This past Saturday we drove to a small ski area in the northeastern part of our mission with Elder/Sister Hughes and Elder/Sister Thompson from the Santiago East Mission. We were up around 10,000 feet and right next to the Argentine border. In the western states the mountains have lots of Aspen and pine trees. The ski areas are easy to spot but here we found the mountains to be totally brown with no growth and we also didn't see any animals along the way, even at lower elevations. The Andes are spectacular with the rugged peaks.

  We called this the zigzag as the road had 29 sharp turns/curves. We stopped at about the half-way mark to take this picture. Truly amazing!!

This is what the zigzag looked like on the phone's GPS. And that was just part of the 29 curves.

We drove through these yellow "tunnels" both ways to and from the top. We figured they were protection from rock slides and snow avalanches. We could see through the windows.

This crevice was right next to the road. We wonder if it happened due to regular changes with time and with the weather or due to earthquakes. Chile is infamous for having them quite often.  

Our jackets felt great at the top!! It was quite windy and in the 40's. Such a change from our 80+* days in Santiago.

We drove to the border and enjoyed seeing the welcome sign.

We share our mission office building with church employees. They have an office in the back of the building and our office is in the front. One day one of the employees, Ricardo, came in and told me he'd lived in Alto Hospicio and asked if I knew Patricio Orellana. I told him, Yes!! He said he'd been a counselor in the branch presidency when Patricio was the branch president several years ago when he'd lived up there. He then asked if I knew any other people from that branch. It was the branch we attended on our last mission. I said Miriam Valenzuela and he smiled and said she's his sister-in-law. Wow! Small world in the church. We then found out Miriam was coming down with her father as he needed to have surgery. So we were invited over to Ricardo's and Liliana's home one evening. It happened to be the day after Miriam's birthday. We had a wonderful evening together.

                                                      Happy Birthday dear Miriam!!                                                               

                                                                 Special times together!

                                   Miriam, her father, Ricardo, Liliana, and their youngest son.

We were at the temple a couple weeks ago and as we were leaving to get something to eat before heading back to our place we saw Yarela from Pica - from our last mission - walking up to the temple. She was planning on attending for the 1st time. We were sooooo excited to see her!! We had time to grab a bite to eat then return to the temple to do a session with her. What a special occasion for us!