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.