A Little of this and that from a nice Fall week in Santiago

The view from the fourth floor (where missionary couples live and where we do laundry) looking at the church office building and the Cordillera (lower Andes).

We rode the new gondola up Cerro ("hill") San Cristobal along with 100's of others, last Monday, May 21,  holiday celebrating naval Battle of Iquique, leading to Chile's eventual success in the War of the Pacific. It was a little clearer than usual and if you look closely you can see the higher snow-covered mountains where there are ski resorts.

 At the top is the 14 meter high statue of the Virgen de la Imaculada Concepcion with chapel and church and various other shrines and religious objects, whose message is peace.




Below is the view looking the opposite direction (northwest). Santiago is a huge city.
Cable car runs on the east side of the mountain in the center of the city and the large Parque Metropolitano covering 3 square miles, built between 1903-27 and reforested with native plants; it includes a zoo, swimming pool, etc. Many bike or walk up, as we did last time.

Centro Costanero (tallest building of Latin America) is within walking distance of us. Below is one of the many campuses of State University of Chile, near us. (close as it is aholiday, but usually filled with students.

Santa Rita, one of large churches in Santiago center, where there are always worshipers. 

   

Colorful old buildings, and colorfully painted pedestrian streets, were created in 1977 when 12 blocks were closed to motorized vehicles.

 I was attracted by the beautiful French neo-classical architecture of the (exclusively men's club until 2006, when women were allowed to join) Club de la Union, finished in 1925. I walked in and started to take photos, which I was politely told were not allowed. A Chopin concert had just ended and I was definitely under-dressed! It has private art galleries, dining rooms, and the longest carved oak bar in the country!

       The University Library downtown

Most everyone has a cell phone.
Most ride the bus or metro. Kids come home around 1:30 for lunch and all seem to wear uniforms. I miss teaching, but will soon. I appreciate extra time here to read and study in my small cozy apartment, with fewer distractions than at home.

Wonderful President Marty and Sister Lydia Morgan  from San Diego (with their two daughters, older one in photo

below) have been serving for 3 years as Santiago East mission president and wife. They have accepted a call to serve immediately upon their finishing here July 1, 2018, as director of CES (church institute for college age+ and seminary for high school age students) in Salt Lake City. His message at our recent stake conference was to go where we can feel the spirit of God, even when we are not feeling it.

                                                   

These persimmons (mancaqui, which means "fruit of the gods" in latin) remind me of my tree at home, which is laden with fruit in late October to Thanksgiving. Friends and neighbors fight over this healthy fruit! It is hard for my brain to realize that the end of May, by the reverse of seasons here, would be Thanksgiving. It feels like California Thanksgiving weather now with leaves covering the ground sticking to everyone's                                        feet, pomegranites, etc.

Scott and Nina Isaacson, Sister Umber and I were delighted to be invited today to the lovely home of the Jimenez-Reid family to learn to make delicious, popular Chilean sopadillas.

Hermano Jimenez made the dough by mixing cooked orange squash, a little yeast and flour to form a soft but firm dough, shaped into balls and flattened in a tortilla maker. Some make a regular flour/ bread dough. Their cute daughter Carolina (who will leave soon to work in Vancouver) speaks English as she spent six months in Bountiful, Utah, where she learned to roast pumpkin seeds. She'll cook the squash seeds the same way!

The dough is fried in oil until crisp. And then her dad plopped them in a delicious syrup he made with water, cinnamon, chanchaca (a hard brick of molasses- tasting brown sugar, which is like the Ecuadorian panela I've been looking for) for a few minutes before serving. We enjoyed them with herbal tea or hot chocolate. Yerba mate (a nationally consumed hot beverage made from leaves and stems of a powerful rain forest tree of Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina) was originally, and maybe still is, sipped through these spoon/straws to strain out the leaves.

                                           
                           What a delicious snack and fun afternoon! Being invited to a home is one of the best things in missionary life!
There are things I miss from home, like driving (this car parked outside my window, reminds me of my first car, a 1960 vw bug, and a later version that most of my kids drove), but public transportation is great and cheap enough.

My life for 18 months is filled with wonderful and energizing experiences, and hopefully what I am learning will make me a better person, more aware of how blessed my life has been.

Family, friends, health, education, travel, good medical care, freedom to worship, express my opinions, vote, drink clean water eat an amazing variety of delicious and nutritious food, electricity, appliances, heating, air-conditioning, all the technology available to communicate, research, learn, and so much more, are not a given in much of the world. 
I know our Heavenly Father wants us to have all these things in order to enjoy life, to live abundantly. But where so much is given, He also wants us to generously share.  In the temple one of the covenants we make is to consecrate our talents, means, and time, and all we have, to serve Him and our fellow beings. And we each can do that even if we have very little. Throughout my life I have been the recipient of so many opportunities, much service and love. If we listen to the promptings of the Spirit we will know best how to love, help and minister to others.