First Zone Conference and Campo Visit

Our biggest challenge continues to be communication, as expected. We spend a couple of hours everyday on Spanish lessons, and progress seems slow at the present time. Chilenos are wonderful people but sometimes they speak very fast, and it's difficult for us to keep up.

At the moment, we are more or less ambassadors at large. We are visiting the seven branches in our missionary zone and getting to know the members. We are replacing a Chilean couple, los Ramirez (he is a former stake president from Santiago) who are moving to another part of the mission. They helped introduce a Book of Mormon reading program that will be expanded to other parts of the mission.

Zone conference in Osorno on Wednesday, December 11:  The conference, with more than 100 missionaries present, was very good, followed by lunch and a Christmas sing-along.  President Rappleye talked about talking to everyone about anything, as that is the start to missionary work. The Rappleyes gave every missionary a hand carved fish bowl, one of the things we’ll be taking home.

In the evening, we went with Sis. Alverez and Sis. Saens to visit a menos active (less active) family in the campo.  We had a good visit and they invited us to a light supper of ECCO (Nestle hot drink like Postum), sopapillas, and bread and jam. We learned the family is inactive because they live five kilometers outside of town and don’t have a car or money for a taxi.

Don Luis, the landlord of our place at Las Cabanas, gave us keys to the new house and said it was ready to occupy. We went to house and I promptly locked ourselves out because the key to the front door opens the door but does not actually unlock the lock. So when I closed the door thinking the door was unlocked, it locked us out with the keys inside. We learned more Spanish trying to explain to the dueno (landlord) and his senora Carolina what happened. The house is not actually ready to occupy (no gas, no telephone, no furniture), but he wants us out of the other apartment by next Wednesday because the cast from Holiday on Ice is coming to town and he is all booked up starting on that day.  Elder Poulsen, the senior missionary in charge of the office, called to say that he is sending a load of furniture that should arrive on Monday or Tuesday. So hopefully we will have furniture, a stove and refrigerator when we move on Tuesday.  Don’t want to sleep on the floor come Wednesday!  Such is life in the mission field.

La Union

Sundays are good days to practice our Spanish.  It is interesting learning a new language in a foreign country.  When we speak or write in English we keep thinking of Spanish words, and then when we speak in Spanish we do the reverse. So we often get things mixed up. Wish we could say everything will clear up tomorrow but we know better.  Every country has regional accents, but some of the people speak as if they had marbles in their mouths. On the other hand, we speak as if part of our brains are missing.

La Union (literally the "The Union) was named after the junction of two rivers. One is a very large river that runs from the Andes to the coast, and the other is a smaller river that runs through town and joins the larger one, hence "the union" of the two rivers or "La Union."  The surrounding countryside is green with lots of grass, cultivated fields and trees. This region is called the "lake district" of Chile, and there are big signs along the freeway touting tourism in this area. Everyone know when the tourist season starts--it's December 21, the first day of summer.

Lots of sheep, cows, and goats here:

First P-Day

Monday is preparation day, a day to prepare for the following week -- laundry, shopping, etc.  But for our first, we didn’t get much preparation done. The young missionaries in La Union had planned a visit to Lago Ranco, a lake about 50 kilometers outside of town. The missionaries bought food and we paid only $4.00!  We don't know how that worked out but we ate well.  Los Ramirez (the other senior couple in La Union) and we drove with the elders and the sisters hired a small bus to go to the lake.  (When everyone goes somewhere the young elders and the sisters cannot travel together.) We traveled through some beautiful areas with green fields and campo as far as the eye could see. We stopped at a large beach at the lake where the missionaries played some ball games. We had hamburgers for lunch (much larger than normal because lunch is the main meal of the day) and practiced our Spanish with the missionaries. We didn’t get much else done that day, but we had fun!  All work and no play makes for unhappy missionaries.

Hopefully pictures will be coming.

Pictures are here!

Early Spanish lessons

I have had several Spanish lessons with the Ramirez's.  I am moving forward very slowly although now I can greet people.  The sisters hug and kiss air at each greeting.  Elder Stott (Keith) seems to take all the Spanish in stride.  He understands everything (although he says he does not) and seems to reply to all with ease.  Not so with me.  I have to laugh at some of the things I have said.  One lady stopped me in the street and asked me something.  I told her "No habla espanol" which means that
"She doesn't speak Spanish."  She looked a little startled and left me alone.  Keith had to tell me what I had said wrong  Oh well, I will get better! 

This week we met the district president and got a challenge to work with family history to the district.  We are trying to see how we can do this so the branches will be self sufficient when we leave.  All the branches (there are seven in the district) are very small (they range from 25 to150 active members) so we are trying to develop several ideas with the Ramirez's to see what we can do.  Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

 We found the grocery store -- very small -- this is a small town, everything is small.  We found the cheese store and bought a white cheese that tasted pretty good, like the white cheese in Rancho Market in Mesa.  Some food is more expensive here than in Mesa, but that was expected. This is the heart of daily production in Chile and the milk prices are about the same as home.  We had spaghetti for dinner tonight and I used spaghetti sauce a bag.  A unique experience but I think I have found Chilean "Ragu"!  It was good.

First Sunday

Today we went to church with the branch missionaries.  We met the branch president, President O'Campo, and he knew Keith's father when he was the mission president here in the Osorno Mission.  He was one of his missionaries.  He recognized Keith a little and then looked at his name badge and recognized the name.  He asked if we knew Dad and was surprised that Keith said he was his son!  He thought your grandfather was wonderful!  The branch president mentioned it in sacrament meeting and another lady came to talk with us about Keith's mother who taught her how to lead music!  The meeting was fast and testimony meeting so I could not understand anyone, of course.  We went to the gospel essentials class, and I could follow along with my English manual on my tablet and the Espanol manual in paper.  I even read a paragraph in Spanish!  It was halting but understandable according to Dad.  However, Relief Society was the hardest.  The lesson was about broadening your life (I think, from the hand gestures and a few Spanish words), not just doing one thing, like school, but trying music, etc., also to widen you horizons.  Now she did not use these words but that was the gist as far as I could tell.   Then there were testimonies which I did not understand at all.  Oh well, I will get better with Spanish! :)

Arriving in Chile

Our first week has been interesting, with lots of adjustments.  We arrived here in Chile on Tuesday around 2 pm after nearly 26 hours in the air or in airports.  We were greeted by a group of missionaries, senior couples and the mission president and his wife.  They had a big sign welcoming us.  We spent the rest of the day with the mission president and his wife after taking a shower and a nap to catch up with the sleep we missed on the plane.  I only slept an hour on the plane and Dad not that much so we were both tired, to say the least.

We spent the night at the mission home and then went to La Union, the small town where we are assigned.  There is another senior couple (los Ramirez's) here to train us and then they will move on to another town in the mission.  

Chile is very green and we are going into summer but it is still cold to us.  I am wearing a sweater indoors and a lightweight jacket outdoors. 

In La Union we went to our new home, a small cabana (for the tourists) which has two bedrooms, one with a queen bed and the other with 3 twin beds (they fill the room!) and two bathrooms -- one for Elder Stott (Keith) and one for me!  It is the best part of the place even though both are tiny!  The main room is small and has the "kitchen" (a small gas stove that is lit with a match, un “fosforos”), a small sink with a drainer tray attached (think London, Marne), a tiny microwave, an apartment sized frig, a table that seats 4 (two to a side), and one small stuffed chair.  It has a small desk that is our pantry.  I have cooked two dinners on that stove and have singed my fingers both times!  I am getting better though.  This place is a vacation place and it is obvious that it is intended that you should only eat breakfast (and that should be cold cereal) here.

We are moving into a new, very small house in two weeks so our time here will be limited -- I hope.  The new house is not finished yet and as construction everywhere is somewhat slow so I am not holding my breath.  However we do have a maid here so I don't have to do any cleaning!

And we have a car!  It is a Toyota Corolla so we feel very comfortable in it.  And we can get around now.  We had to make our own map of La Union as we could not find one, but it works well.  We can find just about everything with only getting lost once per drive!

Life is interesting, very different from Arizona, but we are enjoying the work.  More to come.

Leaving Mesa

Monday, November 11, 2013, we left Mesa, AZ to start our adventure!  Susan and Wayne came to drive us to the airport (Susan) and take our Corolla home (Wayne).  Susan figured out how to get all the stuff we wanted to take into our luggage.

She managed to combine five carry-ons into four so we did not have to pay for more than the planned-for four suitcases!  Obviously we did not fly to Salt Lake City on Southwest Airlines!

Of course, now we are going through our luggage trying to get rid of things we can get in Chile!  I think the two sets of sheets may go even if they are on the list.  My tennis shoes are on the leave behind list too.  I figure we just won't be needing them enough to justify the weight.

When we got to our daughter Kathy's home, we were greeted by a sign from Kaylee (age 6) and Kierra (age 4).  It read "We love you Hermana y Hermano Stott." We will be here until Friday when we fly to Colorado to celebrate with Jake Smith, Karen's son when he is baptized into the Church.  Then we return here on Saturday night and report to the Mission Training Center in Provo, UT on Sunday evening for 5 days of training for our mission to Chile.  Then back to Kathy's for the weekend and off to Chile on Monday.  Busy times!!

MTC in Provo - 5 Days of Learning to Teach

We enjoyed the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, but it was was a different experience.  Almost the entire week was spent on Preach My Gospel (the missionary lesson book). I guess they want every missionary, young and old, to understand how to teach basic principles of the gospel. You won't have time to cover the entire book, but you will understand the basic principles. We had times when we role played, practicing with other senior missionaries, sometime being missionaries and teaching and sometime being the investigators and asking questions.  You will also enjoy getting to know various missionary couples. One of the missionaries in our group was a mission president and a temple president. He said he wanted to continue to serve so he and his wife are going on a senior mission.

I wished we had some Spanish training, but that was offered to us at home 3 weeks before we came and we had so much to do that we could not take advantage of it.  Keith and I have been doing our own training with a variety of Spanish lesson books and reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish.  At the MTC we found that there is infield training in Spanish so we will be trying that out too.

Mail -- Call comes

After almost four weeks of waiting, our call came!  We called Susan to come and bring her phone.  We called everyone and all five answered the various phones we were calling on.

We opened the letter and were astonished to read that we are called to the Chile Osorno mission -- the same one that Keith's father was mission president of -- 30 years ago!

We are excited to go but wonder if we can get everything done by November 18th when we enter the mission home in Provo.  Lots to do and not much time to do it.

Preliminary Planning

After almost 2 months of filling out forms, we have submitted our papers for a mission for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This is something we have been thinking about for a long time.  Keith retired 2 years ago and I retired in May so it is time to go! 

We have arranged for a young couple, Justin and Alexis Bates to live in our home while we are gone -- a real blessing to have someone take care of the house.