It is thanksgiving day 2014 in Chile.  It is a day with business as usual but would you know I received a notice of "Black Friday" sales starting tomorrow at the mall.  They do not celebrate thanksgiving here but they have the American Christmas Spirit with the major stores blowing up the marketing for the Holidays.  The tradition it seems is to finish most of the shopping before this Friday instead of starting.  It will be interesting to see how they do the Christmas holidays here in Santiago.  I wonder if the celebration is the same in the rural area where there is not as much commercialism. 

Tuesday we decided to put the Christmas tree up.  I caught Chris doing her artistic work on the first section making it look like a tree.  I must say it turned out pretty good.  I know we jumped the gun but my bearings are a bit off because of the lack of Thanksgiving.  Black Friday is the day I decorate and this year it looks like this is it.  They are putting up the lights on the Temple and Office grounds so when they light it up I think it will be impressive.  Not like Salt Lake but impressive. 

We hope all of our family and friends have a wonderful Thanksgiving and are able to get closer and feel the love of family, friends and neighbors.

As I was going to bed last night I looked out our window and decided to take a picture.  We have no curtains yet and I thought is might be interesting to show the sight from our window.  We are getting curtains tomorrow so the view will be gone behind the privacy of curtains. 

The weather has been so pleasant in Santiago and the city streets are alive after 8:30 pm with families out walking their dogs and children around in the night air.  They stay up late here because most of the people do not return home from work until after 7 or 8 in the evening, so they stay up till midnight. 

It is interesting to watch the people going to work in the morning.  There are two ways for us to walk to the office one way which is very pleasant but we have two busy streets to cross without lights and that is perilous.  The other is congested with pedestrians and bikes.  There is a bike road along side of the sidewalk and it is almost as congested as the streets.  If we are not careful an anxious cyclist will cut over into the pedestrian walk and weave through the crowd.  So it is a choice of which peril to choose bikes or cars.  The bikes usually seem less perilous so that is the way we usually take.
 
On Wednesday I had the opportunity to spend about two hours with two brothers.  They came into the center wanting some direction on how they could become self-reliant enough to move out of their mother's home and start their own families.  One was in his mid twenties the other close to thirty.  Their names are Mauricio and Elias.  Mauricio joined the church about three weeks ago and the missionaries told him about the center  for self-reliance.  I went through the seminar with them and in that they were the only two in the group of which we try to have five or more in a group.  So they did all of the exercises with each other.  Mauricio gave the opening prayer and they both went through the plan together.  As we were going through the exercises Elias said, "I see why God is so important in our lives and why we should give him our reverence".   At the end of the lesson they are to choose which path they want to pursue, 1- find a better job, 2- create and build a business, 3- or education for better employment.  Mauricio is a baker and makes really good bread while Elias likes to work with steel and weld.  Mauricio wants to start a bakery, of which there a many here, but realizes that he needs to save some money to start his business.  So they decided to join a group to find better employment.  They were excited at the end of the lesson to go find people who were working in the fields they were interested in and talk to them to find out what they need to do to become successful in that work.  They had real hope and direction and a plan when they left.  They each had chosen mentors from people that they know and headed out the door with purpose. 

To me if we have purpose and direction in our life we can overcome many obstacles and attain much success.  Elias told me as he left he was going to church with Mauricio so he could talk to the missionaries because he could feel the spirit while we were talking about the importance of God in our lives.

It has been three days since I started this post so much has happened in the last three days.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with the other senior missionaries who work in the church office building.  We all brought part of the meal and it really gave me a sense of the holiday spirit.  Chris made her wonderful dinner rolls, fruit salad and banana cream pie.  We do miss our family but know that they are all well and moving forward. 

I really got the CHRISTMAS spirit last evening when Elder and Sister Goulding called us up with the news they had an extra Christmas tree in their Bodega and gave it to us.  I almost ran to pick it up and started the decoration.  I love to decorate for Christmas.  It is what puts me in the real spirit of the birth of the Savior.


This is our little tree but it has the makings of a bit better then a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree and it works for us.  We hate to purchase a lot of decorations to leave behind but we may get a few more as the month progresses.

We are looking forward to a whole day of Skype with the children and grandchildren on Christmas so they better get ready cause we expect them to be available some time during the day to spend some time with us.

We also decorated a tree in the office to enliven the spirits.  It is much bigger and much prettier but we had a bigger budget to work with.  We still need to buy some adornments for the open house which is scheduled for the 12th of December. 

Chris and I were invited to speak in the Los Platanos Ward for Sacrament meeting today.  We have been working on our talks for  two weeks and finally delivered them today.  Our talks went great and many of the sisters came up to thank Sister Ellis for delivering her talk in Spanish and complimented her on her Spanish and her message.  She did great.  Our message was of course on self-reliance. 

Last night we traveled by bus in the rain to Saturday session of Stake Conference.  It took us about an hour to get there and we were all a bit wet when we finally arrived.  The theme was missionaries work and was very well done.  The end of the meeting was topped off by a beautiful musical choir number.  It was breathtaking and made my skin fill with goose bumps.  Truly it was amazing and worth the trip if for only the musical number.  We took the subway home which was faster and warmer. 

We are happy and healthy and enjoying our work as we get to know more and more of the people that we were called to work with.  

We hope ya'll had a happy Thanksgiving and feel the Christmas Spirit.

Today Monday the 1st of December 2014, we accompanied the other Senior Missionaries on an excursion.  We seem to have one of those once per month to see as much of Chile as we are able.  Today we rode a bus to a popular Ski resort, on the Chile side of the border with Argentina, called Portillo.

It is a popular place for international ski teams to train in the summer, because it is winter here.  At the base of the mountain is a blue, clear, cold lake.  It is called Largo de Inca.

 

 What makes it so stark is that there is no vegetation anywhere close to the Lake.  I suppose that is for two reasons.  One is that it is at such a high elevation it is above the vegetative line and the other because they get no rain in the summer.  It is rugged and has a rugged beauty. 

Chris looking at the lodge from the lake side

This is the switchback road coming up to the resort and a main road between Argentina and Chile.  29 switch backs.

We really enjoyed the trip and on the way home President Alder and I had a very interesting discussion on the birth of the Savior.

 

It was interesting as we read from the writings of Bruce McConkie from the Mortal Messiah.  God chose Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth and Zacharias because of who they were in the pre-existence and had orchestrated their ancestry to be that of royalty and the blood line of David so that in reality Jesus Was the rightful heir to the throne of king of the Jews.  But the prophecies of Christ's birth really make your skin tingle as you read them again.  I love the Savior Jesus Christ and am eternally grateful for his sacrifice and atonement.