Laundromat, Flowering trees, Salteñas and a BBQ

[July  6, 2015] Monday

I'm going to try to compress the whole week here into one blog. Our Mondays are Preparation Day, so we try to get most shopping done, clothes washed, blog written, etc. But, every day has some excitement to share...

Monday - July 6th:
We started the day walking down to do shopping as usual, and caught a few sights along the way.

This is the economy version of a laundromat. There are basins with water along the middle, and the cholas sit along the sides and wash their clothes. They then hang them up on the pipes surrounding the water basins:

Laundromat

There are other services for washing your clothes - you can take them to a business where they charge by the pound (I'm hoping it isn't by the count of how many times they pound your clothes, and I'm hoping they don't use the above facility, either), and there are dry-cleaning services as well. As for us, we're grateful to have access to washers and dryers here at the temple hospedaje.

As for being the middle of winter here, you'd never know it. These are some of the beautiful blooming trees that we see all around us. Molly got into one of the pictures.

Molly posing with a flowering tree

Trees on the temple grounds

Along the way, I caught this picture. You don't have to forgo your soda habit here:

Coke, Sprite, Fanta being delivered

Before we went to the grocery store, we thought we'd get some salteñas for breakfast. There is a little place on Avenida Pando just south of IC Norte, so we walked down the street. It's called Los Castores. I stole this picture from their website:

Los Castores - salteñas

As you can see, salteñas are little meat pies. They are filled with beef, chicken or pork (or a mix), potatoes, an olive, onions, etc. They are very tasty. They are served here with a little spoon to help you extricate the contents without squirting all over yourself. Basically, you bite off one end, and then scoop the contents out as you eat the container. They are very tasty.

After we got back from shopping and eating and walking, Molly made a tasty fruit salad for the afternoon BBQ at the home of the Cochabamba Mission President and his wife. It is just across the street to the north of the temple. They invited all the missionaries here at the temple, along with President Jensen and his wife, to celebrate the 4th of July (for us Estadounidenses - US citizens) and for the 1st of July (for the Canadienses - Canadians - for the unititiated, see Canada Day.)

President Hansen has been here for a year now as the Mission President. He and his wife have quite the stories to tell of visiting the branches and missionaries throughout the mission. Access to some branches is nothing better than a four-wheel drive dirt road.

So, we cooked our meat of choice, and had salads and desserts that the missionaries had provided. Very tasty, and lots of fun to just relax.

Afterwards, we all gathered in the living room of their home, and had a Family Home Evening lesson about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. Since there are 6 missionaries from Chile, Argentina, and Peru here at the temple, it was all in Spanish. Molly and I understood most everything, and she made me do the talking to explain the scripture we were assigned. I think they understood my attempt to communicate.

Then, to finish off the day, we Skyped with the kids we had missed on Sunday night. It's fun to see them and talk to them.

Whew. And this is our day to relax!