Copiapo and Chanaral

Dear Family,

Right now, Sunday June 28, we are on the city of Copiapo. Yesterday, Saturday, we left at 6 am, and drove to TALTAL and picked up two missionaries to take them on with us to CHANARAL. To our surprise one of the missionaries was Elder Childs who is your cousin Ted Smith's wife's nephew, the son of Wendy's sister. Mom sat next to him and visited with him for 1 hour which she very much enjoyed. We will call his mother and Wendy when we return later next week. We then arrived and had the zone conference in Chanaral. Elder Childs told us that in Taltal the community and also in the church they are very tidy conscious. We saw lots of DAMAGE from the floods that took place a couple of months ago. The shore line in Taltal had moved because tons of mud and debris had filled the coast line. The church at Chanaral was very tidy too. Cleanest church we have found.

Each ward or branch (sometimes) have their own building. attendance can vary from small (30 to 40) to many more over (100) in  the Antofagasta Ward we attend. It is a constant problem to keep members attending church. Their are ons of inactives from past years going way back into the 1980s and 1990s.  The big emphasis here NOW is to baptize and  KEEP  new converts in the church. They do this here by assigning each member a friend and having SIX lessons following the baptisms on various subjects. and giving new members a church job as soon as possible. They also search out the INACtIVES but there are so many that they cannot assign them visiting teachers and home teachers.

Today. SUNDAY. we were invited to lunch after Church today. Most members homes here are in little connecting houses one right after another with NO yards but they have an iron fence and gate in front with a lock, about 3-4 feet from the gate is the door.Inside is very small and from US standards very very tiny rooms. The meal of tocos and the cut food to do inside was very delicious.

A note about the MAIL here.  When packages are received you PAY the post man a fee. You pay more if the packages comes to the office over going to the BOX at the post office. You may not ever get it if the postman comes and the office is closed for some reason and he decides not to return with it again. SO it sending us anything send letters and packages to the POST OFFICE box number. We so far have never got the letter David sent us in the church POUCH. Don't use that as to save 50 cents isn't worth it as that mail is sent to the area office and then sorted and who knows when it will ever get on down to where it is suppose to go.

  We have a zone conference here tomorrow and then drive to Vallenar tomorrow for another Zone conference.  On Wednesday, we return to Antofagasta, which is a nine hour drive back.  It is always a lot of work to prepare for and host these conferences, but I can tell we are performing a service that is needed.

 On the 13th of July we will be losing some of the elders working in the office.  I have really enjoyed working with the offie missionaries.  We will be losing Elder Harris, Elder McComb and Elder De La Pena and gaining Elder Erickson and Elder Hortua.  Actually Elder Erickson and and Elder Hortua were already in the office for training.

On Monday, the 22nd of June, food was purchased for the Antofagasta Zone conference and on Tuesday we hosted 52 missionaries at the conference.  It was really a big group.  Fortunately, everything went well.  The rest of the week was training on financial procedures in the office.  As I mentioned, Elder McComb will be leaving the office, and he has been my trainer.  I have had a month with him, but with two zone conferences of five cays each, two missionary groups coming and going that takes three days each, and eight days in weekends, there has not been as much training as I feel I need.  Also quite a bit of the time together, he was on the telephone or taking care of needs of the position and not training me.  I am certainly not blaming him, as he has been terrific, but I am just saying I do not feel as prepared as I would like to feel as I take on this new assignment.

Mom has been a real organizer of the office.  She has worked hard to get things whipped into shape.  I can tell the mission president's wife is really pleased with what she has done.  She even took the mission presidents suit that was torn in the pocket and fixed that.  Mom is, as always, doing her best to serve.

We are still working on our Spanish.  We have signed up to take some courses from the MTC beginning later this week.   The thought of going to church for 18 months and not know what is going on is not an attractive thought.  I feel we are doing better, but the people in Chile talk Spanish a mile a minute, and it is difficult to tell where one word stops and another one begins.  Also , they do not annunciate their words very well.  If I really concentrate  on what they are saying, I can often pick up the general theme of what they are saying.  Hopefully our training from the MTC will give us the impetus we need to be able to understand and speak Spanish.

We hope all of you are doing well an pray for your well being each day.  We were sorry to hear of the death of Madison's duck.  We feel very bad for her.  We hope Landon and Amy are now settled in to their new apartment and that is working out for them.  It sounds like Dallin is doing well as a missionary, and we are very happy for him.  Laura and children seem to be enjoying their trip and have had some life changing experiences together.  That is certainly nice of Bryan and Lisa to host them so that they can see the sights around Washington D.C.  Sorry to hear about Merrill's garden.  He has always enjoyed growing vegetables, and it kind of got sprayed and now soaked with rain.  Hopefully he can realize some produce from his labors.  I suppose David and family will be traveling somewhat.  First to Debbie's sisters wedding and then to Utah for their reunion.  I guess Jon and Melanie and family we be traveling to Utah soon as well.  We will miss being at the timeshare with all of you.  Sounds like Stephanie did all she could to get a second condo, but didn't make it.  I called and left a message with East Canyon and told them to call Stephanie to see what could be done, but I don't know whether they called her or not.  We miss all of you and realize we are missing many opportunities to be with you, but glad that we can give these 18 months to the Lord's work.

Love

Mom and Dad




This is the home of Meissa, Jorge and Niclole where we had lunch today.  Mom posed in front of the gate.


Inside the home, this is what we were served.  Elder Hortua, Mom and Meissa with Nicole still working in the kitchen.

Tropic of Capicorn and flooding

This a monument signifying the Tropic of Capicorn, which passes near Antofagasta.  The sun is directly overhead hear on December 21st each year

Elder Artura from Columbia and Elder McComb and myself as we have prepared the zone conference lunch

Chanaral was heavily damaged from the floods in April.  The downtown was wiped out.  This picture is of some of the devastation.

 Beautiful bay at Chanaral.  Note the mud bank in the background resulting from the flood.

(taken from an email they sent to me)
Dad has limited SPANISH but uses what he does have to make friends with people and ask them if they want to learn more about the Church. He is amazing and will be even more amazing when he is fluent with Spanish. IF you are in a book store and find books on learning spanish or helps, etc. buy and mail to us and we will pay you when we return. Antofagasta has only ONE book store and did not have much helps but we did buy one book with English Spanish and pronunciations. We do hope we are blessed with the gift of tongues. You can purchase an overseas mailer for about $15 that will hold quite a bit (no weight limit) Send to this POST office box. US mail is best way to send anything.

Chile Antofagasta Mission
Casilla de Correo 70
Antofagasta
Antofagasta, Chile

We love all of you and MISS you all tons. Put this address in the next blog and our phone number (801) 375-4390. I am over the MAIL for this whole mission and some day perhaps something will come in the mail for us. David said he sent something in the pouch (church pouch) but so far we have not seen anything. (Letters can go this way with a regular stamp but address to the church pouch (call David) on this.

Today at the ZONE conference (here in this city) the MAIL table at the end where we brought out the boxes and packages and mail was probably the HIT of the conference. I took a photo with Elders and Sisters crowded around (48) of them hoping something came for them. I hope to get help to take the photo I took, of this event off my camera and put on the blog so you can use it.

LOVE mom and dad in Antofagasta Chile

June 20, 2015

June 20, 2015

Dear Family,

This last week was a very busy week for us.  We packed and readied ourselves for the three zone conferences to the north.  One was to be in Arica, one in Alto Hospicio and one in Iquique.  We had, along with Elder Harris an Elder De la Pena, purchase and prepare the lunch for the missionaries at each location.  The churches where we met have little kitchens and in most cases are not well maintained.  As a result, before we moved in all of the food and supplies in order to prepare the food, we had to clean the kitchen and sanitize it.  After doing that, we had to then bring in the food an supplies and prepare the food.  We also had to set up the tables and chairs an do some cleaning in the area where the missionaries were to eat.  We always ate lunch with the missionaries and visited with them.  After the lunch was over, we had to do all of the clean up, put everything away, do the dishes and load the van for the next stop.  The two office missionaries were a big help in that regard.  Nevertheless, the zone conference usually ended about the time we finished cleaning up.  We then went back to the hotel and crashed for a little while.  Our hotels were near the beach each time, so we usually took a stroll down to the beach to see if the fishermen were catching any fish.  Our hotels were lovely hotels, and we did enjoy getting a good nights sleep.  I am glad we had good accommodations, as we did need our rest after the long days of travel and working on our feet most of the day.   I sent quite a few pictures, but only of the Arica area.
 
    We are definitely in a desert.  Some of the area looks like we are on the moon or Mars.  There is not a plant growing of any kind.  It is just barren desert with even the tall mountains we pass covered with sand that has  blown on them.  There is beauty in that, and some of the scenery as a result is quite spectacular.  I will share more pictures next week of the trip, as there are too many this time to send.  Although, I might send a few more just to amuse,

     We are trying to help the office missionaries get contacts and also work with them in teaching their investigators.  We have been providing dinner once a week to host some of the investigators they are teaching.  The missionary work in Chile has changed considerably from what it used to.  The missionaries are unable to baptize anyone under the age of 16 years of age unless the parents are active and attending church.  They feel there is no way that they can be sustained in the church unless parents will take them to church.  Also they require that every prospective convert attend church a minimum of two times before they can be baptized.  Right now the mission is baptizing about 30 new converts per month.  Earlier, they were baptizing young children who came into the church, but could not be sustained.  As a result, Chile was baptizing hundreds per month, but now there  is a lot of inactivity.  It seems we have met a number of people who we started talking about the church to, and they tell us they are already  members, but not active.  President Dalton indicated that when the country asked the citizens of this area to tell what religion they were affiliated with, 4,000 responded that they were Mormons.  There is only 2500 members of record, and actual attendance was in the neighborhood of 400.  As a result, there is a great deal of work that needs to be done in activating members.  The missionaries spend time working on that as well as trying to find new converts.

       Today is our P-Day, and we have been gone for 5 days, so we need to take care of our P-Day needs. FROM Mom   Dad wrote all of the above. We MISS all of you and pray for you each daily. This is a different kind of mission than we expected, but we are doing things that have to be done by someone, and I guess that someone is us.  Merrill said when he was on a mission the members (women) came and cooked lunch for them when they had zone conferences. Things have changed now. We prepared  lunch for over 110 missionaries this past week for 4 zone conferences.

Love,

Mom and Dad

Arica, Fishing, and Golf courses

Dear Family,   JUNE 21, 2015  Antofagasta. Chile

Here it is Fathers Day 2015, and I don't have any of my children around to celebrate with.  Nevertheless to know that  my sons and daughters and their families are all living the Gospel and raising good families is a great reward for a father.  I could not ask for more.

We had a very busy last week.  On Monday June 15, we drove nine hours from Antofagasta to get to ARICA which is located right on the PERU border sea shore.  There was nine hours of desert, although there were some rather spectacular scenes we saw as we drove along.  Mom was pretty scared driving down into and out of some of the deep deep deep canyons. Even the mountains were covered with sand, but obviously were built of rock as the roads were on rock.'  On Tuesday June 16  we prepared meals for the missionaries at the Zone Conference in Arica. While in Arica we stayed two nights at the San Diego Almagro HOTEL there and then left early Wednesday morning June 17 and drove to ALTO HOSPICIO We arrived in time to prepare lunch and serve the missionaries there coming to that zone conference.  Following that conference, we drove down to IQUIQUE for two nights at the Holiday Inn Express HOTEL.  We found out it was owned by the TALBOT Hotels.  I told the front desk that I should get a free room since I owned the hotel. Those at the front desk would laugh and say I needed to talk to the owner.  We stayed two nights in Iquique and following that zone conference and a nights rest we then drove along the coast back to Antofagasta on Friday in the Mission presidents car as they wanted to show us some things along the way, plus his wife likes to hunt for sea shells.
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  Driving along the coast ROAD (you can find it on a map) from Iquique to Antofagasta with President Dalton and his wife was another adventure.  We drove right next to the Pacific Ocean, I thought there might be a little different scenery than Highway 5 inland a little ways, but it was still all desert.  Even the golf course at TOCAPELLIA was one big rocky sand trap. However, I didn't see anyone out playing golf.  I thought if we held the Talbot Open there, we could all have a good excuse as to why we did not play well.

Backtracking a bit,while at Arica, mom and I walked down to the beach where there were a couple of men fishing.  Neither had caught any fish, but were hoping to have some luck.  I really enjoyed visiting with one of them named LUIS Ramos.  He let me use his pole for a few minutes to try my luck.  I felt I had a couple of tugs, but when I yanked, I did not have anything.  I noticed when he had a fish biting, he did not yank the pole but kept hoping the fish would give stronger tugs.  He gave me his name and phone number and I told him the next time I am in Arica (in three mohths for the next series of zone conferences) I would call him so that we could go fishing together.  They fish from the shore and said best fishing is at night.  They wait until the big waves come in and then cast out over the waves.  Their weights are huge and on the bottom of the line,and the hooks and bait are higher up on the line.

Saturday our PDAY was another adventure at our Pensione (apartment in Spanish). We had use of the mission car and went shopping to find me some thongs or sandals as my left small toe has given me some problems and was infected while in Iquique. We did find something (finally) after going to several stores, we did our shopping for groceries and packed our things three blocks to where the car was parked. This was a First shopping expedition for us alone.

Today Sunday June 21 we had Antofagasta Stake Conference.  A seventy was visiting from Argentina. Mom had a lady translating for her and the main talk from the 70 members was Keeping the Sabbath Day more Holy. He said the people should not leave after the sacrament but should stay for the whole meeting, and even crying babies should stay for the meeting but go to the back of the room. He did not approve of taking the children out, He said children are angels but some angels are desruptive angels and do need extra care. I (George) could understand a few words, but he would talk very fast in a very long sentence and it was difficult for me to sort out where one word ended and another began.  I will have to keep working on understanding Spanish.  We purchased a book with English words into Spanish and Spanish pronunciation. I hope it will help us. yesterday at the store to try and help us improve our control of the language. We do seem to pick up something every day, so hopefully in a few months we will be able to speak and understand.

We wonder how all of you are doing.  We know we are missing many family activities, but feel we are providing a service to this mission.  We are happy that Dallin is now out into the field doing missionary work.  I am certain he will do well there.  We are so glad to receive Spencer's and Hunter's mission letters.  I can tell they are both very good missionaries and doing well.  That makes us happy for them.  Stephanie tells us her garden is doing well.  She has become quite the farmer.  Glad to hear Nathan is finishing his Eagle project.  One more grandson (Nathan) will be getting his Eagle Scout award soon.

I can't mention all of the news from family, but we are grateful that you keep us posted. and enjoyed hearing about the Fawson Reunion, the Kleins visit Merrill, the Kleins now at Bryans, Amys upcoming move, and Dallin leaving for California,We will look forward to his e-mails.  Appreciated phone calls from Jonathan and Julie. We so enjoy reading your emails and getting your phone calls.

We look forward to hearing from Landon and Amy this evening via Skype. We miss being around all of the grandchildren.  I am losing some of my teasing techniques not having them around

. We will be in the OFFICE Mon to Thur then leave on Friday for the SOUTH zone conferences and will return on Wed. July 1. We have the Antofagasta Zone Conference this coming Tuesday so Monday will be busy with the preparations and shopping for groceries as it is in the office building that is a church building that is currently not being used

Love,

Mom and Dad


This is the view out of our hotel window in Arica.  We could hear the waves crashing in all night.

 I found a fisherman. I think I had a bite!

 A new place for the Talbot Open Golf tournament. The Golf course at Tocapilla.

 This was an unbelievable deep canyon and strong winds.  Notice the desert

 Mom with Elders Harris and De La Pena getting tables prepared for the lunch at Arica Zone missionaries.

 This missionary is in Steve and Timandra Fawson's ward in LaVerkin

Zone conferences and Spanish classes

Dear Family,  JUNE 13, 2015 Saturday

This week we had time to work in the office somewhat.  I continued to receive training on becoming the financial secretary for the mission, and Mom has been organizing the office, recording the baptisms, and helping with the referrals. We both went shopping for food for the Calama Zone conference which was to be held Friday in Calama. It seems there is always plenty to do.

On FRIDAY June 12 we went to Calama,which is about 3 hours away. The elevation is about 7,500 feet, and it is a little cooler there than in Antofagasta.  This whole area here is in the Atacama Desert, and is unbelievably dry and barren.  You will NOT see a plant, bush shrub,or a tree anywhere.  It is the driest desert int he world.  There was a zone conference there so we had to purchase the food with the missionaries who were going to help us, and then drive up early Friday morning.  We left at 7:00 a.m. and arrived back home about 7:30 p.m.  We had to assist in first cleaning the kitchen of the church, then preparing the eating room area with chairs and tables, etc, then preparing the lunch meal for the missionaries attending the zone conference.  After feeding them, we did all the cleaning up of the kitchen, washing the dishes, mopped the floors, put away all of the tables and chairs and returned home.  Two elders from the mission went up with us to help us, which we appreciated. There are five elders in the office and two AP's (assistants) who are there periodically for a few days.  However, different this is, we really enjoy working with the elders in the office.
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Mom and I have been trying to work on our Spanish.  I would like to be somewhat fluent in Spanish so that I can better communicate with the people.  I know quite a few words, but putting them together in a recognizable form is difficult.  I find the Spanish throw in words like Se,
Que, Como, hace etc. in places that I do not understand.  Nevertheless, I guess I will learn.  Mom signed us up for a Spanish course from the MTC two nights a week for an hour for six months..  We will by skyping with someone who will be teaching us Spanish. We have to commit to speaking 2 hours a day in Spanish for them to take us on.  Hopefully that will help.  they require us to speak Spanish for two hours a day as well.  The Elders in the office have agreed to help us.

I have been trying to pick up some referrals for the missionaries to teach.  I have picked up several, but unfortunately none of them do live in the sector where the office missionaries live.  I have been meeting with a family that doesn't  live too far from us that the elders have been teaching their son. The Elders have wanted me to go with them.  They were just teaching the boy, but now we have another son, a cousin, and a mother who has been inactive for 25 years attending the meetings.  Hopefully we  can have some good results out of this (maybe).  Tonight we have an investigator CHRIS HOLLAND (from USA) coming over to our home.This is an investigator the missionaries were already teaching, but we are trying to help them out with him.

We think of all of you all of the time, and are always glad to show off your pictures.  We appreciate Amy and Laura getting us pictures of everyone so that we look at them and wish.  We hope all of you are doing well.  We appreciate Landon and Amy and Stephanie and David going to the FAWSON REUNION in Moab to represent our family.  We will be missing everything this year  We talked to Laura earlier today and they are on their way to go to Bryan & Lisa's. She said David & Debbie will be flying in the following weekend (even while the Klein's are there) to attend Debbie's sister's marriage..

We are enjoying being together and going together to the things we do. It is surely different from the many chores we had at home in Provo. ..As you can guess, I no longer have to water the garden or mow a lawn, which by the way, I did not mind. I loved to see things grow and develop.  I suspect I will not be to thrilled with the weeds that grew while we were gone.

Love,

Mom and Dad

Mom with some ward members

 The church they attend

 Mom speaking Spanish with ward members :)

 Pictures from the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world

 The city of Calama, copper mines with smoke, and the dry, dry, Atacama Deseret

 The office missionaries they work with every day.

 A statute of Christ at the city of Calama in the Atacama Desert

Appendix, shopping, and companion ceremonies

JUNE 6, 2015  ANTOFAGASTA  CHILE

Dear Family,

It has been a very busy week for us, as well as everyone in the office.  On MONDAY   June 1, we were saying goodbye to the twelve new  missionaries who were leaving for home.  Many came in from their respective cities and stayed overnight at the mission home.  We prepared a lovely dinner for them and also fed them lunch.  I spent most of my time doing dishes and Mom was helping preparing the food.  By the time we got back to our condo it was midnight.  The next day, TUESDAY June 2, we had five new missionaries come into the Antofagasta mission and we provided lunch and dinner for them.  Again, we were preparing food for the five new missionaries.  Another late night was in store, but not quite so bad.  On WEDNESDAY June 3, we all met at the office, and new missionaries were assigned to their companions.   They have the trainer companions come in to pick up their new companion missionary.  The mission presidency has a training session in the morning with the new missionaries.  In the afternoon, (we had pizza for lunch) they have a new companion ceremony.  No one knows who their companions are going to be.  They have a ceremony with the new missionary sitting in the middle of the circle of missionaries.  They are then given a letter telling them where they are being assigned and who their new companion is going to be.  Their companion then comes out and they embrace and then the trainer companion gets down with a shoe brush and a picture is taken as they pretend to be shining the new missionaries shoes.  It was quite tender to see all of this taking place.  Following this new companion ceremony, the missionaries leave for their assignments.

On THURSDAY June 4  was the leaders conference in the mission office.  We had 42 missionaries come in for the day.  It was nice to visit with many of these missionaries.  There were quite a number from Utah.  We have missionaries from Argentina, Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile as well as the united States,  They had pizza again for lunch, so we had two days of Dominos pizza in a row.  That was another busy day.  Some of the missionaries that came from Arica in Northern Chile had an all night bus ride to get to the office for the meeting, and then had anther all night bus ride back.  I could not do something like that any more. Those that  came were a really nice group of missionaries.  I cannot believe the amount of work that President and Sister Dalton are required to do to manage all of these missionaries.  I am glad I only have the responsibilities that I do.

Finally, on FRIDAY June 5  we had a break but still went to the office. Mom spent two hours cleaning the side street in front of the office church building  and she and the missionaries watched the FUNERAL for Apostle Lee Perry. I dealt with a missionary who had an appendicitis attack and was taken to the hospital to have his appendix out.  Trying to arrange for that took much of the afternoon on Friday.  I have been trying to learn the system to become the financial secretary and Mom has been learning how to do the mail and handle the baptismal records.  This is quite a chore for both of us.

Our P-Day is Saturday, whereas the other missionaries have Monday as a P-day.  They want the office open on Monday in case the missionaries on their P-day need to contact us.  Therefore we are taking care of laundry, some Spanish study etc. today.  The Mission President and his wife are having the office staff over to the mission home today for lunch and they want to thank the office staff for all of the work this past week.

We did try our hand at shopping on Wednesday evening.  It was quite an effort to find everything that we needed.  We had not been shopping for food since we had arrived.  Fortunately we ran on to a couple of missionaries from the office who helped us find what we needed.  We find that everything is quite expensive here and purchasing food is also quite different.  Mom tried to find some baking powder and some baking soda and it came in little small envelope type packages.  We didn't seem to purchase that much, but our bill was over $100 or over 660,000 Chilean pesos

On Friday PM  (date night) we walked down to the beach - sent  photos to Amy to put on the mission blog,  Today SATURDAY  June 6 we are washing cleaning working at the condo and hope to go to the GYM here in this condo building (sent photo of building we live in on next to top floor (floor 20).  On Sunday we are supposed to talk in church in Spanish since no one speaks English.  The elders at the office helped Mom and I write out a brief talk too give in church in Spanish tomorrow. Should be interesting to see if they understand us.

HOPE all is well with all of you  we hope to worK hard on SPANISH this upcoming week at the office having the missionaries help us.   LOVE to ALL  Mom  and Dad

Chapel turned into the mission office

 Mom settling in at her desk for office duties

 Plaque outside the mission office

 Getting ready for zone conference

Their apartment building

First send-off of missionaries

The view from their bedroom window

 You can see their tall apartment building in the background

Dear family,

We have been very busy since we arrived.  Twelve missionaries were going home and we have five new missionaries coming in today. The send off of the twelve missionaries took a great deal of effort.  We went over to the mission home at 9:30 a.m. and we did not get back to our apartment until midnight last night.  We will be back to the mission home today to receive the new missionaries.  I also have a meeting at 8:00 p.m. tonight to meet on the financial area with a regional auditor.  With the new missionaries and that meeting, I can tell it will be another long day.  We have not had time to go to the grocery store to buy groceries or anything else since we have been here.  This week end is zone conferences, and we will be driving from one end of the mission to the other in the next few days.  The mission covers 900 miles.  We will be driving through the scenic desert.  We will go all the way north to Arica, which is on the Peru border, and going through the Atacama Desert, which is the driest desert in the world.

We went to a ward for church, but it was difficult to understand too much.  They speak very fast and there were many words used that we did not understand.  The people were very nice, and we enjoyed seeing them.

For those interested in football, Tanner Mangum, the BYU Quarterback to be, was one of the missionaries leaving the mission to go home.  He left 6 weeks early so that he could begin getting in shape for BYU Football this fall.  He was an AP and seemed like a very good missionay and a fine person.  We had fun visiting with him.

Time to go, so will close for now.

Love, Mom and Dad