some new instructions on how to teach PMG. These are most of the leaders that were present for our 4 day training. We all learned a lot and left with a lot of enthusiasm.

A big greeting

Here in Colombia men greet other men that are friends with a big abrazo or hug and each one pats the other on the back two times.

Learning to teach with the Spirit.

One companionship removed their ties and made blindfolds to help them listen to the Spirit while teaching.

The new investigator.

Elder Cueves and Elder Calle are teaching a doll. Never a dull (or doll) moment.

Lunch time finally.

All the missionaries are always hungry at lunch time. It was always worth the wait.

Enjoying the yummy food.

Elder Miles and Elder Byington are enjoying the sunshine and the yummy food.

Our cook for the 4 day conference.

The lady in the middle cooked our food for our four day conference. It was incredible food. She is the RS president in her ward, and has only been a member for 1 1/2 years.

A good day for flying a kite.

The month of August in Colombia is known as the month of the kites. This is the windy month and these are just a few of the many colorful kites that are sold on the streets. They are incredible. All kinds of shapes and colors.

A fun relay game.

Bogota has a huge park called Parque Simon Bolivar. Colombia just like every other city has parks where families or school groups gather to have a fun outing. We enjoyed watching this relay game with a plastic spoon in their mouths while balancing an egg on the spoon.

A real live lilly pond.

While in the Botanical Garden, we came upon this beautiful lilly pond. It was very delightful.

This tasted as good as it looks.

Grilled myzorca or corn, more like field corn, is a fun tradition here in Colombia. It is not the corn we are used to eating in the US, but with a lot of butter and salt it is really good. People are often cooking the myzorca around parks, and on the street. We especially enjoyed it at Christmas time while watching the Christmas lights.

Honoring the indigenous people of Colombia.

We just happened to be visiting the Botanical Gardens in Bogota the day they were honoring the indigenous people of Colombia. We spent one hour watching a very interesting custom that is till being used by these people. Here are a few of the men in their indigenous dress.

An old tradition of cleansing.

This was a very interesting hour spent in this building made of bamboo poles and a thatched roof. Two indigenous gentlemen asked for volunteers to show the custom their two different tribes use to cleanse people. Here the gentlemen is waving the plant over her while chanting the whole time. He was smoking his cigarette as though he was blowing away her sins. Maybe we could use this as a good missionary tool.

Cleansed from inside out.

This young lady was cleansed from the inside out. She was given something to drink by this abuelo, or older gentleman, until she started vomiting. I guess this was her cleansing. This was enough for us, we left at this point.