Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Saturday the 23rd we were thrilled to be able to visit with Selva and Victor.  We hadn't been able to visit with them since the rioting began.  We were invited to lunch along with Gloria, Alberto, and their son Ignacio.  Gloria had a kidney transplant 3 months ago and this was the first time we have been able to be with her.  She really looked great.  Her color was so good, not so yellow as before.  She is recovering without too many setbacks.  She figures that she has 3 more months before she can attend church again but will have to be careful of germs for the next year to be sure she can recover completely.  We are so thankful for the many blessings and miracles that she has had.
    We found out that Victor has been a member of the church for 30 years but has not been active and really remembers very little about the doctrine of Christ.  Selva is getting very close to being baptized and we are thrilled for both of them as they can now support each other as they learn more about their Savior and his love for them.  Selva made asparagus soup to begin our lunch.  It was very good and really would have been enough but then she brought in the Pastel de Papa's

It is kind of like a shepard's pie.  She put mashed potatoes mixed with corn in the bottom of the bowl, then a layer of browned ground beef and hard boiled eggs, then another layer of the mashed potatoes and corn.  She then bakes them in the oven.  We told her that we could share one of the bowls but we were told in no uncertain terms that you each get your own bowl!

We ended up bringing two bowls home with us.  It was very good but a little dry so we put some gravy over it and enjoyed it.

We were invited to a baptism for a young man that we met at the Charla Fogonera 

Elder Greer and Elder Braga did the baptizing.  

We had our Thanksgiving feast on Monday afternoon with the temple missionaries.  They had turkey with all the fixings.  We made a peach and an apple pie to take.  The bottom crust didn't get cooked though.  Need to do some more practicing with the new electric stove to figure it out.  I think it is a convection stove.  

Hermana Chaffee made the cutest table decorations out of light bulbs

On Monday we were informed that the internet would be hooked up on Thursday from 1-4 so we had to reschedule everything to be in our apartment at that time.  We are so excited to get it hooked up again.  We enjoyed our shift at the temple on Tuesday.  The gates are still closed and they will only let one car in at a time.  If you are walking, you have to have a guard open the gate for you as well.  They are trying to have 2 more sessions a day this week.  But the protests just keep going on!

As we entered the office on Tuesday afternoon, Hermana Potter was so excited to tell us that we had our PDI appointments!  YUCK!!!  And to even make it worse, they are on Wednesday and Thursday!

We left our apartment on Wednesday morning at 7am.  We took the bus as the traffic is horrible in this part of town and there is very little parking and a bunch of the traffic lights have been damaged due to the protests.  It was definitely easier to just take the bus!  We arrived in 45 minutes and stood in line to get in the door.  When they called for appointments for 9:00 I was allowed into the building but Elder Thompson was not allowed to enter with me.  I was on my own!!

I wound through Disneyland type lines for an hour and finally entered the building.  When I finally got to the desk to get the paperwork done that was needed for my visa, the girl worked on it and gave me back my passport.  Then she asked me if this was my first visa in Chile.  When I replied yes, she said we have a problem and asked for my passport back.  My heart sank!  Lon was not by my side with the reassuring Spanish, I was on my own.  Well, she put everything back into the computer and this time it came back correct and I got the needed paperwork!  What a relief.  With my luck with computers I was definitely worried.

We grabbed a taxi to get us to the Registro Civil to finalize this visa process.  You have to get into the building before 2 or you have to come back another day.  The line here was wrapped around the block, we never did see the end of the line.  We went up to a guard at the bottom of the steps going into the building to ask where we needed to go.  He told us to go inside.  We walking inside and asked another guard which line to get into and he told us to go outside and get to the back of the line!  We knew immediately that we would not get into the building before 2 because of how long the line was.  As we were walking we heard a man's voice calling Elder y Hermana!  We stopped and this young man asked us how old we were, we told him and he said follow me.  You can go right inside because you are "old".  A tender mercy from our Heavenly Father!

We are now in the building and the first station checks my paperwork and gives me a number, "188".  They are calling #50.  We will have quite a wait when Lon asked me something and then the lady asked me how old I was.  When I told her 68 she took the #188 and gave me A73 instead.  They were on A67 so we didn't have much of a wait at all.  So thankful for Elder Thompson's gray hair this morning.  I am finished with my visa work but we get the privilege of doing this all over again tomorrow for Elder Thompson!  We caught the bus and got back to the apartment at 12:00.  5 hours!

We were so sad to see the sights this morning.  The protesters have spray painted, burned, looted, destroyed so many beautiful buildings in this area of town.  It is close to the palace so it gets the most demonstrations.

One of the bus stops and the graffiti 

The Plaza de Dignidad

Almost every statue we saw has been spray painted

The beautiful parks and streets were more like El Salvador with trash all over the place.  The old cathedrals and building have been defaced.  We are so thankful that we were able to tour this part of town with the Hughes before all of this took place.

One of the burned buildings down town

The stores are boarded and metal paneling

It breaks our hearts to see these amazing old churches defaced

Graffiti all over the buildings as far up as one can reach

Another of the buildings that was set on fire.

We headed back down to accomplish Lon's visa paperwork on Thursday morning.  His appointment was not until 11 but we got there early and he got in about 10.

 I waited outside across the street where there was a stone wall to sit on.  He got out about 12:30 and we headed to the Registro Civil to hopefully complete his visa also.  We were so disappointed when we arrived to find that they were shutting down and we would have to come back on Friday.  We caught the first bus and headed to the stop where we needed to change to another bus to get home.  The first bus suddenly started going in the wrong direction!  We decided that we needed to get off and head up the street where we knew the bus we needed would be.  It was only about 4 blocks so off we went.

We ran into this armored truck that shoots water . The back of the truck

The front.  It has been spray painted and dented with the rocks thrown at it.  All the windows have mesh wire for protection

This policeman posed for a foto.  This area is not in our mission.  A block ahead we ran into the demonstration!

At the Plaza de Dignidad

We tried to get a taxi to get out of the area faster but everyone that passed was already in use.  The bus came around the corner a few minutes later and we were on our way home!  We were just a little shaken when we got home.  The Potters were at our house waiting for the internet people to come so we fed them waffles with strawberries and whipped cream.  We were just finishing lunch when the internet people arrived.  It is so wonderful to once again have internet in our home.

Friday morning we left the house at 7:30 to once again travel into the "war" zone.  We arrived at the Registro Civil and in about a half hour we were on our way home with all of the paperwork done.  We are now legal and thankfully will never have to travel to this section of town again!

We were finally able to make a couple of service calls this afternoon.  We haven't gotten any work done this week because of the visa runs so it feels good to once again take care of our young missionaries.

We have a busy Saturday scheduled because we lost 2 1/2 days to visa runs so I am going to go ahead and post this tonight.  It is getting rather long also.  It has been a very stressful week relying on a GPS to get to and from the "War Zone".  The East Mission definitely is the safest place to be right now in Santiago.  We are so thankful for our miracles that we received this week.  We have been watched over and guided by angels.  We definitely feel your prayers in our behalf.  You are all in our prayers daily.  We miss you and send our love.  Have a wonderful Sabbath.  Chao!