Thanksgiving

[November 17-23, 20115]

Tuesday 17 November 2015
At the temple this afternoon, a family had come from Santa Cruz. Their oldest son is going on a mission to Columbia in December, and they brought him to receive his endowments and get sealed to them. They had been sealed in the temple to their two younger children, but this older son had not been baptized at the time. Since then, he accepted the missionary lessons, was baptized, and chose to serve a mission. So, before he left, his parents wanted him to be sealed to them as well.His younger sister is leaving on a mission, too, in March, so we'll see them again!

These are the sweet kinds of things that we experience all the time.

Wednesday 18 November 2015
This afternoon, I officiated at one of the endowment sessions, and there was a blind man in the session. Hno. Calder helped him, and after the session we talked a little bit. He indicated that it had caused him to think about the endowment session and how it would be if you couldn't see - if all you had to go on were the voices and sounds. Certainly, this brother has a challenge in all areas of his life, but it was instructive to think about this particular circumstance, where communications from the Spirit could possibly be enhanced by not having the visual senses, which we so often allow to distract us.

Friday 20 November 2015
We got a coconut to try and see if extracting the water/milk was a possibility. And a thermometer to see how hot it gets in our apartment. We're thinking it runs about 80 to 85 in the daytime.

Coconut split open - glass holds about 12 oz. of the water from the coconut.

The coconut held about 12 oz. of "water", which didn't taste bad, nor particularly good. It had a very slight flavor to it, but mostly not anything very sweet. The flesh of the coconut was very pliable and easy to extract. We're thinking this was a fairly green coconut after we husked it, drained it, and opened it up. We'll shred and toast the meat to see how that goes.

As for the thermometer, it was reading 88 degrees F. inside, which I thought was a bit high. So, in trying to calibrate it to 32 degrees F. in an ice-water bath, and move the glass tube to correlate (it was reading 3-4 degrees high in an ice bath), I managed to break it. So, back to the drawing board.

Monday 23 November 2015
We celebrated Thanksgiving as a missionary group, since the Temple is open on Thursday, and Bolivia doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving.

Everyone contributed - we had turkey, dressing, potatoes and gravy, corn, beans, salad, cranberry salad (Molly made that), rolls, mango and plum drinks, coconut and lemon cream pies, pumpkin and apple pies, ice cream and whipped cream. Quite the feast. It was fun to be all together with the Temple Presidency (Presidente/Hna. Jensen, Pres./Hna. Garcia, Pres./Hna. Mogrovejo), the temple recorder, Hno. Cabrera (his wife was in the EEUU/USA with a daughter and her new twins), the Cochabamba Mission President and his wife, the Hansens, and all the missionaries. The Runquists leave in a few weeks for home. Hna. Runquist did the bulk of planning and decorating - all very, very beautiful and well-coordinated. We'll miss them.

Hno. Calder took the following pictures:

Table decorations, thanks to Hna. Runquist.

Yum!

Our Missionary Family:

Front, from left: the Garcias, the Jensens, the Mogrovejos.

Back, from left: the Paredes, Hno. Cabrera, the Parkers, the Lyons, Hna. Butler, the Runquists, Hna. Valdizán, the Hansens, the Leckies, the Thomases, the Chalmers, the Calders.

What are we thankful for?

• A Heavenly Father who loves us and watches over our family while we are here.
• The gospel and the saving ordinances of the temple that seal us together as a family.
• Each other - we are a better team now than ever, and we have always been a pretty good team.
• A family who loves each other and watches out for each other.
• The opportunity to serve in Bolivia, with these sweet, humble, giving people.

And much, much more...

Molly and I at our Thanksgiving Dinner.

The Temple - getting ready for Christmas. The manger is being built.