Temple friends

Sometimes the weeks with the least to report are the busiest!
Since my mission is winding down, there are lots of memories to record, things to sort, and friends to say good-bye to. It is all bitter sweet. Although we work long hours, missionary life is in many ways simpler, less cluttered and scattered, more focused.
Temple missionaries work 5 7-hour shifts per week, Tuesday through Saturday. Other local temple workers usually 1-2 shifts. My shift has been 3:30-10:30 PM (the morning shift works 8-2). This is a good-bye lunch at a local restaurant, La Hacienda (with delicious food and beautiful stained glass ceiling above) with some of the great Tuesday PM shift in honor of myself and Sister Umber, who finishes this week. The Isaacsons and I arrive home in Utah on  June 18. We will fly together until our ways part in Atlanta.

Hermana Paulina Paez, who
made me a lovely "tatted" collar

Hna Francis Sanguineti
arranged my pension for
June visit to Easter Island

Hnas Maria Espinoza (assistant coordinator), Vargas (sisters)

Luz Urriola de Luz
(another assistant)

Mery de Montalva
who gave me blouses from her
factory

Hnas Rivera, Corro, Bravo, Cuadra, Davila, Berrios

Los Barrios
This week we have a group of 60 from Arica (1,035 miles from Santiago, and the northernmost city in Chile, part of Peru before Chile's victory over Peru and Bolivia in the War of the Pacific ending in 1883). The population is largely mestizo, Aymara and Quechua Peruvian. There are Gustave Eiffel structures among the grand Peruvian era buildings. It is such a distance that most come only once per year. Cochbamba Temple in Bolivia is a little closer.

Hermanas Castillo, Gonzalez, Bravo 

Thursday shift coordinator (for the women) Hermana Denise Sommermeyer and assistant Ruth Bravo with their husbands.
Below: Tatiana Aguilar (leaving in 2 weeks to serve a mission in the Dominican Republic...I hope I have not scared her but only prepared her for the big adventure!), Hna Labra and Hna Araya (the other assistant coordinator for Thursday PM). They had all changed out of their white clothing, but I was trying to catch as many as possible just outside the door.

 Above: Sisters Pena and Prieto, Labra (Friday coordinator), Anita Sepulveda who keeps the records office running and is a great friend to all; Chico; Castillo, de Schweinitz, Gonzalez, Bravo; Ingrid Quiroz; a few Sat. shift sisters

Saturday was Alma Umber's last day! 30-40 men and women from our shift formed a huge circle, waving white handkerchiefs to thank her, give her a hug, and wish her well! Very touching!
Afterwards a few of us (Lorie Marchant, Nina Isaacson and their husbands) and I said goodbye to Alma as we will be north in Caldera/Copiapo visiting Sister Diaz for the long weekend (Tuesday is a holiday) Good-bye 'til we meet again. Next week will be more landscape and ??

Monday evening Holly Young presented a wonderful review of the Santiago Temple dedication in 1983 and re-dedication after major renovation (2006) of the Santiago. No one thought to take screen shots, so here is a little information and one photo from the internet:

The Santiago Chile Temple was the second temple built in South America, following the São Paulo Brazil Temple (1978), and the first built in Chile.

The Santiago Chile Temple was the first temple built in a Spanish-speaking country.

The site for the Santiago Chile Temple was purchased by the Church many years before the temple was constructed with the intention of building a Church school. It was a school!

Before the re-dedication in 2006, many members and non-members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints visited the newly enlarged and beautified temple. (visitors wait in the rain to tour the about to be re-dedicated temple. Some of their comments:

 “I give thanks to your members for permitting me to know you a little more.” Even one who professed no religion said she’d felt the Spirit of our Father in Heaven: “I arrived with great pain, but after the tour, I left without pain.” Said an atheist, “If God exists, today I found his house.”

Don't forget to visit the open houses of the new or renovated Temples in Oakland California, the Tucson, AZ, Idaho Falls, ID and others if you live near-by. I promise you will feel a wonderful spirit!