OUR FAMILY IS GROWING

A couple of pictures we found on facebook of our new family members for our friends.
This is Grace Lewis who joined the family on the 27th. Elder Oliver's mom's birthday)

Josh Waston with Melodi and their line on theri wedding day on the 21st. 

Melodi is our oldest grandchild and Grace is the youngest.  

Home Evening

Home evening with some of our institute students. They are easy to become attached too.

There are six registered, one entered the CCM in Bogata (MTC) this week and four usually attend..  For this activity Felipe was out of town.  We hope he´ll be back for this week´s class\activity.

Cali

We pass this house when we go to the bank and we see it from one of the malls we shop at.  There are several old houses in the middle of the city,  the new buildings next to the old ones.

We walk along the river Cali most mornings.  This view is from the bridge at the far point of our walk.  We cross the bridge and walk back up the other side of the river.  The mountains to the west show faintly in the picture.  It is usually pretty hazy.

Paseo to Paraiso (Paradise, Colombia)

 The Hacienda Paraiso.  We went on a paseo (short trip) on Saturday to celebrate the birthday of Hermana Prince.  This is the home of Colombia's most famous 19th century writer, Jorge Isaacs.  It is also reminiscent of the life and values of the Cauca Valley of that era.


The whole group at the gate to the Hacienda.

Elder & Sister Oliver sitting on the root of huge tree.

Sisters Prince, Torgerson and Oliver under a beautiful bougainvillea at a gate.

Elder Oliver at the bougainvillea gate showing the roses and the garden.

The house and garden had a unique water system that came from a nearby canyon.   



The roses were beautiful.  In Isaac's novel, Maria (name of novel and heroine) picks fresh roses daily for Efrín (oldest son of the family & author of the autobiographical novel). 

In brief, Maria was "adopted" by the family after her parents died.  At 12 yrs Efrín is sent to Bogotá to school.  When he returns 6 years later, he falls in love with beautiful Maria.  At about this time, Maria has the first epilepsy seizure.  As we toured the house our guide told the story of Maria's life.  It was hard for me to keep the novel separate from the life of George Isaacs.  The parallels were not a coincidence.

The white and orange contrast was especially appealing.



Elder Oliver chose roses for our flowers this week.

September 15 is Día de Amor y Amisdad (Valentine's day) in Colombia.







Hotel Oliver Update

 

        Hotel Oliver.  We didn't take a picture of the apartment full of suitcases last transfer day.  We got a couple this time but a better picture would be at bedtime or in the morning when the suitcases are all spread out, wall to wall, so they can open them.

                                                                                                                    

It is fun to greet the new elders.  Orientation takes two days here.   They arrive early in the morning and leave their suitcases here.  After a busy day they spend their first night with us.  They leave for their areas in the late afternoon of the second day.                                                                           

 Since we bought a flower vase, we've been buying flowers every few weeks.   This week we bought glads.  I hope they last a long time, they are so pretty.

Changes Sept 2012

1. A red tomato in our patio garden.  They are still small but I still hope for one BLT.   There are three plants in these pots.  They don't get much sun but are producing over 40 golf ball size tomatoes.   Probably not enough for salsa but we have found imported salsa.

2.  Sister Oliver started her first piano student yesterday.  Teaching piano was something that she really enjoyed in Mexico and the two youth there continue to play in the Hidalgo branch.  We saw  keyboards in a store after we first got here but they disappeared before we made up our mind about buying.  When we saw more a couple a weeks ago we got it.  We had one teaching book which we had given to the office elders who are practicing in their spare time.  They gave it up and made some copies of the pages they are working on.

3. A new institute student.  Our class is growing a new student each of the last two weeks.  Jessica is a student who has studied Accounting and is studying Business Management.  We had cupcakes for our reading treat this week, thanks to sister Oliver.  In church today Judith asked if she could make up the classes she missed if she started attending and we assured her she could. It is more fun with a bigger class.

4.  A visiting teaching assignment.  We have had a home teaching assignment for a few months and even had a home teacher visit us.  Now we have a visiting teacher assignment.   Sister Oliver was assigned 2 sisters, a mother and daughter, and we have an appointment this afternoon.

5.  New missionaries, new apartments and new assignments (transfer week).  Most wards will have two companionships in each ward soon.  Cali had 4 stakes a few years ago but now has three.  The new missionaries should help the church here grow and strengthen the stakes as well as help the districts in surrounding areas become stakes.