It has been an interesting week for us. We went to work at the cemetery last Monday, and couldn’t get the computer to work. It had been working fine Friday when we left. I fiddled with it for the better part of two or three hours as we have had this problem in the past. The difference, I guess, is that I’ve been able to get it running in the past, but Monday we had no such luck. So I called our Santiago people and talked to Misael. He had me try a few things such as bypassing the UPS (battery backup) with new power cords. That didn’t work either, so I called him back and he said he’d be over to pick up the computer and take it into a technician. In the meantime, we straightened out a lot of the power cords from the lights, camera and computer. At least they don’t look like a spaghetti mix any more. Monday after we walked home, I sent an email to our supervisor in Brazil and he called and said we should probably go to Valparaiso and see if we could help out with the work they are doing there. So Wednesday morning we took the Micro to Valparaiso and without too much trouble, we were able to find the cemetery and see what we could do to help out. Unfortunately for us, Misael was imaging 5 X 7 cards and so there wasn’t much we could do to help him out except to keep out of his way. He is paid per “click” and so for him, time away from imaging is, money out of his pocket. He gave us some good pointers and after a couple of hours we bid him farewell and headed back to Viña. We took the Micro to Jumbo, a supermarket about 2 miles from our apartment. Did some shopping and then walked home.
We have finally gotten some feedback from Salt Lake. Our first week (1 book) passed. From there it got a little ugly. We’ll just leave it at – we have a little work to do with the rest of the books. However, the bright point, towards the end we did have more passes than failures and so that was good. We got word that the computer was supposed to be ready “perhaps” by Friday. This did not happen. And so 1) we can’t do any of the rework without the computer and 2) we have to wait for the Hard Drives to come back to us from Salt Lake. So life in the city is pretty slow right now.
Wednesday, we took some time to go to the church and watch the new missionaries receive their first assignments and some of the older ones getting their assignments as trainers, zone or district leaders, and new working assignments. It was pretty interesting. President Kähnlein invited us up to explain what we are doing in the mission and to bear our testimonies. It was interesting to address these young people and you could just feel their enthusiasm and spirit. It was an interesting and a fun experience. It was nice to meet a lot of the missionaries, some who had been there for a while and others a couple of days. I told Colleen that we aren’t the “new” missionaries in the mission any more. Another milestone completed.
Thursday, we decided to take a walk and ended up on the coast up towards the north where the Navy academy is located. In all it was about a 5 ½ mile round trip. It was fun and the weather was a little overcast, but not too warm. It was a welcome relief from sitting around the apartment studying. I sent Irineu an email saying that perhaps we’d get the computer back on Friday, but as I said, that didn’t happen. The next day, we studied and were supposed to get some bread from a young women’s fund raising activity. We got there at the appointed hour, 7PM, but they didn’t show until about 8PM. We went to a Family Home Evening appointment with a couple of the Elders. For my friends who don’t know, the young elders can’t go to a home where there is only going to be women, or young girls. So they needed someone to accompany them and we volunteered. We got there and it was a member of the ward, her husband was working, her three daughters, age 23, 15, 9, the older daughter’s boyfriend, and the middle age girl’s two friends. After a little spiritual thought and lesson, the mother brought out the pizza and refreshments. After the food, we played a little game of Jr. Trivial Pursuit – in Spanish of course. It was fun, I forgot, the youngest girl had her friend over also, watching the young girls play and all were having a fun time. We had fun and enjoyed the evening with them. We did find out one thing, when you are walking at night, it adds a whole new dimension to things. We managed to find our way home!
Saturday we went to Jumbo (the supermarket) and got some food and then went to pay for it and I had left my wallet at home. Fortunately I had some pesos with me, unfortunately, I was 15,000 short. So we had to say, no to this and yes to that until the food we bought equaled the pesos I had with me. I don’t think they were too happy with the “gringo”. Oh well, I’ll just stay out of their store for a week and not go back to that cashier for at least a month. Fortunately I had enough coins to ride the Micro back to the proximity of the apartment. Unfortunately, it depleted my pesos for taking the Micro. After putting the food away, we headed out to find a place to get more pesos. That was good except that it came in the form of 20,000 and 10,000 notes. So then we had to go to Lider and buy a couple of candy bars so we would have change to ride the micro. After that task, we caught a bus to go to Con Con, north of Viña. But not being really familiar with where the towns are in relation to each other, we got off way too early to be in Con Con because the bus was headed away from the beach. We ended up in Riñaca which is between Viña and Con Con. So we strolled along the beach and saw all of the apartments facing the beach and the surf was up so the waves, although not gigantic, were crashing on the beach. We decided to splurge at a McDonalds and then headed back to Viña on the Micro. About 20 minutes after getting home, we got a call from some friends in the Ward inviting us over to Dinner. So we went over to the Daniels had dinner, then took a stroll with them to watch the sun set and to get an ice cream treat. After a wonderful evening, they brought us home and we hit the hay.
I might add, before I close, that since we have been here we have been privileged to attend the baptism of four people and tomorrow a family will be
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