USNS Comfort hospital ship project in Tumaco

Crowd waiting outside to enter the school for medical treatment.

An example of Tumaco housing in the poor neighborhoods.

Waiting to see one of the pediatrics doctors

The first phase of the optometry treatment. Royal is translating.

Royal speaking at the new school unvailing ceremony presenting the school with church-donated desks and school kits. Carlos Vives is standing at left.

The crowd at the new school ceremony. Between 1,000 and 2,000 in the audience.

The ten Cali missionary translators with their mission president and his wife

Royal talking with Mayor Correa of Tumaco at the ceremon

The famous MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) lunches -- designed for warriors.

Royal examining the church-donated desks and school kits in one of the new class rooms.

Lorena Ostos, a sweet LDS girl, translating for a pediatrics examination.

Royal translating for a CPR demonstration. The Project Hope volunteer has lived in Sugar House in SLC for 25 years, never joined the church, and is a nurse at St. Marks Hospital.

Colombian military guards with their assault rifles at the ready.

Carolyn with Linia, a joyful little 10-year old girl with only one leg. She prefers only one crutch because she can run faster.

Carolyn and Royal with Carlos Vives, the famous Colombian singer who said, upon meeting us in broken English, that he is the Colombian Donny Osmond.

Bucaramanga, Colombia

Last Monday and Tuesday we traveled to Bucaramanga for the purpose of meeting with government and hospital officials to discuss the Neonatal recusistation training which will take place in October. We accompanied Dr. Jeff Zollinger and his wife Mary. We met with Health deparatment people from the state and the city as well as toured three hospitals that will participate in the training. We also went on a little tour of the city. Bucaramanga is famous for its shoes, leather, gold and silver and even baby clothes. There are two stakes in Bucaramanga and the NRT training will be held in a beautiful new stake center that opened its doors last week. These photos show us with the Zollingers in a city park in the colonial part of the city, including the cathedral. The other two photos show us meeting with city and Department (State) people. We took long tours of three hospitals (every hospital director wants to show you all of his facilities). All the health people in Bucaramanga are very excited about the NRT project. In the photo on the right of the top row, the young man standing next to Royal is a Department of Health executive and one of those overly-busy administrators who walk around with a blackberry in one hand and a cell phone in the other, both of which are ringing at all times.

Life in Bogota

These are a few fotos that give a little insight into how we live our life in Bogota. I think we have said before that either we take a taxi or we walk. We always take a taxi to work. The first foto is of the office building where we work. It's taken from a fancy new mall across the street. We go there to eat lunch at a nice food court there. The other fotos are taken near our apartment. Within a block of the apartment, we have a grocery store, a drug store (called drogeria here although most Latino countries call it a farmacia), a beauty shop (peluqueria) a bakery (panaderia) a cleaner (lavanderia), a hardware store (fereteria), plus restaurants. A little farther (about a five to 10 minute walk) is a really nice book store where Royal could spend a lot of time, although he hasn't yet. In fact, there are two book stores and next to them a larger grocery store. The other fotos show Carolyn in front of the larger grocery store with her little bags for carrying groceries, one with wheels, and Royal standing in front of the drogeria and in front of the book store (libreria).

Trip to Venezuela

We returned from our five day trip to Venezuela Friday afternoon. We visited six hospitals in the two cities of Caracas and Valencia. We traveled with Jose (the young man in the picture with Royal) and the Ducettes, a doctor and his wife from the states. We had meetings in each hospital with the administration discussing the neo-natal training the church does. This will take place probably in October. We have posted several pictures. The picture to the right was taken while drivcing in Caracas. It is hard to see but the houses are all on a mountain. It worries me that should there be a mud slide they all would be destroyed. The one just below the writing is dad with Jose our driver for the 5 days we were there. Jose is over security for the church throughout Venezuela. He is bright, articulate and he and dad had some great visits. There is also posted a picture of the small temple there in Caracas. It is next to the church office building and is utilized as we were told to its maximum potential. The other picture was from the top of a long windy road that looks down on the city of Caracas. We felt it was a very successful trip. We learned a lot and by in large had very nice hotels and always good company on our travels.

Sorry about publishing the post before I finished!!! Pictures are President of Colombias house, underneath is the plaza and of course the painting is from the art museum. The paintng is by Botero.

Some tourist sights in Bogota

Today was our preparation day. We had hired a driver to pick us up along with the Crooks and take us into the heart of the city of Bogota. The traffic was a nightmare. Apparently Saturdays are worse than weekdays in terms of gridlock and we hit it all. It took us about an hour to get into the downtown area. The driver let us off at the Gold museum. It is amazing and so well done. We spent at least an hour there. Then he drove us a few blocks which took forever and let us off and we walked towards the plaza. On our way we stopped at several museums including an exhibition of the art work of Botero. (He likes to paint fat people). We also peeked into several other museums on our walk down to the plaza. The plaza is amazing. Hundreds of people and merchants. We went into a very old and gigantic cathedral located right on the plaza. We also drove past the President of Bogotas house. We went to the office and picked up the neo natal maniquens we have to take with us tomorrow to Venezuela and went to lunch at our favorite restaurant, Sopa y

A visit from a dear friend

One of the many miracles of our mission was the news that my dear friend of over 40 years was coming to Bogota on business. She was able to bring a suitcase of supplies to me and she is staying within walking distance of our apartment. This is a BIG city and we were stunned when we reallized how close she was to us. We had a wonderful time together on Sunday. The picture was taken at our Stake Center; a beautiful building with spanish architecture featuring an open air passage way in the center and with classrooms on one side and the chapel on the other. We have been able to meet her for dinner and Saturday her husband Fred and Royal and I are going to go sight seeing through the city of Bogota.