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