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!

Spending time with wonderful people!

How special for us to meet with wonderful members from our mission in the Chile Antogafasta Mission while serving in the Chile Santiago North Mission as well as share a Chilean meal with another office missionary! 

 We were able to meet Cesar Hurtado one night when he was in Santiago. It was so great to see him again! 

Sister Cooper is about ready to complete her mission and she'd never had a Chilean completo - hot dog. She chose the Crispy Completo which was hot dog with melted cheese on top with crispy onions and bacon on top of that. I had the typical one, the Italiano, with chopped tomatoes and guacamole. I opted out of having mayonaise on top of all that. We loved them! 

A week ago Saturday we were able to meet Jessica Barraza and her boyfriend, Hans Fernandez, outside the Santiago temple where we left to go enjoy a meal together. As they both served missions in Argentina, we ate at an Argentine restaurant. Yum!! 

Sky Costanera

We went up to the top of the highest building in South America at La Costanera in Santiago. It's outside our mission but seniors are allowed to go anywhere in the Santiago area without permission. We loved seeing the view of the city below us! We could see the spire on the Santiago Temple, saw an entrance to a tunnel we've gone through, saw the hill where we live on the other side, and saw another tunnel with a bus going through (an opening). We went with the other 2 senior couples. The mission president and his wife were going to go with us but had things come up that they had to deal with. Maybe another time.

                                                   We live on the other side of this hill.

                                                              Tunnel entrance above.

                       Like Where's Waldo...Where's the spire of the temple in these 2 pictures?

                                                      Elder Lawson with Elder Johnstun.

     To the right of the muddy river you can see a bus going through an open area in the tunnel.

View from the other side. The super tall mountains have snow on them but it's hard to see.

                                                                        The Heiners

The Johnstuns

President and Sister Bentley at the mission office. They joined us for lunch.

Here are a few photos of our apartment. We're getting settled and that's a great feeling!!! Our washer and dryer sit outside on one of the balconies. We're just soooooo grateful to have a dryer this mission. That's a first for us!

Back in Chile!

View from our apartment. The red roof in the center of the middle picture is a church building that has been converted into our mission office. It's an enlarged pix from the lowest one. We're on the 9th floor.