Relief Society Birthday Party

Friday night we went to the Relief Society Birthday party for Pocuro Ward.  It was supposed to start at 8:30, so we figured if we got there at 9 it would be about ready to start.  They started at 9:15.  We had a devotional in the chapel.  The R.S. President talked about each woman was a link in the chain of Relief Society, and each link was needed to make the chain strong.  If one of the links was missing, it made the chain weaker.  Then the bishop talked about R.S. helping women strengthen their faith and he gave Mary Fielding Smith as an example of a woman of great faith.  After the devotional we adjourned to the cultural hall where we had great food...

played fun games like this one, where couples had to dance together keeping a tennis ball between them.  The last one dancing with the tennis ball wins.



and danced....



and danced.



All the women who didn't have a partner danced in a big circle, even Sister Hoppe who is in her 70's.  Since Elder Dahlstrom was a stick in the mud and wouldn't dance with me, I had to join the circle of single women!

We left at 11 and they were still going strong.  We were told that last year it wasn't over until after 1 a.m.  We had a lot of fun and I told Elder Dahlstrom that he was not going to get out of dancing with me next year!



Cobblestones

We spent last week in the office contacting PEF students.  I sent out about 1,000 emails for various purposes, and Blaine was trying to contact them by phone.  A friend said he thought that would get old soon, and sometimes it does, but then we make a contact with a young person who tells us how the PEF has blessed their lives, and how being obedient has helped them overcome their challenges.  Sometimes we are able to help them solve a problem, and it makes all the minutae worth it.  As Ricardo Gonzalez, the Chile PEF coordinator, says, "one by one, we reach them one by one."  Saturday we needed something to do to relax our brains, so we walked up to downtown Providencia.  Along the way we passed a street repair where they were replacing the cobblestones. (Providencia has cobblestone streets, it makes if very noisy when you are trying to sleep at night.)  Blaine took this picture to show how big the cobblestones are.

San Felipe

Last weekend we ended up driving through San Felipe because the road we wanted to take was closed.  Here are a couple of fun pictures we took in San Felipe.

Check out the axle on the wagon.

We've been told that you can still see horse-drawn wagons in the outskirts of Santiago.  We haven't seen that yet, but they certainly have them in San Felipe.  Driving through the country side we have seen farmers plowing with horses, next to a field being plowed by a tractor.  We haven't been able to get a picture yet, but we're still trying.

Our detour led us to a small town near La Ligua.  In Chile you don't go to a mall and get all your shopping done at once.  If you want shoes you go to the street lined with shops that sell shoes.  If you want fabric, you go to the street of fabric shops. If you want car parts, the same thing.  Here is a picture of a street of sweaters.

We came to this man's shop, he said he had woven everything in the shop.  When I went up close to see how he was working his loom, he posed me at the loom.

Work

Kristi told us she thought we were on a perpetual vacation--so here are a couple of pictures to prove we show up at the office occasionally!

I just finished preparing my first powerpoint presentation.  Blaine told me what he wanted and I figured out how to do it.  It turned out OK.

Do you want to hear something really scary?  I am the resident computer expert among the missionaries here at the office.  That is an indication of how low everyone else is.  They have IT people here at the office building, but the missionaries are at the bottom of the list.  If they don't want to wait a couple of weeks for help, they call me.  I usually don't have an answer right away, but I can figure it out in a few minutes, so it's quicker for them.

Nicole

Most of the work we do is office-related and we don´t get a lot of direct contact with the participants of the Perpetual Education Fund.  However, Jane sends birthday greetings to all the participants and from time to time we have assignments to email the participants.  We love getting responses from the kids.  They are always expressing their appreciation for the PEF and frequently bear testimony as to how it has helped their lives.  Many have problems and we work with them and with the other PEF staff to get them the help they need.    We get a lot of email responses that start with “let me explain the situation”.  When we do, we know they need help. 

Blaine was asked to follow up on several participants who had no ward or stake listed and who seemed to have disappeared.  They did have an old email address so emails were sent out to all of them.   Soon a response came back that started:  Let me explain my situation…”  It was from a sister who had been having some very difficult challenges in her life and was ready to quit church and her studies.  She had only been a member 5 years.  She had tried to get a PEF loan for the last part of her studies but her Bishop wouldn´t approve it because she hadn´t been coming to church.  She felt like everything had come crashing down on her, even though she had been helping a family who had lost their mother and her father who had been hospitalized and wasn’t expected to live in addition to her studies.  I wrote back to her trying to strengthen and encourage her and let her know that her Father in Heaven knew her situation and would help her get through these difficult times.  She was encouraged enough to try to talk to her bishop again (in the meantime we were working to get in touch with the Bishop and to fill him in on her situation).  She went to church during a Young Womens activity and there she was approached by the first counselor.  Usually he greeted her and then went on with his business but this time he stopped and spent some time with her asking her about her studies and her father.  He helped her get in to the Bishop and she was able to have her burden lifted by those priesthood leaders.  Then she expressed her extreme gratitude for my follow-up and encouragement and expressed how she had lost all hope until she had received my email.  

It is amazing how the Lord works.  He knows when each of his children is having difficulties and places different individuals in their path to help lift and sustain them.  How important it is for us to be sensitive to the Spirit and to be ready when He calls.  This experience was a wonderful blessing in our lives.  It was topped off when she came into the office to pick up her check for the school.  We were called down to the PEF Service Center where she was waiting for us.  She was so excited and happy to meet us.  She wanted to give me a big hug but knew she couldn´t so she gave Jane two hugs and said one was for me.  So, Jane turned and gave me a big hug for her.  She was so overjoyed to see us.  It was a wonderful but humbling experience. 

Spanish Woes

Jane has decided that she needs to re-translate the Book of Mormon in order to use fewer different Spanish words!  One of the men in the office was talking about the difference between Spanish and English.  He said, "English has many meanings for one word, Spanish has many words for one thing."  I'll say! 

An example:
I was reading Mosiah 10 in Spanish, with the the English B of M alongside to make sure I understood what I was reading.  In verses 12 & 13 it talks about the Lamanites feeling they were wronged.  The word wronged is used 3 times.  In Spanish it is ultrajaron, agravidos, and tratado injustamente.  All for the same word!.  The same thing in 14-16 where the Lamanites were wroth four times.  In Spanish we have enojaron,  irritaron, enfurecieron, and ensañaron. 

This happens all the time--I'm not sure I'm ever going to figure this out!  I have a long list of words I´m trying to figure out because they are all used interchangeably.

I just hired a new tutor.  He better be a good one--his name is Blaine.  I'm going to make him give me Spanish lessons every day, or else!

New Year's Eve

We took a tour to Vina del Mar and Valparaiso for New Year's.  It is beautiful there and Valparaiso reminds me of a very large Bisbee, Arizona.  All the houses are built on the hills.  There are lots of steps and narrow steep streets.  (It reminded others of San Francisco, but I like Bisbee better!)  There are about 30 km of beach between the two cities and they set off fireworks from barges all along the beach.  There isn't a bad spot to watch them from.  The news said there were 1 1/2 million people there.  We didn't see very many where we watched from, but it took us 2 hours to make the car ride back to the hotel (normally it takes about 15 minutes).  Our hotel was clean, we had a private bath, but no toilet paper, soap or towels.  I was partially prepared, so we got along ok.  We enjoyed the company we were with and the chance to visit another beautiful area of Chile.

Valparaiso with the original Spanish fort where they checked everybody out who came to Chile (the original customs I guess.

This is a picture of Laguna de Luz, a manmade lake used to generate electrity, not far out of Valparaiso.  There are lots of eucalyptus trees around the lake, like southern California.

Christmas

We had a very quiet Christmas.  We joined the other senior missionaries for a potluck supper Christmas Eve and a potluck brunch Christmas morning.  Lots of good food.  After dinner Christmas Eve we sat around and sang for about two hours.  We had 4 very good guitar players there with 3 guitars, so a couple of them had to take turns.  It was a lot of fun.  We didn't exactly miss family because it was so very different from our usual Christmas that it almost didn't seem like it was happening.  Blaine and I spoke at a ward the Sunday before Christmas, and they didn't have a Christmas program.  I didn't do much cooking, although I made 13 dozen Christmas cookies, and one pan of triple layer fudge.  Blaine wanted be to make that many cookies, so he helped frost them.  We gave them to the people at work and the other missionaries.  I spent most of Christmas reading the December Ensign and over the last couple of weeks we watched about 6 of the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas concerts that I have on DVD.  We had plenty of time to contemplate the greatest gift of all that our Father in Heaven gave to us, the gift of His precious Son, so that we might repent of our sins and live with Him again.

This was the extent of our decorating and present buying.  The nativity is from Pomaire, the pottery town.

Los Andes

Last Sunday we drove to Los Andes, NE of Santiago, with another couple to deliver a package to the sister of a woman in their ward in Utah.  The sister in Chile is Hermana Frias.  She lives in a century old row house.  It was fun to see the inside of a Chilean home.  The original hardwood floors and 10 foot ceilings.  She had a beautiful little garden out back with fruit trees and a swimming pool!  It was the home she grew up in.  She fixed us a wonderful dinner, but would not sit and eat with us.  She insisted on serving us.  Anyway, when it was time to leave we couldn't open the door because the lock was broken.  There was no other way to get out of the house to the street.  All the front windows were barred, and there was no one living in either house next door so we couldn't climb the backyard fence and go through their home.  Blaine and Elder Macdonald decided the only thing to do was take the door off the hinges.  Because the opening was a little off square, it took them almost an hour to get the door out.  They took the broken piece out of the lock and put everything back together.  It was a good thing we were there, because there was no way for someone to get the door open from the outside.  They would have had to break down the door.  Hermana Frias told Sandy Macdonald and I that if we would come and visit again she would teach us how to make empanadas.  I hope we get a chance to take her up on that.

Here is a picture of Hermana Frias.

Mistletoe

The trees around Providencia are loaded with mistletoe, and no one here seems to know what it is.  Blaine has been studying the mistletoe for weeks trying to figure out how he was going to get it out of the trees.  He finally found a bunch that was relatively low, right across the street.  There was a ladder in the church parking lot, so he asked security if he could use it.  He explained the custom to them, and they laughed and laughed.  Blaine harvested a bunch, and made up little sprigs of mistletoe with ribbon to give to all the senior couples at Family Home Evening last week.  We took a sprig to the office and asked everyone if they knew what it was, they all looked puzzled and asked, "a plant?"  We demonstrated how it worked in their office doorways.  Jaime suggested we go to all the doors in the building, then Blaine would get lots of kisses.  I think they were all shaking their heads at the crazy American custom.

Christmas Baking

Today I made Christmas sugar cookies.  It was an interesting experience.  The sugar here is very coarse, so I pulverized it in the blender to make it finer.  The vanilla flavoring is weak, so it changes the taste of the cookies a little, but all in all they taste pretty good.  My oven is very small, and I have two small cookie sheets.  The cookie sheets hold 6-8 cookies, depending on the size and arrangement.  One of the cookie sheets is too big to fit on the oven rack, but I discovered that I could take out the rack and slide the cookie sheet into the grooves and it works fine.  So, every other batch of cookies, I had to take out the oven rack and slide in the pan.  Then for the next batch I had to put the oven rack back in.  This is the way I made 12 dozen cookies.  I missed my kitchen-aid mixer, but I did remember how to make cookies without one!

Here is a picture of my tiny kitchen.  I'm not complaining, I know I have it pretty good compared to a lot of missionaries in other countries, but it is still a bit of a challenge to adapt to cooking here.

This picture was taken when the kitchen counters were free of clutter.  It doesn't look like this now, so I have even less room to cook in!

Music

I started the week with zero, and ended the week with 5 piano students.  It will be interesting teaching in Spanish!

Tuesday night I was asked to play my violin & sing for a group of people coming to see the temple from Dichato (one of the towns destroyed by the tsunami last February).  The sister missionaries that asked me, wanted me to play for 45 minutes, I told them I only knew 3 songs on the violin.  Another sister played a keyboard for me, and we played some Christmas songs & I sang a couple--We ended up taking up about 35 minutes.  I'm a firm believer that if I practice what I can, the Lord will fill in the rest.

Christmas Season

Here are a couple of pictures of the lights on the church office building and the pesebre in front.

Success!

Blaine would like me to tell everyone that he feels like this week was a tremendous success.  We found an outlet for authentic Mexican corn tortillas!  Now Blaine won't waste away to nothing because he'll have lots of tacos!

A Full Temple

Wednesday was a holiday in Chile.  It's a Catholic holiday, but the church office building was closed.  We decided to go to the temple.  We went over for the 10 am session.  The session was full, in fact all the sessions for the rest of the day were full.  We were disappointed we didn't get to go to the temple, but it was wonderful that it was so full!

Christmas Choir

We had an amazing experience tonight.  It was the first night of the pesebre (nativity) exhibit on the temple block.  The open house included a choir concert.  The first choir was a small choir about ward choir level.  The second choir was a choir from the Carabinero training academy.  The Carabineros are the Chilean national police.  They have a very good reputation, being considered the most professional in South America.  Picture this, the stage is filled with young men and women in dress uniform.  The first song they sang was Tell Me the Stories of Jesus.  The choir was not outstanding musically, but the sight of those young people singing simple Primary songs, and religious Christmas songs, was a spiritually uplifting experience after a long, tiring day.

Pomaire

Pomaire is a small town southwest of Santiago.  They make pottery.  All the little tourist shops in Chile have some Pomaire pottery.  We decided to go to the town to get some things.  Elder and Hermana Rundquist went with us.  The main street of the town is filled with little shops selling pottery, it goes on for blocks.

We took the metro to the main bus station in Santiago, Estacion Central, then took a bus to Pomaire.  We left home at 8 am because we didn't know how long it would take.  The bus that took us to Pomaire went the back way and picked up, then dropped off passengers along the way.  The bus ride was 2 hours long.  It was interesting to see everything along the way.  The bus went took back to Santiago, at 5 pm, went back on the freeway, the ride was a little under an hour.  We were glad it was shorter, we were pretty tired by then.

Besides pottery, another thing Pomaire is famous for is a 1 kilo empanada.  We ordered one for lunch and shared it.  It was good, but we certainly didn't need anything else to eat!

This week Blaine had to translate a 30 page training powerpoint into Spanish.  The powerpoint came from SLC and was for PEF leaders, talking about program changes that will be rolled out next year.  It took him a couple of days because it was so detailed.  Then Jane replaced the English with the Spanish in the slides, now we have a new powerpoint.  Blaine figured by the time he got done translate Salt Lake would have sent out their translation.  We haven't received it yet, but Blaine is anxious to see how the translations compare.  He figures he will learn a few new words with the process.

This is the Millenium Cross over Coquimbo.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could do something like this in the U.S.?

This is how we see the Santigo temple from our balcony.  It's a beautiful view!