Office duty for the week!

Sunday the 13th we headed to the La Dehesa Ward.  It is the last one in the Las Condes Stake that we need to visit.  We put the address into our GPS and off we went.  We drove straight to the address and found that we were at a service station with a big Radison Motel next door.  There was no sign of a chapel!  Luckily the missionaries answered their phone and gave us the correct address of the chapel, instead of 539 it was 1039.  We really rely heavily on the GPS but we need the correct address to begin with.  The secretaries here in the office are trying to fix the problem.
     Monday afternoon we had an appointment to look at an apartment with a realter that perhaps would work for our Elders that need to get out of Pension #110.  We loaded up a new mattress to deliver to them.  Thanks Justin for the heads up about mattresses in the mission field.  The apartment was too big and very expensive.  But there is another one opening up in a few weeks that we hope to secure for the Elders.  We have got to get them out of this neighborhood

It is so old.  There is no security here at all.

This is what they see out of their second story apartment window

There are no cupboards in the kitchen for dishes and the frig and food are in another room.

This is the first time we have seen a toilet like this - kind of antique

There are very few rentals available here.  When one opens up, it is rented almost immediately.  There are buildings being built in every section of the city that we go.  

The President has asked us to make sure that each apartment/house has a "ojo majico" in the door (a peep hole).  We have 42 to install. 

We put one in our door and then the second one here so we only have 40 more to go.  It will be good to revisit these apartments/houses and see if the missionaries are keeping up with the cleaning tips we have taught them. 

We had Zone Conference Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  This brings about 50 missionaries to the Mission Office each day.  It is so noisy and congested after the conference as they all want to come and let us know what is happening with their lives and especially with their pensions.  We had two Latin missionaries arrive with their vacuum cleaner.  It is a canister one that they carried in on the bus.  They said that it was not working.  Elder Acevedo was there so he took it down to the bodega and in about 10 minutes returned with it.  He was shaking his head and said that it works fine but it had a full bag of junk and the hose was completely plugged.  We then realized that these two young Elders had never before used a vacuum and that it was one more thing that we should include in our power point to teach!

Friday morning we headed to the airport.  The traffic was very light so we made good time.  The Hughes arrived early so that was good.  

The area around the airport is very different than here in the East Mission.

This is in the North Mission

Not as many high rises

This is the entrance of the dreaded 3 mile tunnel

Inside the tunnel, the traffic had picked up so it really took forever to get out of the tunnel

Shooting out of the tunnel into our section of town and the high rises are in view as will as some snow on top of the Andes Mountains.

My hope is to not have to go through those tunnels again till we head for home!

Well, Friday afternoon on our way back to the office from installing the ojo majico, we had our first "fender-bender" only no fender was bent.  We were just entering into the roundabout when a car shot clear across two lanes of traffic to turn right in front of us and we ended up scratching some paint off of his back bumper.  We were only 2 blocks from the office so we had him follow us to the office to have the help of the office Elders to figure out what to do next.  The man driving the other car was very nice and didn't blame anyone, just said that it was an accident, he is actually the one that caused the accident, but it wasn't his car!  When the car owner arrived, it was all our fault and he wanted action!  The church insurance will take over from here and the President says that we still have to drive!

The mornings are beautiful, usually in the low 60's, and we walk to the office.  It takes us around 40 minutes to get there, all down hill.  The afternoon-evenings when we head back home it is in the high 80's - low 90's and all up hill.  We are getting in some good exercise!

Today is Saturday and we spent most of the morning at the office getting the paperwork done about the fender-bender.  We stopped at the little market to buy some fresh eggs, strawberries (frutilla's) and some raspberries (frambueses).  Elder Thompson has just finished making us some cookies, I have the laundry done and we are heading to the grocery store with the Hughes. Another week has come to an end.  

We have two houses painted, 4 with new carpet, and Elder Thompson has done 25 service calls.  Slowly but surely we are getting these pensiones into shape.  The missionaries seem very pleased with the efforts we are making to help them have a nice home to live in where they can feel the spirit of their Heavenly Father.  

We are in the service of our Heavenly Father and feel His love daily.  We are happy to be missionaries here in the Chile Santiago East Mission.  Life is good.  Embrace each day and cherish one another.  We cherish each of you and pray for you.  We send our love.