Chris and Randy Adventures

We Have A Home

Thanks to our center manager Luis Cornejo we have located and have a contract on an apartment. He decided he was going to solve our housing problem and made phone calls and internet inquiries and had about eight apartments for us to choose from in one day. The real estate department was not able to show us anything suitable in three weeks. So, we have an apartment that we will be able to move into it by the middle to the end of next week.

This week was busy. Monday morning we had an early morning mission conference with all of the missionaries from the Santiago east and Santiago North missions. Elder Nelson and his wife were the speakers. We rode the bus and two subways to get the location. Tuesday we started moving furniture into our office. In the afternoon, we looked at available apartments to rent. WE found a two bedroom close to the office that was reasonable priced. We should be moving next Wednesday if all goes as planned. We are really excited to teach the missionaries that are going home this Friday. We will be teaching the Self-reliance lesson. We are excited for these events. Monday we were in charge of the FHE for the senior missionaries. Chris introduced us to everyone, and I taught a lesson on being enough. We had yummy ice cream sundae's for dessert.

These are two trees that we see every day that are beautiful and I thought I would share with you. The red one is called the Chilean Fire Tree. The lavender tree is called Jacaranda. We love flowering plants so we took these pictures last week to share.

Thank you for your prayers. I never thought we would need that support but it is not always easy serving in a foreign country and I realize the help of the Spirit is crucial for success in this mission as with all others. Again, I am taught of how we can sin when we fail to include the Savior in his work.

I can't believe it is Saturday already. We had a great lesson on Monday night with the family home evening. I used the material from Sister Lundblad Relief Society lesson. It turns out that we were not the only missionaries struggling with the issues of the mission. Our friends from Southern Utah serve with welfare and humanitarian. They are involved with the Bishop Storehouses in Chile of which there are either 5 or 7, but mostly they are supposed to be looking for humanitarian projects in the country to help where people are struggling with some of the necessities of life. They were really having trouble finding anything to help with, but last week they had 12 projects approved. They said that the lesson gave them the extra boast to work a little harder and pray a little harder and put it more in the hands of the Savior and miracles happened. I know as we have involved the Lord more in our issues and work we have felt better and more at ease with the things we deal with. It still drives me nuts when we have a meeting scheduled for 8:30 and no one shows up until 9:00 or later. But that is just me I guess.

Our office is coming together slowly and most of the work to move things in have landed on Chris and me. We are not supposed to do it but if we waited for the people who are supposed to we would be going home before we were settled. That is why it won't be until next week before we can move into our apartment. But, all is well, besides it gives me something to do and it will be done our way.

While we were in route to our meeting on Thursday night I saw this most beautiful tree and took a picture of it.

I just wanted to share with you some of the beauties of Chile. I hope we are able to venture out of Santiago to get more of the country side to share.

Yesterday we had a wonderful opportunity to teach a seminar with the missionaries who are returning home and being released from their missions. We had 18 Sisters and 2 Elders. The poor Elders felt a little like they had landed in a Relief Society meeting. However, these young people are wonderful but they all are a little apprehensive about returning home and facing reality. They just glow and when asked where home was many of them said Chile. They love this land and mostly they love the people. The only problem is that I think they have adopted some of the culture which means that our 9:00 AM meeting started at 9:30 for lack of participants. But I will have to admit it was not their fault entirely. The subway was down on a Friday morning and traffic was horrible. What should have taken us 20 Minutes to travel took almost and hour. So we didn't even get there until just at 9:00. The subways are critical to move people around in this city. There just isn't parking or roads sufficient for all the cars that can be on the road. As an example the Mission office where the seminar was held is only 3.5 miles from the office and it took us an hour. Life in a big city that was not built to handle traffic.

Chris and I facilitated most of the seminar and it went very well. When we were discussing budgets some of American sisters had no idea what it would cost them for living expenses when they were out on their own. As we worked through the exercise it was apparent that some of them had been shielded from what it cost for them to live on their own. There were many off the Latin sisters who were very aware of what it would cost to live and were concerned that when they returned home they would not have enough for their needs. Their parents were not able to support them and when they returned they would be on their own. It was an eye opener for me how we as Americans do not include our children more in what it costs to live. I am sure that is part of the reason we have been instructed to put on these seminars with the returning missionaries.

In the seminar we go through what they will have each month to live on and how they will spend it. Most of the American missionaries were going straight to college in January when the new semester starts while the Latin sisters were going to have to work for a while to have enough money to live on until they could arrange for a PEF loan from the church or government assistance for tuition and books. We also discussed careers and what careers we should seek. In the lesson material it points out that although we have interests in some things they do not always lead to a life sustaining career. So, there was much discussing on what institutes a career and what is just a hobby.

All in all it was a great experience and all of the participants contracted to find a self-reliant center upon returning home to proceed with what we started in the seminar. I love these missionaries, they are so good and so much in love with the Lord. They truly are the best of the best that the church has to offer. What a blessing to be able to work with them.

These are the missionaries returning home who were in our seminar. It was interesting to me that all of them had shoes that were worn out and some were really sad. But they we worn out in the work of the Lord.

We thought we would post few pictures of the apartment we are moving into.