Feliz Navidad en Chile

It has been a wonderful sunny green Christmas weekend, beginning with an all-day trip by bus to Isla Negra to visit the wild beautiful coast south of Santiago and the last major home (the others in Santiago and Valparaiso) of Nobel Prize winner poet Pablo Neruda, bought in 1938, renovated and added onto until 1965. He is buried on the cliff overlooking the Pacific with his third wife Matilde, whom he married in 1966. It is filled with his collections of bottles, ship mastheads, shells, and much more. He was a great host, very social, and also a political figure in Chile, until he died of cancer in 1973. In his poems he especially expresses his love of the sea and all nature and our human emotions.

Fish symbols everywhere and delicious fish for lunch overlooking the sea

Christmas Day spent with the young missionaries

We spent Christmas eve with senior missionaries and Christmas day together with the young mission training center missionary elders and sister, most of whom are spending their first Christmas away from their homes in Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, the USA. President and Sister Brady (or el Viejito pascuale or Santa Claus) gave all the young missionaries Chile caps and chocolate bars. They looked forward to calling home today. We enjoyed a morning devotional in the chapel and an evening broadcast from Provo Mission Training Center to all the MTC's in the world. Elder Neil and Sister Kathy Andersen spoke and shared their family's Christmas with us. He reminded them to trust, to take a leap of faith, that their missions might be difficult but most fulfilling as they testify that Christ lives, that He is our Savior and Redeemer. He quoted some advice: "You can count the seeds in an apple, but you can't count the apples in a seed." I am grateful to be here, too, about His business, though in the temple.

Senior Sisters Schultz, Atkins, Umber, Edwards helping with pancake breakfast

Part of the nativity in front of Santiago church office building by the temple. Everything is conveniently located here in this beautiful part of Santiago, a city of 3.7 million (?)

Elder Almeida in his new cap. He played the piano for the devotional, which we all enjoyed.

Wonderful Latin American sisters will stay three weeks in training before going out to serve for 18 months throughout Chile. Most are 19 or 20. Elders are 18+ years.