Santa Cruz and Cochabamba

So we got to go to Santa Cruz for the Zone visit - it was a real privilege to be there and we were glad we made it there.

We did a quick tour of Santa Cruz Bethel - because the zone visit was on - they had tours running on the saturday as lots of people had come from all over to visit - they had lots of display stands - it was sort of like a mini international convention!

With some of our tour group at Bethel

We stayed with this lovely family - they looked after us so well, the were really hospitable to us, we are blessed to have our worldwide brotherhood

 It was a hot day - hence all the umbrellas

 Zone Talk - there were 12,727 in attendance at the stadium in Santa Cruz and the total of everyone at the main cities linked in (including Santa Cruz) was 26, 030, other congregations were also linked in through their cell phones .  The talks were really encouraging - we had Brother Malenfant who spoke spanish and Brother Guy Pierce whose talk was in English (yay) and translated into Spanish.  It was an awesome talk.  Afterward,  a slideshow of photos played of brothers and sisters out witnessing in Bolivia in isolated territories etc while everyone mingled.  It was hot and we were in a outside stadium but it was great.

We went to Biocentro Guembe - a water park with lots of pools and animals - they have a butterfly enclosure where you also see parrots, toucans, tortoises, monkeys, rabbits, peacocks etc.  It was a fun, relaxing day.

Not sure what was going on here?

We met up with a friend of our friends - she is from Germany and in the German speaking congregation in Santa Cruz.  We went out witnessing with her and did German search work and then in the afternoon - we accompanied her and another brother and did informal street witnessing in the city to Mennonites,- there are heaps living in Santa Cruz.  It was very interesting learning about their territory and the Mennonites.  One Bolivian sister we met in the German congregation has a bible study with a Mennonite that she can only get to once a month because it takes about 3 hours by car and then they have to walk for an hour before they reach where the bble student lives.  So it takes 4 hours each way to get to the study!

When we were able to get a flight out of Santa Cruz, we found out we would be stopping in Cochabamba for 3 hours.  So we went down to the main plaza and had a quick look at the markets - wish we had more time now as they have really cool souvenir shops in Cochabamba!  At least we got to have a quick look at the place.

We saw one of our sisters witnessing in the main plaza - so we stopped to give her a kiss and meet her!