Enjoy the Journey: It's Raining, It's Pouring (And Other Stuff)

I feel that bloggers should always have something profound and eloquent to say. I don’t, sorry.

I have wanted to be back in Chile ever since I left in 2010. The time is flying by, but I feel fortunate that I am able to enjoy every moment. I wish you could experience every sight, sound, smell, taste, and feeling. Above all, I wish you could laugh and visit with all the outstanding people who have become my good friends. Let me know if you want to make the trip down, and I will be more than happy to make accommodations. I might also be open to the idea of paying part of your ticket, depending on who you are.

Monday was a national holiday so we didn’t have to work! I had an awesome lunch with the Diane family and then went up to their cabin in a rural area called Olmué. (You should be able to see what I’m talking about in the video below. Also, you can see the video better if you click on the youtube button. The video also shows some shots when I dropped off Elder Daine at the airport with his familia.) That night we did our own little FHE with just the three of us before I switch houses back to the Guajardo family.

This past week I have spent a lot of time putting together a lot of my resources along with collecting other materials in order to put together a presentation for my bosses. We are working with a new client, which is a Catholic University and organization called Duoc. My experience should (hopefully) come in handy in putting together a strategy to offer to their management as a consulting project we are working on. I am excited to contribute, but the language continues to be a frustrating barrier in business language. At least I should be able to come home and shoot more the breeze with latinos at home. The video below shows some travel to Santiago and also a brief shot of a convention seminar we helped put together for el Banco Ripley.

I didn’t get out too much this weekend because of all the rain that hit the area, but I did get to go to an awesome ward activity that the sister missionaries put together. They turned off all the lights in the church, added all sorts of obstacles, blindfolded us, and then gave us an iron rod (a long garden hose) to follow to the chapel where they had covered everything in white and had a little tree with lights. The fruit given to us was an American marshmallow! It was a blast and also turned out to mark everyone in the ward in some way. Small wards are the best.

It was a lot harder than I thought it would be

Some of the other highlights of the week were getting cozy on the Guajardo’s master bed to watch Rudy together, eating lunch with South West (Elder West) in Santiago with Ramón and Helgi (my “bosses”), winging a musical number the day of for a baptism on Saturday, visiting a convert in a small farming area known as Lliu Lliu (“jiew jiew”), eating lunch with Ramón’s family today, and then going to the Campos’ house in Quilpué for hermana Campos’ birthday.

This is a Mormon dog named Bermutus. He followed my companion and me every day in the mission while I was here in Limache, and he still follows the missionaries. I laughed so hard when I walked through the lobby today at church and saw him sitting inside! He has followed me a few times when out and about. He does a good job at being who he is.

Igualitos

Birthday party for hermana Campos. We all sang a different song for her.

Last Sunday I dropped in on an old investigator I taught here in Limache. His name is Alejandro and he treats me like his grandson. I think he goes overboard a bit, but I’ll let you be the judge. As I mentioned before about the “besito,” I haven’t specifically mentioned that it doesn’t typically happen between men unless it is a very close family relationship. Well when I said goodbye to Alejandro, he kissed me one the check, twice on the neck, and then once on each hand. I’ll leave it at that without further comment.