Tuesday October 12

 Yea, today is my birthday. But so far as the world out here knows just another day. I did my solo walk and then since we had meetings today we went for a short walk. We entered in a cemetery we had heard of which was just 15 minutes away and headed out. Walking by gps is still extremely difficult for us or maybe just for me. We did manage to walk to it without too many backtracks. I was a little bit disappointed. First some history. Jews were first brought here as slaves. I am not sure when that ended but this cemetery was started in 1834.

The cemetery itself is locked up behind walls and appears to have not been maintained nor used for a long time. I am not sure if tje marble vaults are a one time use item or of they are the door to multiple graves, but the concrete slabs are just markers. I could see no writing on them. There were not many and none looked new or recently disturbed.

Not very level and not exactly lined up

The cactus in the center looks very unkempt, and I figure no one really cares for this place anymore. The man who told me about it said all the jewish people were gone either dead or assimilated. So grabbed the picture of grandma on the way back by a little shrine. We went to language class and we then district meeting. Next we visited the mother of the two kids baptized Saturday. She wanted to tell me herself that now her kids were all baptized they could choose for themselves she was not coming to church anymore. What is this? We talked we went home, I fear this is why we have700 members but only 50 attend. So home and the kids called at 6:00 (noon for them) and sang happy birthday all at the same time. That was fun. We had cake and ice cream all in all not the typical birthday, but even with the disappointment there was joy spending time with my kids. We love you all.

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Here is a picture of the hill we climbed one week ago today from the point where we started.