Día de Independencia

[21 Aug 2017]

August 6th was Bolivia’s Independence Day. Celebrations like this, here (and there are many), involve “desfiles”, or parades. On Saturday, the 5th, the parades included all the schools – primary (“escuelas”), secondary (“colegios”), and universities (“universidades”). All students are required to attend. For some of these celebrations, the students’ parades have fallen on Sunday, which makes a real impact on church attendance. For this celebration, Sunday’s parades involved workers unions, miners, businesses, etc., so we didn’t get to see that one.

The one on Saturday, though, was very entertaining. The missionaries wanted to participate in the main plaza, greeting people and distributing pass-along cards, Books of Mormon, Liahonas, and pamphlets. The sisters suggested taking pictures of families with a border saying “Families can be together forever” to take to them later and find those interested in listening to our message. It was a big hit.

First, the “Forever Families” pictures resulted in a number of interested people. The sisters took the pictures, and I printed them out later. Since then, the missionaries have been contacting the families. It will be interesting to see if any investigators result. Here are some of the pictures:

While the sisters were taking pictures, the elders were greeting people, talking to them, and offering them literature. A group of young boys came by, and wanted Books of Mormon, so the Elders obliged them, along with Liahona magazines, and other literature.

Later, as you will see, we noticed the boys in the parade, proudly carrying their books and magazines.
The way the parades work is that everyone gathers in the street between the plaza and the main Cathedral, organized by school. They have uniforms, banners, and bands, all playing at the same time. The songs ranged from patriotic to native renditions, but also some strange ones, like “The Ants Go Marching One by One”. Very interesting.

Once everyone gets lined up, the local government and military authorities, business leaders, education leaders, etc., who are all seated on a stand in front of the Cathedral, get to have their input. Lots of patriotic messages, but interspersed were a number of school-age kids with dramatic readings (very dramatic, I might add), poems, songs, etc. Entertaining to say the least. Once they’ve all had their say, the bands start playing, and one by one, the groups peel off to march around the plaza. Here are some pictures of the various school groups in their uniforms.

As they were all marching by, I caught a glimpse of the boys who had requested the literature. There they were, marching along, with Books of Mormon and Liahonas in hand:

Quite interesting, to say the least.

Another day, we wanted to meet a family who hasn’t been coming to church for some time. We found out that the mother is the sister of one of the strong, faithful sister members of the branch, Hermana Delia Diaz de Cabezas. She has a handicapped son, and they come every Sunday. She is so sweet to us. When we asked about her sister, she offered to go visit with us. Afterwards, she invited us to her house. One of her daughters, who lives in Sucre with her husband and baby, was here visiting, so we got a picture of them with Hermana Lyon:

Hermana Delia Diaz de Cabezas, with her son, Gabriel,
 her daughter and grand-daughter, and Hermana Lyon.

And lastly, just so you know we’re still in Tupiza, Bolivia, here is a picture of the main street through our neighborhood - Avenida Diego de Almagro. They are repairing the road, so it has been all torn up. As a result, when the wind blows, which it has been doing of late, the dust gets everywhere. Eyes, nose, teeth, shirt collars, shoes, etc.

But, we still love it here. The people are so kind and gracious. This last week, we were invited to come visit a young mother and her family as we were riding on the bus. Turns out, her husband is a member, but inactive. So we took the missionaries with us to visit. She knows many of the members of the branch, and has had the missionary lessons, but stopped coming after a time. Maybe the missionaries will have success this time.