(See blog for13 photos and here are the Stories 241 to 251)
This has been another busy week. We so enjoyed hearing from Julie who was staying in our home while attending Education week in Provo with her daughter Heidi, and appreciated their watering some of our trees, etc and sending us some photos. We were also glad they could attend the wedding reception for Gary Wulfenstein's daughter, and also stayed one evening at Amy's new home in Highland. We also got to talk to Merrill, David and Amy, had a phone message from Bryan who we need to call back. We have been much "busier" now particularly, at the times we would generally talk to our children and are rarely home at those times.
We DO appreciate coming home and FINDING and READING emails about what you are doing, and ENJOYED the photos posted from the "Time Share at East Canyon." (http://www.kohlerkin.blogspot.com) We also loved the emails from "Laura and Merrill" about their families,and the ones from missionaries Dallin and Hannah. We enjoyed learning that Natalie Talbot had been awarded "Student of the Year" for her class at school. We are so proud of all of the grandchildren and WISH them well now the new school year is starting. SO here is our WEEK's stories and see the BLOG for the photos. We so appreciate Amy and Mackenzie for doing this for us.
STORY 241 - CHILE HAS THE FALL TIME CHANGE TOO - UNEXPECTEDLY
First we went to our (Barrio) and found we were an hour late! Then we left and went to the Las Rocas Ward in northern Antofagasta because we were wanted to attend church with Carime who is was going for the first time. We were late for that meeting too due to the time change. People told us the President of Chile had arbitrarily changes the time forward an hour some years but not other years. Since we do not have a TV or news paper or that no one told us, we did not know about this. After church we met Graciano and Camilla (same couple from the Origenes Barrio)who are moving to the United States since this was the ward the wife's parents lived it. It was good to see them, so took a photo of them with Karime.
We attended the Cerro Moreno Ward with Karime on the right. We met Graciano (left) with his wife Camilla(second from right) and their two children. The young lady next to Graciano is a member of the Cerro Moreno ward and is preparing to go on a mission.
STORY 242 -
We took a picture of the Bishop of the Las Rocas ward with Carime and Gabriela. Gabriela has helped us with Spanish and is a member of the Las Rocas Ward. This is the Bishop (Ebispo) of the Las Rocas Ward that had earlier given Carime a blessing the other evening when we met with her because she expressed some concern about not being ready to be baptized. He was a very nice Chilean Bishop (Ebispo) and gave her a lovely blessing.
Photo 2 Bishop and Carime
Karime with the Bishop of the Las Rocas ward. Gabriela has helped us with our Spanish and is in the Las Rocas Ward. The Bishop gave Karime a blessing.
STORY 243 - ALFRED HITCHCOCK ENDING to a LONG TEACHING SESSION
This is a photo of Pedro Zambrano, who we invited to our home for lunch. He stayed for three hours. Margaret helped him sign up for family history. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and let him watch a video on the Restoration. He seemed very interested in all of it and we thought we had someone who would take all of the lessons. After all of that when we asked him if he wanted to learn more about he church, he said "no." When we asked him if he would like to take a copy of the Book of Mormon and read it, he said "no." We were both shocked that he would listen to everything intently for three hours and was in no hurry to leave, but then say no to learning more and reading the Book of Mormon.
Photo 3 Pedro holding up a Book of Mormon
Pedro Zambrano. We met him at the mall and invited him for lunch. He stayed for 3 hours, read in the Book of Mormon, watched the restoration video and we taught him about the church and answered his questions. We asked him if he wanted to learn more about the church and he said "no." We asked him if he would like to have a copy of the Book of Mormon and he said "no." He acted very interested during all of the time with him, but then received a no. Strange!
STORY 244 - A CHILEAN CATHOLIC HOLIDAY (Monday Aug.
Margaret and have not gone to a restaurant in Chile very often. We have usually had people to our home eating. Marta and Rodolfo invited us to go with them to the restaurant near the fish market for a fish meal. (We each paid for our own meal.) Marta recommended and ordered the crab cake, so I ordered that. Rodolfo order the Octopus, which is good, but the though of eating those makes it not too enjoyable. Margaret asked if there was something like "fish" so they ordered here the Swordfish. I took a picture of our meals. Unfortunately I did not get a photo of Margaret's plate before she shared it. It fish portion was very very big and she gave me half. It was very delicious. After coming out of the restaurant I couldn't resist taking a photo of the"THREE DOGS" sleeping just outside. Look up swordfish on the internet. It is a very very large fish - huge!
Photo 4 At the fish resturant - plate of food."Swordfish"We went to lunch with Marta and Rodolfo. This was my food - Crab cake.
When we came out of of the restaurant I couldn't resist taking this foto of the Antofagasta dogs. They are laying around everywhere.
STORY 245 SOCIABANK LADY and her DAUGHTER SAME AGE as MAC
KENZIE
This coming weekend the mission is holding their first OPENHOUSES meaning they have sent each mission large pull up signs for different displays that go in several rooms and wards members and missionaries talk while investigators come to learn about the church. We spent two days going around to our investigators telling them about this and inviting them. Going to the Sociabank was one of our stops. Claudia had her daughter with her this day. This daughter, we did not know she had. Katalina will be 14 on November 27. Claudia had this baby 14 years ago by one man, then they parted ways, and now she is now living with another man and had another daughter nearly age 4. In neither case were these marriages. Even so, she is a lovely person and George has had hopes she would finally take the lessons, but our time here is running out. She said that she and the daughter would come on this coming Sunday. We also hope our granddaughter Mackenzie would be an email pal with the 14 year old, "Katalina."
ScotiaBank employees, except Katalina the daughter of Claudia on the right, in case you couldn't tell. Claudia is a lovely person we are trying to get interested in the church.
STORY 246 BIRD CAGE STORY On Friday night George went down the 20 floors to wait for the missionaries and the investigator family to come to dinner at our place. To his "SURPRISE" when he got to the lobby area he found MARTA there setting up a "BIG" bird cage that she had just purchased for the "cockatiel" bird that the people who work at the front desk had purchased. Marta saw the bird a week ago and felt sorry for it because it was in such a SMALL cage. She told us it is against the LAW to have a "bird" in Brazil, in a cage in a home area. She felt very sorry for this bird. Then to our surprise she actually went and purchased at least a "$75 dollar" new "very large" cage and brought it to give to the office clerks at our apartment building, so this BIRD would have LARGER accommodations. George took a photo of the new cage. We have never heard of such a "story" and you probably have not either. Therefore he invited (Marta and her son) to come UP to our apartment to have dinner with us and the others.
Photo 8 The new bird cage
STORY 247 A DINNER for NINE and the OLD MAID IS A HIT CARD GAME We had invited our contact Carime and her parents and sister (Marilyn) for dinner, plus the two sister missionaries. These were the people George went down to the first floor to wait for when he met Martha setting up the cage for the bird. Therefore we had 9 for the dinner: (2 girl missionaries) (3 from the family - mom and 2 daughters) (2 Marta and Guga) and (2 us). I had prepared tacos and they were good but the HIT of the meal was the celery soup I had just made. The celery in Chile is HUGE with tons of green leaves sticking out of the package. I CUT them up, and they fill a big pot, add chopped onion, garlic, a chopped potato and then cook. Then add a package of "chicken soup mix" and "asparagus soup mix", some whole wheat for thickening and then BLEND in a blender. For some reason the women all LOVED this soup! We sent some home for the husband who did not come.
Left to right. Karime, Guga, Marta, Hermana Randall, Hermana Guzman, Mother of Karime and Merilyn, sister of Karime. Karime is to be baptized on August 27th. We invited the missionaries over for dinner along with Karime's parents. The father was not able to come. Marta and Guga showed up unexpectedly. They had dinner, played games and had a spiritual message.
STORY 248 THE GAME of OLD MAID We had told the two sister missionaries this was a "get acquainted night" as it was a FIRST time for the mother and other sister to be with us. After the meal of "tacos - salad - soup" they literally had so much FUN playing (1) Old Maid - pick up to see if you can find a match, and then the (2) the real Old Maid game. The Chilean women cheered!!! every time anyone got a match! It was SO funny. Our daughter Julie had purchased the card game for us at Target in the states and mailed it to us. These women here have LOVED "Old Maid". After the game the missionaries played the "New 3 minute clip made by the church on the Savior" and the women enjoyed that too. Marta even pulled it up on her phone.
However, back to the Old Maid card game. We both literally just chuckle inside as Who would have thought Old Maid would be such a hit. But to our knowledge Chilean's do not have card games in the stores, and they do NOT play games at tables (remember they do play video and phone games), and they have LOVED this American game. The one missionary young girl (from Equador) who is an only child, does not know who her father was, and her mother died before she came on her mission was so thrilled with it, that we will probably give it to her when we leave.
Playing Old Maid. Marta and Guga on the left and Hermana Randall trying to disguise her cards.
STORY 249 MALL LOOKING for INVESTIGATORS - STORE WINDOW CLOTHING
We go to the "Mal" to find investigators every week and generally sit at a food court table and look for people we can talk to. George met young man from Sweden this past week (speaks English) and we had a good conversation and invited he and a Chilean girl to dinner to discuss the church. Then while walking out, mom could not resist having me take a photo of two of the mal store display windows with (clothing for "little boys" and "little girls"). She thinks that Chilean little clothes are SO adorable. It is a wonder people can afford hem as they are very "pricy". But the windows with the baby dolls dressed in clothing made us think of our two "new grand baby boys" that we are anxious to see in December when we arrive home.
Margaret wanted me to take a foto of the store window advertising young girl clothes.
STORY 250 LOTS of DRUMS and MUSIC DOWN BELOW our 20th FLOOR. (Sat. Aug. 20, 2016) Never a dull moment in Chile. Here in Antofagasta. One day you can be out on the main Costanera high way and half of the road will be closed for runners or bikers. Then on another day the road will be closed for a DRILL for emergencies. Then today we heard all of this music and below was the "Army men, Navy men, and Other men playing instruments, and marching. We live only 1 block from the Municipal Building for Antofagasta, and big events take place in FRONT of that building. We did not know what the occasion was but the road was closed again. Poor "Liders" the grocery store as NO one could drive into the parking lot, so no "customers" on a Saturday morning is a big "Loss" to this retail store. This event took place from 9 am to 12 noon and ended at 12:30. Road was closed for 3 1/2 hours, with cars being (routed) to a detour route.
When we got up this morning there was a parade going on below us on the Costanera. They close the road. The military is up on the left and students are preparing to march below.
STORY 251 AN EARLIER "MALL FOOD COURT" CONTACT "BARBIE" BARBARA
This girl actually "met" us. She heard us talking to another young man at the food court in English a week ago and came over since we were "American Gringos" and she also spoke English and she wanted to meet us too. We scheduled this lunch with her and this was the day she came and she was an utter delight. The day we found her at the mal we had prayed before we left the apartment that we would be sent anyone who was ready to hear the message. She had to be sent to us!
Today (Sat. Aug 20) At lunch she told us she is the only child of her parents, age 22 or above, attends the University here, and told us that her mother's cousin's daughter is paying for her education costs. She told us what a great blessing this was for her. She told us her parents said she could come and listen to us too. Then she ALSO listened very attentatively (as she speaks fluent English) to everything we had to tell her about the church (our 1st session) and left with a Book of Mormon in English and one in Spanish and a commitment to READ 1st and 2nd Nephi books, and to return back to see us in less than two weeks. We were so pleased with her at the lunch we shared together, and she also helped us with some Spanish word pronunciations. A very lovely young lady. She had to have been sent to us as we did not find her, she FOUND us.
Photo 14 Barbara who came to have lunch with us. Lots of dark hair. Red top.
ENDING THOUGHTS
We feel our mission closing in on us. But it truly has been a wonderful experience to share this period of our lives together in this way. Now that we are basically doing missionary work FULL time it is really different. It seems we feel the "still small voice" more and often wonder why we do things the way we do them. George is still wondering why I asked him to go down stairs and meet out dinner guests, and that is when he ran onto Marta setting up the bird cage. If he had not have gone down stairs at that exact moment he would not have seen her doing this. We just are so amazed at things like this that happen. We just hope we can FIND and WORK with as many people as we can in the next 85 days. It all will be over so very soon.
We do go to the office every Tuesday to help on the baptism records, and obviously will HELP on the "food and feeding missionaries days." However, we DO see a big difference when we return to the office, since we are not at the office as much. These things are more in the "taking care of things" and "putting things away," the elders went for supplies, and sacks were sitting in piles on the floor, the kitchen clean up not getting done, floors needing to be cleaned, etc. (white tile gets blackened fast) etc." These are the kind of things a "mom and dad" would do for their children in a home. We always remind ourselves "these are just 18 and 19 year olds!" They are fine fine young men serving missions, but they are still very young, when it comes to attending to details such as the ones we always took care of when we were in the office full time. We never say anything, but just GO to work when we arrive.
We try daily to read one of the the "past" Conference talks and have so enjoyed hearing them again. When READING them you actually get more out of the talk than when you HEARD it for the first time. We hope you all find snatches of free "moments" which we are sure are HARD to find, when you can read some of the talks from the past APRIL conference. As we read them we FEEL the inspiration coming from these inspired men for OUR day. We hope we will be able to improve in the many areas they mention. We are looking forward to the coming up October General Conference broadcast.
Thanks for being such wonderful children, and appreciation to your spouses, and for the fine children you are raising. We simply are so very grateful. These 34 grandchildren have a whole LIFE ahead of them. We each have a "foot so to speak" in the grave. We are not young being ages 76 and 74. We hope these children will continue to LISTEN to your teachings, and PRESS forward daily KEEPING the commandments, and reading in their own scriptures before they go to bed daily, on their own, above and beyond what you do with your Family Scripture reading.
Love to You all Mom and Dad (August 20, 2016) Only 90 days left on our mission!
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