Cake Mix Contacts

This is one of the oldest Catholic Churches in Antofagasta.  We stopped by to go in, but it was closed.  We will have to visit it another day.   We gave away a book of Mormon to a neighbor and got his name and address for the missionaries.  

The Central park in Antofagasta is enjoyed by the dogs

 his dog tries to attack us every morning as we walk to the office.  I find that he is not nearly so brave if he is outside the bars where he is protected.  He is then wimpy.

Mom walking around the sleeping dog to get to our apartment.

This is Luis and Allie Salis (father and son) who work in the wood shop.  The owner of he wood shop is Leonel Nunez.  We are going with the missionaries tonight to his home.

 This is a picture of he wood shop where they make and refinish furniture.  While there, note the missionaries were able to pick up another contact.

 We walk past this wood shop each day to the office.  We have become friends with them.  We picked up the owner as an investigator for the missionaries.  We will be going with the missionaries to see he and his family this evening. Luis Solis doing his job in the wood shop.

 We are in the dead of winter here now, but note the people on the beach outside of our window.  Note the people on the beach and the people in the water trying to catch some big waves from the Pacific and ride them back to shore.  The store you see in front (Its name is on the front is Liders,) but is owned by Walmart.  You can see the walmart insignia.  That is where we do our shopping.

Mom enjoying p-day and studying the scriptures by osmosis.

Raul and Jennifer Merino came to dinner tonight,  They speak very little English and our Spanish is not very good.  They were going to help us with English and us help them with Spanish.  We gave them a copy of the Book of Mormon and they agreed to have the missionaries come and teach them.  We felt a wonderful spirit in our home this evening.  I believe they are Golden contacts.

He works at Liders (Walmart where we shop for groceries) and Margaret was trying to find a cake mix.  We had such difficulty communicating that and him understanding what we wanted that we about had a tour of the store before we finally were able to get the cake mix..  When we finally got the cake mix, mom invited him to dinner with his wife and 3 month old baby.  We had a veery enjoyable evening with them and have invited them back along with the missionaries.

Mom wanted me to take a picture of her new plants and send them.  The yellow is the remainder of her birthday flowers and the plants on the left are new.  We need a little greenery in this country of so much desert.

Dear Family,

     This was a much lighter week of work in the office.  We did not go to Copiapo for that conference as originally planned, and the Mission President and his wife and then returned and went to Arica (nine hours north) for a week.  As a result, the office was quiet and we were able to learn our duties in the office and catch up on some of the work.

     This also gives us an opportunity to share some of the missionary experiences that we have had.  Obviously, until we learn Spanish, we will not be able to do much teaching, but we can do finding.  We visit with people along the street and make friends with people there as well as in the store where we go shopping.  I sent pictures of the men working in the wood shop.  Their employer is Leonel Nunez.  We began visiting with him as we passed by on a couple of occasions.  We learned that he has a son who served a mission in Columbia and came back and is now a doctor in Calama.  He and his wife have not joined the church, however.  He is very friendly to us, and agreed to have us come this evening to his home with the missionaries.  I asked him why he was not a member of the church if his son was a missionary, and he said it is not too late.  We brought the missionaries to his shop and introduced them to him.  We will see how it goes tonight.

     While shopping for groceries the last couple of times, we picked up three or four more investigators.  Margaret always invites them to our home for dinner.  If things turn out well, we will have the missionaries begin teaching them.  One girl went to BYU, but is now engaged to a non-member of the church.  She went on a mission and is trying to teach he Fiance the gospel.  We invited them over to help with that process.  Another man was at the store with his two young boys.  We learned that he is separated from his wife, so we invited him over next week when he has his boys again.  He has heard of the church, but that is about it.  He is a very nice man, and could certainly benefit from church membership.  He was pleased that we wold invite him over for dinner.  Yesterday, another young man was an employee of the store and helped us find some things that we needed.  He was super helpful.  He is married and has one little baby.  He is coming over Sunday with his wife for dinner.  That should be interesting, as he and his wife speak no english and we speak very little Spanish.  Hopefully we will be able to communicate that we care.  One other contact we made in the store asked us to be sure and call him.  We have not made contact with him yet.  W still have several others along the street that we have visited with, but have not had the missionaries go see them yet.  Until we can do more teaching in Spanish, we will have to be content with finding and turning them over to the missionaries.  They are always happy to receive good referrals.

      Since we were not so busy this week, we spent quite a bit of evening time working our Spanish.  We get a little overwhelmed with all that there is to learn, but have made some progress.  We have worked on the computer with Duolingo, which tells me on am 26% fluent in Spanish.  I do know quite a few words, but putting them altogether with correct conjugations has been tricky.  We are determined to learn the language, however.

       I had one of the computer guru missionaries help me get my computer up and running again.  I dare  not use it for any private information, as I do not know what "egg they laid in my computer" but I can use it to catch up on the news and work on my Spanish, which is useful.  I use mom's laptop to access the banks and other personal information.

      We are sorry we were not there to make Root Beer for the 4th and 24th of July celebrations.  That had become a tradition.  Also I loved to barbeque for family on those holidays, but didn't get to do that either.  Most people here "gasp" when we tell them we had nine children and have 32 grandchildren.  When they come to our condo we are always so proud to show them the pictures on the calendars that you gave to us before we left.  Obviously, we are very proud of all of you and the lives you are living.     You are often a good example to us and how we can be better.  We appreciate all that you have done for us in helping us get here.  We could not be here without the many services that you have provided.

   

Much love to all,

Mom and Dad