(Clearwisdom.net) On the afternoon of February 6, 2005, Gilberto, a Falun Gong practitioner from Venezuela and I left from Lima, the capital of Peru, for La Paz, Bolivia, and started a week-long activity of introducing Falun Dafa in Bolivia.
A family with a predestined relationship with Dafa
Vladimir is a young college student who practices martial arts. One day, he accidentally ran across the words "Falun Dafa" on his computer and he felt very interested in it. Thus, he started searching for articles about Falun Dafa. Last year, when he went to Lima to attend a martial arts contest, he found a Falun Gong practice site. Vladimir learned the five sets of Falun Gong exercises. After he returned to his country, he has kept in touch with practitioners in Peru. When we arrived in La Paz, Vladimir took us to his home and his mother warmly received us.
The City of La Paz is located at an elevation of more 3,600 meters, while Vladimir resides in a suburb that is 4,100 meters above sea-level. It happened that the day we arrived was Bolivia's Carnival, the first day of its National Day Celebration. There was a festival atmosphere everywhere, all the way from downtown La Paz to its suburbs. Our arrival added more joy to Vladimir and his mother.
On the second afternoon of our visit, Vladimir's mother, grandmother and young cousins all requested to learn the practice of Falun Gong. Noticing that his grandmother's legs were disabled and that it was quite hard for her to move around, I asked her to sit down to learn the exercises. To our surprise, when we did the stretching movements of the first exercise, she suddenly stood up and practiced with us. She did not sit down until we finished the fourth exercise. I was quite moved by her sincere attitude towards learning the exercises. I was also amazed by Vladimir's mother's accurate movements, which looked as if she had practiced for quite some time. The young cousins tried very hard to learn the exercises as accurately as they could. We learned later that as soon as they went home, they taught their parents to practice the exercises and gave them the truth-clarifying flyers to read.
Setting up a practice site in the city of La Paz
  More and more people come to learn the Falun Gong exercises |   People learning the Falun Gong exercises |
  People learning the Falun Gong exercises |   Studying the Fa after practicing the exercises |
Previously, Vladimir went to La Plaza Avaroa every day to practice martial arts with other local martial arts practitioners. On February 7, the second day of our journey, more than ten people were already waiting at the plaza to learn Falun Gong when we arrived there at 9:00 a.m. They practiced the smooth and elegant Falun Gong exercises with us to the practice music, and the peaceful and auspicious field of righteous thoughts made a deep impression on these people with a predestined relationship with Dafa. After the practice, they all asked to continue learning the Falun Gong exercises the next day.
February 9 was the traditional Chinese Lunar New Year's Day. When Vladimir learned that Falun Dafa practitioners from Mainland China and all over the world sent greetings to Master each Lunar New Year, he asked us to send a letter to Clearwsidom.net to respectfully wish Master a Happy New Year and to express Bolivian practitioners' respect toward Master.
On February 8, we went back to the plaza. The new practitioners wished us a happy Lunar New Year and thanked us for our exercise instruction. Because February 8 was the last day of Bolivia's Carnival, the celebration reached its climax. People danced, drank beer and caroused until midnight. On the plaza, we continued to teach and practice the exercises serenely and quietly. The contrast left a deep impression on these new practitioners.
In order to guide the new practitioners to study the Fa and follow the way of cultivation practice that Master taught us, we made several copies of the Spanish version of the book, Falun Gong. After practicing the exercises, we read together from the new Spanish version of Falun Gong. The new practitioners felt very good about reading the book and only stopped when they had to go to work.
Clarifying the truth to the local government and media
Last November, Australian Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Jane Dai filed a lawsuit against Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan in Sucre, Bolivia. Although there were no local Falun Gong practitioners at that time, media reports about the lawsuit aroused attention and sympathy from people from all walks of life.
  Giving an interview |   Giving an interview |
  Giving an interview |   Accepting an interview with a radio station |
On the morning of February 9, we met with three TV news anchors who were reporting on the government. We introduced Falun Gong to them and talked about the unreasonable persecution suffered by practitioners in China. They listened attentively and sympathetically, and some of them expressed that they would come to the practice site to run an interview. That afternoon, we visited the newspaper offices of El Diario and La Prensa. Both daily newspapers are distributed across the country. A reporter from La Prensa was quite moved upon hearing the facts about Falun Dafa and expressed her deep sympathy to Dafa practitioners who are currently suffering the persecution in China. She interviewed us herself and told us that the report would be published on Friday.
  Clarifying the truth to local media |   Clarifying the truth to related staff members in City Hall |
On February 10, we visited the La Paz City Hall and delivered truth-clarifying materials to the staff members. One after another, the staff members asked us for truth-clarifying leaflets and asked about the information for the local practice site. They expressed their wishes to learn the practice. In the afternoon, after listening to our truth-clarification, a columnist from the newspaper La Razon told us that he would like to introduce our story in his column.
At around 4:30 p.m. on February 11, we were invited to Fides, a popular radio station. Vladimir, the new practitioner from Bolivia, talked about his own experience of how practicing and studying Falun Gong has helped him to increase his wisdom and get better grades in his studies. After listening to our introduction to Falun Gong, the anchor told the audience that she believed that Falun Gong's principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance are more important than the exercise itself. Our program at the radio station interested another host, who joined our enthusiastic talk. The original anchor said that we had only 20 minutes for the interview, but it turned out that she talked with us for an hour and still wanted to talk with us more. After the interview, we went back to our hotel and were interviewed by TV Channel 18. We demonstrated the five sets of exercises to the television audience.
On Saturday morning, Gilberto and I went to the plaza before 8:00 a.m. About forty people were already waiting there to learn the exercises. Several more people came to learn the practice before they left. When the second group of 15 people attentively learned the exercises, film crews from TV Channel 18 and Channel 2 came over to conduct an interview. The reporters felt the peaceful and auspicious field and learned the exercises along with the others. The reporters from the two TV stations were very satisfied about the interview and told us when the story would be broadcast.
In the afternoon, we said goodbye to the practitioners in Bolivia and took the bus back to Lima, Peru. As the bus was leaving La Paz, a rainbow appeared in the sky above the city.