1-18-25 CHILE!!!!!

 Retired Life. Sunday.

Happy Sabbath Friends. Here, have a Jesus Picture!

Our day was busy:

- Hanna had a "before-church" women's activities meeting.

- Sacrament Meeting.

- Men's Meeting.

- Dinner at Larry's with a bunch of Hanna's siblings who are in town to celebrate. (Celebrate what? See below...)

- To the Assisted Living Center to provide the Sacrament to Hanna's Mom.

- And then a huge birthday party for Hanna's Mom. She turned 96 yesterday!!

In other exciting news, the missionaries in our Congregation showed me how to check and see if I have an official missionary E-mail account. And I DO!! Which means that we will apparently receive our mission call this Tuesday. (Crossing my fingers...)

The siblings were not happy with Mom's hair, so a quick hair trim was performed just before the celebration.

And my buddy/grandson August was there and we got some quality time together. Not sure who is more cute, him or me.......

Retirement is blissful. But, grandkids top it off big time!

Retired Life. Monday.

We spent the morning packing. This essentially is the first day of the trip. It will take us three days to get to Chile, not bad for old folks like us.

Hanna's brother, Keith, came over for a quick lunch and, as old people do, we spent most of the lunch discussing medical issues and medical insurance coverage.

After lunch, we loaded the critters in the truck and headed to Pullman. Annie the cat was clearly irritated. Frivvy was sad. He hates leaving home. But once we arrived to the Grandkids' house, he went hyper with excitement! And later the boys took him for a moon-lit walk in the park.

While in Pullman, we drove by the school and saw our grandson being the traffic guard. He was taking it very seriously.

On to Spokane, where we met Del. Annie will live with him and Ella for the trip.

We checked into our Airbnb by the airport (our flight leaves at 6am), had some BBQ, and now we're tired, which is part of retired, right?

Retired Life. Tuesday.

GUYS!!! WE GOT OUR MISSION CALL TODAY!!!! As expected, to the Washington, Spokane Mission. We start with "at-home" MTC training on April 21st. MLS aka (Proselyting or Teaching) Missionaries.

We got the notice while we were on final descent into the Minneapolis Airport. Picture us sitting close to each other, both peering at my phone, reading the call. So amazing! We have been working towards this mission for a long time. Fighting health issues. Getting retired. When we served before in California in 2018, we came home and quickly realized that the purpose of "preparing an accurate tax return while saving our client as much money as possible" just didn't compare to the purpose of "bringing people closer to Jesus Christ".

Some significant and exciting and inspired facts:

- It's very cool that we received the call while we are on our way to Chile to visit where I served as a young missionary many years ago.

- We received our call to serve for our first mission on my birthday which is also the anniversary of my son's death.

- We start this mission on my late son's birthday.

It's like God is trying to make those tough, full of grief dates more tolerable for me. I'm grateful.

Below are pictures of the Email notification, the on-line announcement, the call, the missionary portal, and what our exciting descent into Minneapolis (-1 degree Farenheight out there) looked like.

Back to usual stuff... the goal today was to make it to Orlando, which we did. Normal people would have then hopped another flight to Chile and arrived some time in the morning. We are too old for that sort of stuff and not normal by any sense of the imagination. We are spending the night here, resting, then flying out early in the morning (again...this morning's flight out of Spokane took off at 6am).

We forgot the playing cards so had to buy a new deck...with a Bigfoot theme. And we had a good dinner.

Going to try to sleep now. We gotta catch the shuttle to the airport at 4:30am sharp tomorrow.

Retired Life. Wednesday. I think. The day was so long that it seemed like two (or more) days.

Today's objective was to travel from Orlando, Florida to Santiago, Chile via Panama. Hotel to hotel was 14 hours, ten of which were in flight. But we made it.

Pictures:

- Checking in for our International flight around 5am.

- More of the same. If you can read tiny print, you can see our flight listed earliest on the board.

- Orlando Sunrise.

- Layover in Panama. Not much exciting happened there other than we logged an Adventure Geocache. It was hot and crowded. But, I was excited to see "Chile" on the gate sign.

- They (Copa Airlines) fed us frog chocolate, dark chocolate with cinnamon. Along with breakfast. And a hot lunch. And a sandwich later. (I should have took pictures for the foodies who follow this.

In Santiago, we got to go through immigration and then customs. The immigration guy was really concerned that we have places to stay lined up. Luckily, I had hard copies of each Airbnb, etc. in my backpack. He was impressed and happy and let us in. And then at customs, we were overly prepared to deal with Hanna's huge pile of cancer and other drugs she travels with. Drug list signed by the doctor. Translated into Spanish. Kept in original containers. etc. etc. etc. But once there, it was clear that they were more concerned about bringing in non-Chilean meat and fruits and vegetables. Hanna brought in some US jerky, so off to the inspection line we went. And there, they waved us on through without an inspection. We watched them inspect others and they asked about chocolate each and every time. Being funny? Some sort of weird code word to smuggle something in? I ain't touching that one... In fact, now I'm kinda frightened that I mentioned it here.

Our hotel is actually on the airport grounds, so we walked to it. Tomorrow, we have no schedule. That's the best part of retirement. No alarm blaring at 3:30am like it has the last two mornings. You realize that is 12:30am back home, right? Most of you were probably still up then...

Retired Life. Thursday.

First, an important NOTE: We did pick up Hanna's deadly cancer drugs at the hotel in Orlando! Kudos to Sheraton and FedEx for making that connection work!

Today, we drove to Constitucion, THE BEACH!!! Why is this important to me enough to return? I remember well traveling to this beach with ten or so missionaries on our Preparation Day. We mostly sat around and talked (no swimming allowed by missionaries) and threw around a football (American) a bit. But it was a reminder that hard play time is necessary to accompany hard work time. Plus, it's THE BEACH! One does not go to Chile and not visit a beach. This one is beautiful. I find it amazing that both of my missions (Chile Concepcion and California Santa Rosa) have long beach fronts in them.

What we did...

It was actually daylight when we woke up, which is a treat. And a huge Chilean flag was flying right outside our window! Getting our rental truck was an adventure. The shuttle forgot us or something so I had to call them (always interesting when there is a language barrier). We finally, after being delayed almost an hour, got the truck plus an apologetic 10% discount.

We then drove said truck about 4.5 hours to the beach. Coming out of Santiago, there were dozens of watermelon stands. Hanna said we had to stop and buy one just for the Chilean experience, so we did. They are still cheap. When I lived down here, my comp and I would buy one occasionally, cut it in half, and we'd each eat a half. Delicious and cheap enough that even a missionary can afford it.

Stopped at a rest stop (apparently it is bring your own TP here) and saw an EV charger. Took a picture for proof. We have yet to see any Teslas here though.

Once in Constitucion, downtown, we saw this young man juggling in the middle of the street during red lights, then collecting all sorts of cash from the entertained drivers. Hanna snapped a pic of him. Culture.

We had dinner at a beach-side cafe. (See the view). That's as good as it gets. (Hanna's drink is nonalcoholic by the way...) And the steaks were incredible!

After the dinner, we strolled on the beach. We stood in the exact place where I hung out with my good missionary buddies over 40 years ago. Those were great times.

The downtown and beachside part of the town looked fairly brand new, especially for a town that was founded in 1770. I'm guessing it is due to the 9.3 earthquake and subsequent 90-foot Tsunami that hit this place in 2010. Out and gone with the old and in with the new can be a great thing in many parts of our life. Lesson for today. (Note here that Hanna has dutifully studied and memorized the "what to do if an earthquake and/or tsunami hits" instructions. Have no fear or worries...)

Today's adventure: (There always is one when we travel.) We arrive at our VRBO and it is gated up and we had yet to receive entrance instructions. I called the owner and he hung up on me. Called again, verified that he was Claudio, the owner, and told him again we were there for the VRBO. He said we were mistaken and hung up again. A third call went to voice mail and text was not responded to. (Note that this has never happened to us with Airbnb...) So, we found a cool hotel down close to the beach and downtown. AC. Free buffet breakfast. And a hostess who is a sweet heart even though we can't really talk to each other. She was trying hard to recommend a place for dinner and we just couldn't get thru it. My spanish is poor. Her english was worse. So she called a friend that speaks excellent English and handed her phone to me. Way to solve a problem!! (We also got hold of VRBO and they quickly issued an apology and a refund. They couldn't get a response from the owner either...)

Living the life. Retirement is awesome. And I can't wait to be a missionary again. The relationships with other missionaries are powerful and eternal indeed.

Retired Life. Friday.

Today we drove via the backroads, through Cauquenes, to Concepcion. Why? Cauquenes is a cool little town nestled in the forested mountains that was near where I served. I went there a couple of times as a missionary. It was a struggling little branch then and not progressing much. Now it is two wards and two church buildings strong! Impressive place. And Concepcion is the headquarters of my mission. However, I only went there 4 times. When I arrived, when I went home, and twice for Annual Mission Conferences (presided by David B Haight and Vaughn J Featherstone). But, now there is a fairly new temple here! When I served the nearest temple was in Sao Paulo Brazil. It was very difficult for anyone in Chile to worship in the temple. Not so now and that is awesome!

We drove 4.5 hours today, saw lots of sites, saw lots of logging operations, farms, ranches, various vegetables and fruits being grown, and passed by many food stands and small villages. A very fun drive.

Our Airbnb in Concepcion came off without a hitch, no drama today. Interestingly enough, it is a "Container" or "Connex" converted into a home. I was skeptical, but it is actually very nice.

We dined at a nearby Mexican Restaurant for dinner.

There are a ton of pictures below. I'll but descriptions with each picture. Enjoy!

Our rental truck in the hotel parking lot in Constitucion. The hotel really was nice and we were glad to have a place to park. The truck is also nice, but not as nice as my truck at home...

The streets of Constitucion.

More streets of Constitucion.

We picked up some grub at a Supermercado. Found what we needed except for bacon and pickle relish. Not big sellers here of that stuff.

Supermercado.

What does that say?? And there was tons of security everywhere.

Driving the narrow streets of Constitucion.

LDS Chapel in Constitucion. The church had no presence here when I served. Times have changed...

There was an earthquake near us. Fortunately, it was not a 9.3 and there was no Tsunami. We were ready for one though...

Our Airbnb in relation to the temple. Just across the Biobio River. And we get to cross the Chacabuco Bridge to get there. That is really fun to say!

Hanna found a flower to where to dinner.

We traveled all the way to Chile to eat Mexican Food on a Mexico Flag...

LDS Church in Cauquenes.

I need to get this for my JEEP!

Constitucion Beach and rocks. Hanna was amazed.

View of Constitucion from above the town entrance.

The winding road to Concepcion.

Life this evening at our Container Airbnb. Reading and FBing on the back deck.

We miss our Frivvy Boy! But he looks pretty happy and taken care of.

Retired Life. Saturday. Concepcion. Quillon, Bulnes.

First up, we drove across the Chacabuco Bridge (so fun to say) and worshipped in the Concepcion temple. Hanna even successfully snapped a picture of the temple from the cool bridge showing the river and the temple in one shot. We took a ton of pictures of the temple, the most beautiful temple in the world. And only one of two that I know of that sits next to a river. (Idaho Falls is the other.)

At my old age, I get emotional easily and such was the case today as I sat in that glorious building. I felt a strong spirit of gratitude pour over me for the two years of sacrifice and hard service that I put in on the dusty, hot streets of Chile. And I expressed gratitude for having a new temple here that "my people" can now worship in. Great experience. This is what life is about. Doing good for others and expressing gratitude.

We ate our sack lunch in our truck there in the temple parking lot. We really didn't want to leave. So many feelings there.

But we finally did leave and drove to a small pond that has ten statues of Jesus walking on water on it. (See even more pictures.) The Chilean people are a seriously faithful, believing in God, doing their best civilization, regardless of religion. While at the pond, we found and logged a Geocache, our first ever in Chile!! Woo Hoo!!

Next we drove to Bulnes via Quillon. This is the path I rode a bus on all by myself on my first day in the mission field. We retraced that journey. In Quillon, we stopped and took a picture of the church building there. 44 years ago, when I was serving, the church had no presence in Quillon. My companion and I hoped to go there to teach folks because Bulnes was getting boring. We never were allowed to. But obviously missionaries went in later and had great success. There is a ward there now.

Bulnes was the first area I served in and I was there for 8 months. We arrived there late afternoon and checked into our Airbnb without drama. Except the host doesn't trust the app and sent me the entrance instructions via WhatsApp, which didn't translate them. There was a code to get the key. Tricks to getting in the main gate, getting in the parking gate, and then a 10-digit secret code to get in the apartment. It was kinda like the world's most difficult puzzle cache, only in a different language. We impressed ourselves by passing the test and getting in. We immediately cut the watermelon we bought in half and each ate a half. Or at least as much as we could. (Which isn't that much when compared to a 19-year-old missionary.) We noticed the Spanish to English Translation fail on the artwork in the apartment. (Old what?)

We then went out and spent the rest of the evening driving all over Bulnes. I think we did go down every street. Which brought back memories because I knocked every single door in this town at least twice in my time here. We were driving around looking at where the building we used for a church used to be, where folks I taught lived, and where I lived. They were having a rodeo or something and we saw some cool Vacqueros on horseback. Amazingly, both houses I lived in here are still in tact. (Yes, we took pictures.) You'll also see a strange picture of the Bulnes Water Towers. When I lived here, there was only one, the one in the middle. And I climbed that thing! Yes! And took pictures from the top. Long story, but we were teaching the town guy who ran the water system and he invited us to climb it. It was so much fun, that I set a goal to climb a water tower in each town I lived in. (Goal was never met...)

Finally, we found a Chilean Cafe that made up a good dinner for us. Mine is (I'll translate to English for you) Poor Beef Steak Dinner, which included flat iron steak, a couple eggs, dumped on top of some papas fritas. (Oop, spanish there....you can figure it out though). They were really good about helping Hanna with her allergy issues and brought her grilled chicken with a vegetable salad.

Great day. I'll talk more about Bulnes tomorrow. We'll be here until Monday.