A most interesting and memorable visit that Mr. Flores had in his travels was in South America when he visited a leper colony along the Amazon that was mentioned briefly in an earlier newsletter.  As they visited this leper colony, which was snuggled among the vast jungle vegetation along the shore of the mighty Amazon, he and his wife noticed that there were different artifacts that were crafted for sale by the people living at the colony, such as carvings of different animals that lived along the Amazon.   They also noticed an elderly lady who had a few items for sale on top of a small table along with other items that were set up along a wall.  One of the items was a 20-by-20 inch embroidered cloth, bordered in green crochet.  Embroidered in the middle of this cloth was a green, yellow and gold parrot sitting on a brown branch with the words "Recordar es vivir in la Soledad" or "To remember is to live in loneliness."  As they looked at the workmanship on the backside of the embroidery, they could see that the stitching was not the best.  Frankly, it made the embroidery piece that much less attractive.  Mr. Flores asked the lady how much she wanted for her work and she replied, "Fifteen dollars."  He thought, "Wow!"  For the first time, while visiting a third world country, he did not barter and instead paid the elderly lady the fifteen dollars.  He has shown this work at some of his presentations and while most people in the audience would not have paid more than fifty cents for it, today he would not take $1,500 for it!  This purchase from the elderly lady living along the Amazon gave him an important point to address in his seminar presentations that help reinforce a very important lesson in life:  Mr. Flores may have purchased a rather unattractive embroidery work from this elderly lady, but it needs to be noted that the lady was a resident of the leper colony and was a leper who had lost all of her fingers to this rare disease.  Can you imagine how difficult it was to do all the work that was required for her, just to work the needle, thread or crochet needles to do what she did?  Can you imagine how difficult could it have been for her to use the stubs on her hand that had replaced her fingers, in order to finish her work?  In the colony, the lepers were provided food and a roof over their heads, but they had to fend for themselves if they wished to buy other things such as toothpaste, toothbrush, razors and all those items that so many of us take for granted.  The lesson that was taught to Mr. Flores by the elderly woman was that she still had hope in spite of what she had gone through and, in fact, was still going through at this time of her life.  She had not lost hope to help improve her own living conditions in the midst of a jungle.  Therefore, this message is meant to ask all of you:  If an elderly lady can live in the darkest part of South America, in a jungle along the longest river in the world, in a leper colony without fingers, and still not lose hope in improving her life, then why should you, who possess all your limbs, lose hope?  Mr. Flores' wish is that one of these days you may have a chance to see this beautiful work of embroidery that gave him a greater meaning to the word...HOPE!