Monday, July 20, 2015

Festival de la Tirana, Church District Activity, Regional Museum in Iquique

                                              FESTIVAL DE LA TIRANA
Last week the very small pueblito of La Tirana - about 550 people live there - had their annual festival commemorating their Virgin del Carmen.  Between 200,000-250,000 people travel there for  the celebrations throughout the week. They have groups of dancers, lots of food is sold, they sleep in tents/sleeping bags, etc. That area is very warm during the day and quite cold at night - typical desert weather in the wintertime. While we didn't go there, we did find these lights at a roundabout in Iquique and wanted to share them.



CHURCH DISTRICT ACTIVITY
The building we meet in has been repaired from all the earthquake damage and we're meeting in it again while the other building is now being renovated.  Our district had an Open House last Friday and invited all the members and their friends.  It's a bigger building than the other one so we had plenty of room for everyone.  The missionaries had been asked to provide the games and they did a terrific job!
  
The members, friends, and investigators all enjoyed themselves!

 The cultural hall is quite small so they always turn the chairs around in the chapel and have their activities with the audience sitting in the chapel. It works out very nicely!
At the end they served sopapillas with a semi-spicy salsa and hot chocolate. Yum!  Elders Cable/CA and Rodriguez/Mexico were busy handing out the drinks. The sister in the red poncho is Andrea Aguirre from Tarapacá branch. The sister in the blue hat is Nidia from Las Américas branch.
Little Joao (John/Juan in Portuguese) Lopez from our branch, Tarapacá, had fun going down the ramp on his little bike.














                                                   THE REGIONAL MUSEUM AT IQUIQUE
At the Regional Museum at Iquique we enjoyed learning about the people who lived in this area thousands of years ago.  They're Amayaran in descent and one of the things they did was when someone died they mummified them - all people, not just the royalties.  With this being the driest desert in the world, they've been able to dig up hundreds of mummies with many, many more still in the ground. The oldest they've been able to find have been between 6,000-5,000 BC.



This one is a mother with her baby.








 Tools used to deform their skulls and some deformed skulls. We have no idea why they did this - for style?













                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Various hats used by the Amayaran people in ancient times.


Thursday, July 9, 2015

Humberstone

On P-day this week we drove to a place called Humberstone, which is an abandoned mining town and now a tourist attraction.  They mined saltpeter, which is potassium nitrate and was used to make fertilizer, fireworks, gunpowder, etc.  The mines began in the 1800's and shut down about 1960 after Germany had invented something less expensive.  It's out near Pozo Almonte. 


We really liked looking at the toys the children made.  They'd take empty cans of sardines and extra wire and create cars and guns, things for a toy kitchen, and other things.  I guess children are the same the world over and throughout generations as well.




      Don't think I ever typed on anything this old but I do have memories of typing on super old typewriters!


We loved seeing their swimming pool!  They even had a grandstand.  





















It seemed that all their needs were met for the hundreds that lived here including housing, a Catholic cathedral, a hotel, a doctor, and even a theater.  

Monday, July 6, 2015

The new group in Pica

Last week we drove up to Pica, which is about 45 miles from Pozo Almonte for their first Group meeting.  A Group is a smaller congregation than a branch and also belongs to a branch.  As Pica is so far from Pozo Almonte, their branch, they'll be meeting every Sunday except the first Sunday of the month in Pica.  Once a month they'll travel to Pozo Almonte for their meetings with all the branch members.  There were 16 in attendance with 2 investigators!  We had Sacrament meeting plus an additional meeting that was similar to a Sunday School class.  

The meeting place is on the property of Brother Varela, seated to my right.  He has several little cottages on his property and has made this room available to the members on Sunday.  He's also the Group leader and very loved by them.

We also gathered outside the meeting place for another picture.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Our New Zone

We had zone meeting today and, as always, we took a picture of the zone at the end.  We're serving with another great group!!!
Front row:  Elders Mariscal/Bolivia, Rodriguez/Mexico, Wanderley/Brazil, Medina/Paraguay, Barrington/UT - WOW!  They're all from a different country!!
Middle row:  Elders Solis/Chile, Knutson/UT, Los Lawson/CO, Silva/Argentina, Beltran/ID
Back row:  Cable/CA, Martins/Brazil, Lopez/UT, Phillips/NV, Reid/UT, Walker/UT, Joos/UT



Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Holidays, the little town of Mamiña, and Doug's birthday

Time is moving on with our great mission. We want to share some pictures of events and places. May 21st is a national holiday in Chile. It marks the anniversary of the great naval battle of Iquique that took place on that day in 1879 during the War of the Pacific. The war was between Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. This particular battle was between Peru and Chile. What is fascinating is that Chile technically lost this celebrated battle and had to leave Iquique, which was then part of Peru. The great ship Esmeralda was sunk with significant loss of life along with her Captain, Arturo Prat.  So while this battle was lost, it became a great rallying cry for Chileans and the memory of Prat's heroism encouraged a surge in recruitment. This enabled Chile to ultimately win the greater war and claim a large part of land that is today the extreme northern part of Chile.  Prat is now considered a national hero and at least one street is named after him in almost every Chilean town and city.

We were able to tour the reconstructed Esmeralda, saw Iquique from the ocean view via boat, and enjoyed being with the Chileans on their special day.  It was a unique moment to be in the city where the battle took place.

    The Esmeralda is now a museum and we loved touring it.



 These are the cannons that didn't have enough power to overcome the Peruvian battleship.

                                    Some views of Iquique from out on the ocean.







We went back to Pica, which is part of the Pozo Almonte Branch, for a Family Home Evening.  We took the elders - a threesome with us. Pictured below are Elders Aquino/Argentina, Barrington/UT, and Sargent/UT.  Next are Victor and Taciani, Brother Varela, and Mikki.  It was a small group but we enjoyed spending the evening with them.  On the way back to Pozo Almonte, we stopped to look at the stars.  Pica is at least 35 miles beyond Pozo Almonte and with no lights around us we were amazed at all the constellations we could see. It was easy to see the Milky Way. Truly amazing!!


The Vera's invited to their home for lunch as Cecilia's parents and aunt were visiting from Santiago. They'd also invited another couple from their ward in Iquique to join us. The Vera's daughter, Anita, will leave in a few weeks to serve a mission in the Argentina Posadas Mission, which is in the northeastern most part of the country. It includes Iguazu Falls, which on the Brazilian side was included in our daughter, Nicole's, mission.  She'll be a wonderful missionary!


On Doug's birthday, May 25th, we drove up to the little town of Mamiña, which is northwest of Pozo Almonte, up in the mountains.  It's a town of hot springs and we're sure it's a bustling community during the summer but May is late Fall and it was a quiet day except for the Catholic church, which was having some sort of celebration.  It was Memorial Day up in the States and when the people in the church were asked to remember their ancestors we felt like we were able to have a little Memorial Day of our own.
                                            Even our car celebrated Doug's birthday!!


Mamiña is a town where legend has it that the waters of this place cured an Incan princess of blindness.  The name means "the little girl of my dreams" and is known for its healing hot springs.

Here are some views of the town.





The little church, tiny plaza, and inside the church.








































We celebrated Doug's birthday that night at the home of Oscar Rozas and his wife Olfa Montenegro (the wives usually keep their maiden name after marriage). They'd invited the Hernandez-Pino and Aldunate-San Francisco families over for pizza and birthday cake.Olfa is a fantastic baker and has a business from her home for bakeries and private orders.
Starting from the left:  Nancy, Melisa Hernandez, Alexandra holding Melisa's new baby, Julio Hernandez, Ivan Rozas, Joshua (Alexandra's boyfriend), Oscar Rozas, Ismael Aldunate, Angelica San Francisco, Ema Pino, Mauricio Hernandez, and Olfa Montenegro.
 Olfa made darling cream puffs into the shapes of swans. She also had a lemon pie plus the other treats on the table. Yum!! Then at the end she brought out her Tres Leches cake. Double yum!!!

                                 The next day we celebrated with the elders in our zone.


                                             Doesn't this look like a happy group?!!
From the left (back): Elders Silva/Argentina, Mariscal/Bolivia, Medina/Paraguay, Campbell/CO, Modawell/MI, Barrington/UT, Sargent/UT, Aquino/Argentina, Balmeceda/Peru-Chile, Wanderley/ Brazil, Cable/CA, Martins/Brazil, Childs/CA, and Lopez/UT. In front: Elders Herrera/Chile and Solis/Chile