A New First and More

Our very first blog was titled "Let the Adventure Begin." We had a new adventure to experience the other day. I'll back up just a bit.

A few months ago we went to the Santiago temple and met a couple that are here on a medical mission. Elder (Dr.) Branson and Kathy Call are serving as the medical resource for several missions here in Chile. We hit it off and look forward to meeting each month. They called us the other day and invited us to go to a "cute little French restaurant" before our monthly temple session. "Great" we said before thinking about our decision.

As I thought more about our plans I became concerned. First- I could only name 5 French foods, and I don't think toast and fries really count. I wondered what I was going to order. For sure escargot was out, so that left baguettes and croissants. Second-  Every town I know of has a Mexican restaurant. They also have Chinese, Italian, BBQ, Thai and an occasional place for Greek. I couldn't think of a single French restaurant. There has to be a reason. We had to come all the way to Chile to go to a French restaurant for the first time in our lives.

Eventually cheese and wine came to mind, but that much cheese would really stop me up. We went, as you can see, and because we were in Chile our choices were limited for supper. If we had been there for lunch we could have had quiche. Oh yeah, QUICHE, food number 4. But because it was the evening meal in Chile we were limited to salads and sandwiches; I don't really consider those French. As we walked in I could see I was saved by a full display of French pastries.

I'm being a little sarcastic, because we really had a great time with Calls as usual, but quick, name me a French restaurant. See what I mean?

The highlight of our month was a visit from our Mission Directors. They came in on a Thursday and stayed with us until Sunday evening. We toured the farm during harvest. Last blog I included many harvest pictures, but let me give you a few fun movie clips.

Barbara with the Hynes

Removing the olives

Filling the box

Loading a full box

We went through the mill to see the extraction of the oil, (see last month). We held a Zone Conference about the Leadership of Christ, traveled to the walnut farm in Alhue -

and lastly went to the tourist town of Pomaire, remember the pottery. The best part of their visit was in the evenings we sat around the house and visited about families and life. We thoroughly enjoy the Hynes and are grateful for their support.

The week after Hynes headed for Argentina, Barbara and I took a Saturday to go see the reason for one of our biggest challenges. Most every weekend we get into some terrible traffic going or coming from Santiago. Remember this line? "If you build it, they will come." Many times at night as we are on the road trying to get home, we find ourselves in the middle of an endless line of headlights and taillights crawling south towards Lago Rapel or going north to Santiago. About twenty five miles south of our home is a lake that must have some magic magnetic pull on the people from Santiago. They will spend hours on the road in bumper to bumper traffic to go swim in frigid water.

Here is the cause of the lake.

This was built and all the people come

Not the lake, just a look downstream

Lastly, we were invited to the first birthday party of a sweet little angel, Emilia.

This is Emilia's first English lesson. Push the button and it says "I love you." in English!

We have made some great friends and feel blessed to be included in their family activities. We get to go to holiday gatherings, school concerts and dance competitions as well helping with shopping trips. Our service mission is a lot of fun and we hope to develop a habit of serving others for the rest of our lives.

TTFN

(that's from Tigger)