Sprint to the End!

If you look at the globe you will find that the southern tip of Chile is at the bottom of the world. Missionaries from the Osorno Mission that serve in Punta Arenas, Puerto Natales, and Puerto Porvenir have to fly to Punta Arenas from Puerto Montt. We flew to Punta Arenas after we trained all the missionaries in the rest of the Osorno Mission. On Tuesday morning last week we held a live training session in Osorno (2 zones), and by Skype to Valdivia (2 zones), and Villarrica (1 zone). We couldn't get the Skype to work right with La Unión so we raced up there after the Osorno session. On Wednesday morning we held a live training session in Puerto Montt (2 zones) and by Skype to Coyhaique (1 zone) and Chiloé (1 zone). On Thursday morning we trained the Punta Arenas zone. Here are the missionaries from that zone.

It was all about our new website elrescate.cl

The Torres del Paine National Park is about 5 hours north of Punta Arenas. We left Punta Arenas at 5:30 AM and didn't get back until 9:30 PM. The scenery in Torres del Paine is spectacular. 

Torres del Paine

It was very windy and cold

There were lakes of different colors right next to each other

"Grey Lake" had icebergs that have broken off the glacier that feeds into it.

Some beautiful waterfalls

The park is filled with herds of guanacos, who have the face of a camel and run and jump like a deer.

Puerto Natales is the second place we have encountered Black Neck Swans in Chile. The other location was in Vichuquen which is north of Licantén up north by Curicó.

We saw pink flamingos during the four days we were in this part of Chile.

The Penguins come here to Otway Sound to lay their eggs and raise their babies until they swim all the way to the Falkland Islands.

Back in Punta Arenas there were lots of unique birds along the shore

Punta Arenas has a popluation of about 150,000. During the summer the high temperature in 60° F and the days are very long. In the winter the days are short and it is cold. It is almost always windy.

Our hotel in Puerto Montt was really nice and we felt like we were on a cruise ship.

We made one more trip to Puerto Varas to meet with President Videla who will be the president of the Santiago North Mission in July. He is excited about using the program in his mission.

On Tuesday President and Sister Arrington and the assistants were going to eat "almuerzo" with us. At 11 pm the night before the AP's told Hermana Pulsipher that four zone leaders would also be joining us for almuerzo. She made some adjustments, stayed up past midnight and served a fabulous almuerzo. Her reputation as a gracious hostess and fabulous cook will live on long after our mission. All of the hermanas (sister missionaries) really love Hermana Pulsipher. She took some great pictures of the hermanas and the evidence of their many hours of work.

On Wednesday we trained 7 zones in our mission (3 live and 4 by Skype) and Friday we trained the other 5 zones (3 live and 2 by Skype). We feel as though we have done everything we can to move the work of salvation forward here in Chile. We will continue to be involved in this project of finding all of the members of the Church here in Chile for the foreseeable future. There are still a lot of improvements to be made on the website and more training to be done which we will be doing remotely. 

The Chile Concepción Mission Presidency. Luis Funtees (2°), President Kent Arrington, Elder Doug Pulsipher (1°). After tomorrow they will need to call a new counselor.