730 Kilometros and Black Necked Swans

This past week we went on a mission road trip, again.  We visited missionaries from the ocean towns near Concepción, to the farthest, north, and west towns of Teno and Licanten.  It was such a long trip, we spent the night in a "rustic" motel on Ruta Cinco, so we didn't have to drive all the way back to Chillán and then go back north again the next day.  We just couldn't meet with all the Branch Builder missionaries we wanted to without taking two days.  We had heard of a beautiful lake outside of Licanten, so after training the Elders, we went on a "wild swan chase".  On the map, the roads look like they are normal, but, actually, most of them are dirt, except for the major roads through the towns.  The rain started as we began out "scenic drive".  It ended up to be worth the side trip, because it reminded us of home.  Is was a beautiful lake with nice, large homes around it.  It hardly felt like Chile!  The best thing was, instead of Canada geese, there were black-necked swans on the water!  So, in three days, we helped the Branch Builder, missionaries in 8 different towns.  We were pretty tired after all that.

After we visited Dichato and Bulnes on Wednesday we took off on our 2 day trip on Thursday. Our first stop was in Retiro, a small branch of about 100 people. Their Sacrament meeting attendance is over 50%!  It is a tribute to the great work that Elder & Sister Mora from Puerto Aisen, Chile are doing as senior missionaries assigned as the branch president. While we were there I interviewed a couple who are going to the temple for the first time to be endowed and sealed next week. This is the second couple I have interviewed in Retiro for their own endowments and sealing in the past few weeks.  Great work Elder and Sister Mora!

The Mora's feed the missionaries every Sunday.  We ate with them last year.

The next stop was Longaví and then on to San Javier. Sally picked up a new hobby while I trained the missionaries on finding and mapping the less-active..

We bought our own loom last night and she is hard at work weaving on her loom right now as I am creating this new post.

Our next stop was Curicó where we met with Brother Ben Ingram, my co-conspirator in our project in finding the lost sheep. After a 3 hour meeting we checked into our hotel.  In the morning we met with the missionaries in Teno, a branch of 536 with attendance of about 40.  Lots of less-active members to find there. Then it was off to Licantén. Lincanten is the most, out of the way, branch in our mission.  It is a tiny branch, in a tiny town.  The church rents a store-front on the main street of town and has a plaque on the outside saying, "La Iglesia de JesuCristo...". They have 197 with attendance of 37.  It seems like the smaller branches have higher percentages.

From Licantén we took our side trip to Lake Vichuquén. We would love to see it in the summer.  It really reminded us of Coeur d'Alene.

The main store at the center of town, across from the tiny plaza.

There is a little village called Llico right on the Pacific Ocean. I doubt that there are 100 people living there.

And then there were the black necked swans, hundreds of them. They are beautiful fowl and carry their young ones on their backs.

We asked a carabinero about the best way to get to Hualañe and he told us to follow him.

Just because a road looks good on a map doesn't make it a good road.  Our car was proof.

Chile is a beautiful country.

A Day of Rest? and Bread Making in Quirihue

Sunday, 5 May 2013

Up at 5:30 am and the usual morning activities. No we don't have to get up that early, in fact Sally doesn't.. She doesn't suffer from the same early morning rising syndrome that I have and she never falls asleep in the middle of singing a hymn either. We were out of the house by 9:15 am leaving Chillán (point H) and heading to Coelemu (Point C). It was a 2:15 beautiful drive. After church we had a nice picnic lunch in front of the church.  That was followed by a training session using the clerks office (see the photo below) and then it was off to Quirihue (point D). We received an assignment to evaluate the strength of the Church there. There was an organized branch there as late as 2008 and the church even owned property which it has since sold.  There are 223 members of record (probably 180 after we clean up the records) and about 14 come to Coelemu which is 45 Km away.  We've made some recommendations to President Humphrey so we'll see what happens.  We left Quirihue at 7 pm for some interviews in the Linares District at 9 pm (Via point E, F & G).  We finally made it back to Chillán by 11:30 pm.  What a day of rest!

Scenes in route to Coelemu

In front of the Coelemu Branch building  - Elders Duran (Santiago, Chile) and Elder Dumm (Sacramento, California)

Multi-use building

Branch Building

Great group of youth in the Coelemu Branch

How is this for a Clerk's Office?

Quirihue is a sleepy little village where the elderly sit on the plaza benches and watch the world go by.

And then we had a special treat at one member's home. Chilean bread making. Spanish speakers can have fun trying to understand the Chileans!

Bread Making 1 from PulsiphersinChile on Vimeo.

Bread Making 2 from PulsiphersinChile on Vimeo.

Bread Making 3 from PulsiphersinChile on Vimeo.

Bread Making 4 from PulsiphersinChile on Vimeo.

Bread Making 5 from Douglas W Pulsipher on Vimeo.

And then it is left to rise for a little while and put in this oven that was made by the family's non-member father/husband.

Chillán, and Missionary Moments

Chillán Cathedral 1969

1969 - new model car and truck

Chillán Cathedral 2013 - 44 years later.

We have moved to Chillán which is about 175 km south of Talca. We now live in the Bio Bio Region of Chile (VIII).  Talca is in the Maule Region (VII). After 2 days of packing, 8 elders loaded the truck in a little over an hour. In Chillán 8 additional elders unloaded the truck and brought everything up the elevator to the 13th floor, with the exception of the bedframe which they had to bring up the 13 flights of stairs. Great workers! When they were done our apartment looked like this -

After Sally put her magical touch to everything it looks like this - We call it "Our Penthouse".

Sally loves the kitchen! We actually have drawers! And look at all that counter space. An oven at eye level (although we haven't figured out how to get to a temperature other that 400° F. We spent 4 hours cleaning the kitchen top to bottom and finished the day cleaning the rest of the apartment.  There are very few people who can clean things well enough for Sally's standard.  It looks great now.

 

We even have a laundry room (it is a good thing because the building doesn't have any laundry facilities).  We bought a combo washer/dryer (Daewoo) that only uses about 2 Tbs of liquid detergent which we found out the hard way. We had suds coming out of every seam on the machine. We had to wash the clothes 2 more times to get rid of the suds.

We have purchased a couple of recliners which is a great blessing for all of the computer work we do.  The couple who replaces us is going to have it made! We really feel blessed to be able to have this apartment.  We pay $400,000 pesos versus the $350,000 pesos for the apartment in Talca. In Talca we were on the 2nd floor and there was a lot of street noise and roudy people until 3 or 4 in the morning. It was less than a block from the main plaza. In Chillán we are on the 13th floor and we have a 3 bedroom apartment.  The HOA is about 50% more, $95,000 vs $63,000 pesos. and the utilities will be higher.  But the apartment is way better. The owner is a 75 year old dentist who is still practicing dentistry. He has the tiniest office I've ever seen. It was no more than 200 square feet. You open the door to 5 ft hallway with chair and the operatory is on the side with a combination business area and sterilization. The whole place was about 10 X 20 ft. A little different than our 3300 square foot office in Coeur d' Alene.

Chillán is also famous for its great outdoor produce market.  $475 pesos = $1 US.  1 Kilo = 2.2 lbs.  These pictures are from this last December at the start of Summer.

 Their produce is huge, gorgeous, and delicious. The Chileans love avocado and so do we. Our favorite meal is smashed avocado with sliced tomatoes on warms Chilean bread. The bread tastes great when it is fresh and warm.  It is made with lard instead of shortening (you can't buy shortening here in Chile).

All the new hermanas (sister missionaries) have been arriving to the mission and they are working hard. It is a huge adjustment but I think it is especially hard on them as the living conditions are pretty poor. Hermana Rane (Rexburg, Idaho) has been working in Talca and doing a great job.  Her mother learned about our project of looking for the lost sheep from this blog and volunteered to help. We sent her the documents for the Rauquen Ward in the Curicó Stake and she has been doing a fabulous job in spite of being a busy mother and wife. Hermana Rane knew that her mother had volunteered but didn't know anything more than that.  During a break at the Newbie Missionary Conference, I invited Hermana Rane to come and look at my computer screen.  She saw her mom's initials, where she has been working on finding the lost members, and it was a very tender moment. Her eyes welled up with tears and I just enjoyed the moment.

Hermana Taylor, hugging a crocheted dish cloth as though it was the best gift ever!   Missionaries love things that remind them of home.