Dear
Folks;
Just
a quick note to let you know we made it here to a little town called Illapel in
Chile, after about a 34 hour journey that left Carolyn as sick as she’s ever
been with that cough (she had at the reunion) and a migraine and seasickness (a
very winding mountain road). After our first week she was no better so we
went down to the corner drugstore and bought some arithromyacin that the mission
nurse recommended. It looks like it is pretty easy to buy stuff like that
without a prescription. She is feeling much much better today, 3 days
into her antibiotic.
Our
assignment is to work with and strengthen the leaders and members of the
Illapel District. There are 4 branches in this district, Illapel,
Salamanca, Los Vilos and Canela… 1226 total members, of which only 157 attend
sacrament meeting, or 13%. Carolyn is serving as the YW President in the
District and I am a counselor to the District President, who reports to our
Mission President.
It is
a little different here. We’re in a small ranch house outside town with a
tin roof and about 20 chickens, ducks, geese and dogs roaming around inside the
fence around our house. Our dog (actually, she is the “house’s” dog, is
named Diana, a german shepherd who is very friendly and does a great job
keeping us safe by barking all night. In the morning, it is not the roosters
that wake us up. The roosters are kind of lame, but the geese make a
terrible racket when they get up in the morning.
We
attended a Zone Meeting yesterday. An all-day training and motivation
event conducted by the Zone Leaders (Elder Nunez from Paraguay and Elder Reyes
from El Salvador) via my laptop and an overhead projector. It had
probably a hundred slides and a dozen motivational church videos and was
interspersed with role play excercises. I know they put some time into
preparing it, but I think all the Zone Leaders had the same
agenda/presentation, and because of the quality of it, I’m also wondering if it
wasn’t prepared on a larger scale than just our mission. I’ve been pretty
impressed how the church is using data and technology and modern efficiency
improving techniques to standardize and make more effective the work of the
missionaries.
We
have 18 missionaries (12 Elders, 6 Sisters) in our Zone not counting us,
split between the 4 branches. 12 of the 18 are NOT from the U.S.. From what
we’ve seen so far, that ratio is probably good throughout the mission.
Most missionaries in our mission are native Spanish speakers, and they are in
every respect as good as any other missionary you’ve ever seen. They have all
been trained in various CCM’s (The Spanish translation equivalent of an MTC)
scattered around Central and South America.
We
have a Toyota Corolla to use… one of only 5 assigned to couple missionaries in
all of Chile, so we feel lucky. We have already put it to good use in
assignments to 3 of the 4 cities in our District. The chapels are
big and beautiful and well equipped, and pretty much cold and very empty.
No heat, so everyone wears coats. The biggest three branches only have
40-50 attending. Our mission president, President Kahnlein and his
counselor Pres. Vergara, whom we will be working with, are salt of the earth
kind of people who you love immediately and who would do anything
for you. So we have some good support.
Well,
I’m at my self imposed 1 page limit. So much to tell. All is well
here. We hope all is well with you back home. We’ll be praying for all of
you.
Love Dale and Carolyn
