What Rules???

     We are Area missionaries. There are temple missionaries, regular missionaries, and Area missionaries. We dont have a mission president. We serve under the Area authority. Elder Corbridge was president when we came. We have a new president now, but have never met him. Since we have been here, we have only spoken to one of the Area presidency twice: once as introductory, and the second because my recommend had expired. We dont know anything about any rules. Once in a while, after we have made a decision and advised the Area secretary of it, we are told that he would pass the word. We dont know the Area goals. We dont know anything but what our local leader (the office manager) tells us. He is usually gone because he has a heavy calling of establishing EFY for all of the Area. We dont see or talk to him much.

     The temple missionaries have March off because the temple will be closed for cleaning. They always plan a trip to see some of Chile besides Santiago. We were invited to go with them. Jay made all the arrangements, we paid for airfare, hotel accommodations, and sight-seeing tours. We are going to Punta Arenas on the southern tip of Chile. We will be going out on the Straits of Magellan, viewing icebergs and penguins, etc. We advised the  secretary as we were told to do.

     The following Sunday, Elder Zaballos of the Area Presidency (headquarters in Buenos Aires) sought Jay out at church. Apparently we were supposed to get permission BEFORE we made any plans. That wasnt what we were told when we went to Mendoza, Argentina for three days with the same missionaries. He said to go ahead with our plans, but be sure to attend the meeting on February 19th for all the Area missionaries, where the rules will be.......announced?

     I am soooo excited to be going. It will be cold. It never warms up much. I am making mittens for Jay and me. When we went to Norway in July '11, the night never did get very dark. We were so far north that the sun didnt go down much. There were about three hours of "night".  Now we will be going so far south that the nights wont get very dark.  It is hard to imagine that in a year and a half we will have travelled nearly Pole to Pole!

     This may be our last trip while in Chile. I hope not.  We would love to go north to the Atacama Desert part of the country. We hear it is the driest desert in the world. It is also where most of the copper mines are.

Lost / Found

     Wednesday afternoon we left the office and crossed the street to wait for our bus. While standing and talking, we were approached by a middle-aged gentleman in a business suit. He had a little, dark blue booklet in his hand.  He held it out to me and said something and pointed to the sidewalk about 10 feet behind him. I took the little booklet and discovered that it was a passport. The man explained that he had found it on the sidewalk "over there".  It was a Chilean passport and appeared to be brand new. The duplicate ID photo was tucked in the back along with the receipt.  There was no telephone number, but it said he lives in San Felipe. San Felipe is a small community near Vina del Mar, about 90 miles from Santiago. I started feeling his anxiety as he realized that he didnt have his passport. I imagined him searching his pockets, his briefcase, any bags he was carrying, then searching again, frantically. I felt his anxiety. Our bus arrived and we got on, trying to decide what to do with this document. We decided to find a carabinero. A carabinero is the State Police equivalent. They are the ones who really and truly enforce the law. They are the only ones to carry weapons. As we got off the bus, we located a couple of them across the street. The attendant at the bus stop hollered to them and they came over. I told them what happened, handed them the passport, smiled and said Gracias. Hopefully it didnt just go in a lost and found drawer somewhere in the depths of  carabinero world, but that they located the owner and made arrangements for its return. We will never know.