An Unusual Church Training Meeting

We had an unusual church meeting last Sunday afternoon from 4-6 pm.  It was held in the cultural hall at a local stake center here in Chillán.  It featured computers, MLS data, google documents, lds.org, and an enthusiastic response from the Chilean members.  Several bishops, the stake president, clerks, and youth attended.  The goal was to teach them how to find the lost and less-active members and bring them back.  Thanks to an inspired member from England, Ben Ingram, who now lives in Curicó with his Chilean wife and 2 children, we have the ability to find most of the lost sheep.  The numbers are staggering.  This is what we have found thus far in the Chile Concepción Mission, having completed 63% of the research on nearly 40,000 members 18+ and older.

• 50% have addresses different than those on their church records
• 3% are dead (723 as of now and all have current membership records, some of whom died as far back as 1988. This number will probably exceed 1000 when we are finished)
• 10% have misspelled names
• 10% cannot be found in the database.  When we started 50% of the members could not be found.  We now have the ability to find most of those lost sheep.

The reasons that this has happened are pretty obvious.  When members no longer attend church they don't notify the church of there whereabouts.  Years pass, decades pass, and many current members don't know who these lost sheep are.  UNTIL NOW!  Thanks to Brother Ingram we have the names and addresses of registered voters that  a government agency published online according to a law passed in Chile.  He created a searchable database of that information for the sole purpose of finding the lost sheep.  And we are finding them. In the database we have 8+ million names from 2008, 13+ million names from 2012, and 4+ million names from real estate records.  Lots of work remains to be done.  Only 10% of our findings have been verified.  This work requires the cooperation of members and missionaries.  That is why we are so excited about the training meeting we held on Sunday.  We first met with the stake presidency about 2 weeks ago, then the bishoprics a week later, and finally a training meeting for them all.  The members have so much knowledge about people and where they live.  This is going to hasten the work tremendously.  They are also taking a much greater interest in the records of the church.  That is a very important part of sealing the leaks in the church boat here in Chile.  Our goal is to see this carried throughout the country.  The rescue is starting to move forward.  We are grateful to be part of it.

President Fuentes looks on as youth in the Chillán Ñuble Stake learn how to find the lost members and place them on the maps provided through lds.org.

Computers are second nature to youth who have loved participating in indexing.

The 2012 census in Chile indicates that 40% of the population has access to the internet.  That is up from 10% in the 2002 census.

Hand held devises, including smartphones are becoming very common here in Chile.  Nearly everyone has a cell phone.  In fact, one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen was a guy driving a horse drawn cart talking on his cell phone!

President Fuentes loves the youth and they love him!

Serving in Chile again and More Chile Lindo!

Language Training Mission, September 1968 - December 1968 - La Cisterna District.

Elder Pulsipher, Elder Slade, Elder McMurdie, Elder Layman, Sister Davis, Elder Smith, Elder Doerr, Elder Austin.

Reunion - more than 44 years later 

Elder Doug Pulsipher (Chile Concepción Mission), Elder Van Layman (Santiago Chile Temple), Elder Greg McMurdie (Chile Santiago East Mission)

With Their Eternal Companions - away from their 20 children and 57 grandchildren

 

Provo, Utah has beautiful mountains which we climbed on a Diversion (Preparation) Day in 1968 as missionaries.

Mount Timpanogos from near the top of Y mountain in 1968.

Chile's beauty is just spectacular

Andes mountains about 1 hour away from San José de Maipo, the small branch in the Puente Alto Stake where Elder and Sister McMurdie will work for the next 18 months.

The San José de Maipo Branch meets in a converted house in this picturesque village at the foot of the Andes Mountains which are over 14,000 feet in elevation.

Municipal Building in San José de Maipo.

It was a beautiful drive from San José de Maipo following a river to the Cordillera (Andes mountains).  We were only about 20 miles from the Argentine border.

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.