Story 16 - DANCERS on SUN.Dec. 27 CELEBRATING "MARY"Mother of Jesus"
These photos came about because we had met "Johann and his step father George" at the boat ramp when we were watching Edward launch his new business. We invited them over for dinner, and they came. We gave them the review of the church, as both of them had heard about the church, and Johan was particularly interested. We invited him to come to Church on the Sunday after Christmas, but we waited for him on the bench at Church but he never came. After church we decided to go and look for the place he lives with his grandmother. We parked the car on the street and SAW MANY people standing around, and heard LOUD music, drums, and saw dancers in the street. We walked toward it, and to our surprise, here was the BIGGEST crowd and street dancers from many different groups of people who had come from many different places. Sort of like a (Band Competition of Some Sort). Hunter would have LOVED it. The drums were huge. It went for at least a half mile up one street, and a quarter of a mile across another street. We found a man to help us find Johan's grandmother house and it was on a street that came right out of where this was all taking place. George took lots of photos. We didn't find Johan home, but did find all of this on a Sunday afternoon after Christmas. ENJOY the photos!
Hard to believe we are now into the new year of 2016. We also are starting our 8th month of this mission. During this time we have probably met and worked with over 60 different contacts and have had many many dinners at our home (probably 8 a month) for new friends, contacts, and missionaries. Plus we have attended several 1st discussions (in Spanish), and given 1st discussions (in English), but so far we have had none of our contact desire to be baptized. This mission in Antofagasta only had 414 baptisms for all of 2015. Which is lower than the three previous years. That averages out to 34 a month(+50 more) a little over 1 person being baptized per day (counting 365 days in a year). We have not been told what the actual retention rate is for this mission. Grandsons - Hunter told us they were baptizing approximately 150 per month in Thailand, and Spencer said it was at about 150 per month in his mission in Brazil, too. However, the retention rate is probably under 20% in both of those missions. That means out of a 100 baptisms, less than 20 remain active in the church. Hunter said the retentsion was 11% retention when he arrived and 17% when he came home. Missionary work is more than just BAPTIZING, it is RETENTION and also SHARING testimonies, with those who do not accept it. Maybe someday or years later, our contacts will accept the gospel plan, we just keep trying, but don't drop our new friends.
Starting in 2016 we will be numbering the stories we write.
Story 1 - HIME (Jamie) SPANISH HELPER, FROM the QUITO WARD
We met Hime one Sunday when we were visiting this ward. This ward is closest to our apartment (and is the Stake Center), but we have been assigned to another ward 5 miles to the South. Hime had a suit on and was at church, yet he told us that he was not active in the church. He spoke English and talked to me for a while, after the sacrament meeting. I asked him how busy he was and he said not very, and so I asked if he could come weekly and help us with our Spanish. He did not want to be paid, therefore we send him home with a food item each week (a large juice bottle, box of granola bars, etc.) which he seems to like this idea. He is very punctual and arrives nearly exactly on time weekly.
This past week we asked him WHY he did not consider himself active in the church, as he does go to church. He said he was baptized when he was 10 years old along with his 13 year old sister. His father had always been a member, but his mother was a convert. The family went to the Santiago Temple and was sealed when he was 10 years old (which means his mother must have been baptized at least a year earlier). His father even had been a former bishop of the Quito Barrio. He said he was ordained a deacon, and passed the sacrament for 2 years, but never advanced to receive the teacher ordination in the priesthood. Somehow, he became dis-interested and did not believe in the Church, and he then told us "Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon." He said he had read it years ago and had even attended seminary for two years, but does not believe the church is what people say it is. He said he does take turns praying at home (blessing the food) along with other family members to honor his mother, but he does not believe in a God. He goes to church (sacrament meeting only) to honor his mother's request, but does not take the sacrament, then walks home. We obviously were both surprised, as we did not get into his personal beliefs when he first started coming to our apartment, and because he was always at church we didn't think he meant it when he said he was not an active member. He then told us that he is an atheist. However, George told him that he is not an atheist, because he cannot prove that there is not a God, but he is more correctly an agnostic. He then said, "then I am an agnostic."
He is 24 years old and turns 25 on January 15th. This will be a GOOD project for us to see if we can help him get a testimony that the Church is true, as he comes to our home weekly. His parents must love that he comes and helps us.
Our lessons with him will now change as we will need to start trying to help him gain a testimony. For the past 3 weeks we have been reading the Christmas story from the Bible in Matthew and Luke and he has been explaining the Spanish words, etc. It takes us a LONG time to even get through 8 verses, so it did not go very fast (one hour for only 8 verses) because he explains a lot of things to us. We bought him a new shirt for Christmas and he wore it last time. We also gave him a (little seed) this past week to put in the pocket and told him FAITH is like this little seed and it can grow. He didn't seem to think so, but smiled as he left.
Story 3 - HOW PEOPLE WASH DISHES in ANTOFAGASTA
Most of the homes, even nicer homes in large apartment buildings, do not have "hot" water in the kitchens. For the bathroom showers, they tell me it is something that heats the water as they use it. We do not have hot water at the office (church) either. Nor does any of the churches in our mission have hot water. In Chile, they sell a container like a big pitcher that you plug in and it heats water in about 3 to 4 minutes, if you want hot water.
We have been in at least 4 homes, and this is how they do the dishes. They get a medium size plastic bowl and mix the dish soap with cold water and make a nice creamy suds. Then they take a sponge and in one sink (with no water in it, rub the dishes on all sides with suds in a sponge, and the silverware) then have the tap with cold water running and rinse them. George rinsed the dishes, etc. and I stacked them. They do not dry them with towels, but stack them so they drip dry and then in the morning put them away.
The kitchens are VERY VERY small, they are long with very little room, and are very compact. Our daughters and daughters-in-laws would "gasp" if they had to work in these kinds of kitchens. However, the richer people in the South do have BIG homes, and I am certain they have bigger kitchens (the mission presidents home is in the south and that kitchen is big, but I am talking about the normal everyday people, and even in the homes in nice condos, and probably most people here, have it even smaller that what I am describing (maybe just a sink and running water and a small counter and a few cupboards.
Our kitchen is similar, George and I can hardly pass each other and it has only 1 sink, but WE DO have a hot water heater, a large one like in the USA, therefore we do not have to heat our water. The utility bills are very high in Antofagasta, much higher than in the USA.
Story 4 - BUSY PAST WEEK "COMBIOS" Missionaries LEAVE and COME
(Combio it is a verb conjugation of Combiar - to change) We had long days Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then Thursday was New Years Eve. We had 20 missionaries go HOME, and 11missionaries ARRIVED. We served a dinner on Tuesday for the arriving missionaries and office staff, and then on Wed. the trainers for the new missionaries arrive and we have a dinner again. The trainers train for 12 weeks. It is an honor to be asked to be a trainer. But all of this involves DRIVING people around, to hotels for some of the 20 missionaries who cannot fit into the mission home as they have to then leave the following morning on a bus to the airport to FLY to Santiago where they are met with another bus to take them to the temple where they do one session before they then fly to their homes. George got to the office at 6:45 am on Tuesday and worked driving people around constantly (picking them up at bus stations, and what ever else - plus we did some shopping for the next days meal) and he didn't finish with driving around until 10:30 pm at night. I would say that is a long day for someone who will turn 76 in 31 days.
Story 5 - DYING MISSIONARIES and being BORN MISSIONARIES
George and I do not like the above terms. This is what the elders and sisters call themselves when they arrive and when they leave. We talked to Hunter and Spencer and they said they used the same terms in their mission. The church has 406 Missions. We feel when missionaries go over (85,000 out serving) it would be better to call them REBORN again when they go home over "Dying." If we are all to be missionaries the rest of our lives, "Dying" just does not give the right meaning. In the office the elders say so and so is dying (if) they are leaving. I guess George and I are seeing a new dictionary definition for "dying" ...one going home from a mission! One time an elder said to me, an elder was just assigned to where he was "born" and the people will be glad to see him. I thought, it was the place he was really born (as a baby), but not, so, it was where he served in his first sector after arriving.
Story 6 - WHAT TOOK PLACE AT THE BUS STATION at 10 PM
After a long day George returned to the office to take an elder to the bus station who was now being transferred to another place, one of the former APS. I cannot tell all of the events along with this, but when he went to pay for the parking ticket, two elders had just arrived on another bus, and needed to go to their apartment. It was late and George was tired, but he offered to drive to take them, was at least somewhere in the area kind of where we live. After dropping them off with their luggage, one of the latin elders knocked on the glass window of the van on the drivers side. George said he rolled down the window, and this elder in broken English said "Elder Talbot I love you." George said it was a tender moment for someone who had worked all day serving the elders and sister missionaries, the one "I love you" meant a lot to him. All I can say is he could have told the elders to call a taxi, but he went the extra mile, late at night, when he was very tired, and drove them home, before turning home.
Story 7- THE ELDER WHO HELPED LOAD the LUGGAGE
When we arrived at the office in June the elder who was over the finances, was particularly discouraged with the big responsibility he had and did not feel his efforts were appreciated. George and he bonded together and worked so well together. It was now time for this elder to return home. George said he had never had such a BIG bear hug, when they saw each other, as he had served in the field for the past 12 weeks. This elder told George that when he arrived it was the turning point in his mission. He simply could not thank him (George) enough for coming on this mission. Then he helped LOAD all of the luggage in the van while the other elders stood around and talked, which was a great help to George. A missionary can be MORE than just preaching the gospel, he can be offering to HELP when a task is obvious that has to be done, he can CLEAN up after himself, he can ask is there something ELSE I can do for you, he can give RESPECT to his elders, he can THANK those who help him, he can OPEN doors for others.... he can in truth, be much much MORE than whatever one thinks he will be or need to be when deciding to go on a mission. This missionary was ONE of these kinds of elders. Something to think about when our daughters and sons families are raising future "missionaries" elders or sisters.
Story 8 - THE RESULTS of the BIOPSY on GEORGE's HAND
We picked up the biopsy taken from the top of George's hand on Dec. 31st. It had a lot of words we did not understand, as it was written in Spanish, but the summary read to us by one of the office elders, said it was not malignant, or was not cancer of any kind. It said it was more of a "sun burn" on a place on the hand. It may have cost us money to see the doctor and to get the biopsy, but it was better to KNOW it is OK, over wondering and not finding out. We could not have had better care from Dr. Valencia when at his office (a dermatologist). We do have to go back and take the results. Here in Chile, we drove to take the biopsy to the medical clinic where they do it, and then we picked it up, and will take it (the results) to the doctor. This is not how they do it in the States. We will tell more when we return from the Dr. office, perhaps next week.
END of Jan 1, 2016 Family News and Stories. These stories are not a day by day account, but some of the grandchildren have said they enjoy the STORIES more than just long paragraphs of what we are doing. George keeps a day by day diary (in cursive) but it will need to be translated, as we understand that our grandchildren do not READ cursive any more. I write a weekly account on Sunday but not a daily entry. We will be having lunch at the mission home today and then have one of our investigators families (she just had a new baby) and they also have a 4 year old son who has autism) over for supper tonight at 7, along with 3 missionaries.
MUCH LOVE to you ALL and BLESSING for the New Year. We so enjoyed talking to all of our children's families on the phone over the past two days. We will be praying for Stephanie and Amy particularly who will be having their babies in January. We also pray for the success of Merrill's new business, and that Landon will find the job that he wants in this new year. We also pray for Dallin on his mission and for ALL of you individually and for all of the grandchildren. We have to do prayers in Spanish, then our longer English prayers to pray for all of you. A new year is always an "open slate" for all of us.
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