One set of missionaries in Temuco lives in an apartment building that has an observation deck on the 22nd floor. We had to deliver something there yesterday so we decided to go up and take pictures.

Substantially all the high-rise buildings are apartment buildings and they are building more. I guess they still have a lot of demand.

At dinner the other day, it was mentioned that we had missionaries from 20 countries in our mission. At our mission conference and Christmas devotional, missionaries representing the 20 countries described the Christmas traditions of their country. That was interesting and fun.  Here are the countries which have missionaries representing them in our mission.

One of our responsibilities is to support the younger missionaries, particularly in their temporal needs. This responsibility provides some unique opportunities.

Yesterday, we went to the store owned by Walmart (named Lider), bought a mattress, tied it to the roof of our car and drove an hour south to deliver it to the first Haitian missionary to serve in our mission. He is a bright young man who has only been here two months but speaks excellent Spanish.

We had heard of the volcanoes in Chile so Mary did research on line to see how many there are. Wikipedia says, "Chile has about 500 volcanoes considered active, 60 of which have had recorded eruptions in the last 450 years."  As we drove to deliver the mattress, we stopped and took a picture of one.

Friday morning we drove to Concepcion, upon the invitation of our president and his wife, to have a belated Thanksgiving dinner with them and the other couples serving in the mission. We really enjoyed ourselves and the food was amazing.

Here is a view from the balcony of the mission president's apartment.

You can see the temple in the distance. Beyond that is the Bio Bio river which empties into the Pacific a few kilometers to your left. We drove along its banks on the way home and it was all amazingly beautiful.

After dinner, we all went to the temple.  Here is a group photo.

The temple is very beautiful inside and the ordinance worker seem so pleased to be serving there.

On the way home, we purchased and delivered a mattress to an elder in Angol who was sleeping on one that was worn out. Then we delivered a couple of things to Sister Missionaries in Victoria. The young missionaries in the southern part of the mission call us when they need something they think they can't get on their own. We enjoy interacting with them.

Wednesday was an interesting day.

A little after 7:00 a.m. I received a call from the mission president letting me know that a missionary had gone into a local hospital needing an appendectomy. As soon as I hung up, I got a call from a missionary saying he locked himself out of his apartment. That started a long day of working out a lot of logistical issues.  The upside is that I got to interact with and/or drive around missionaries from the following places, all of them delightful people.

I thought I would give you some perspective on where we are now.  Here is a map of our mission.

We are roughly 3.5 hours from the mission headquarters and it takes about $7.50 in tolls to drive between the two.

Temuco is the second largest city in our mission. Here is a view of the skyline.

Here is some information extracted from Wikipedia.

"Temuco (Spanish pronunciation: [teˈmuko]) is a city and commune, capital of the Cautín Province and of the Araucanía Region in southern Chile... [It's] easy access to the Andean valleys, lakes and coastal areas makes it a hub for tourism, agricultural, livestock and forestry operations as well as a communication and trade centre for the numerous small towns of Araucanía.

"According to the 2002 census by the National Statistics Institute (INE), Temuco had a communal population of 245,347 (117,071 men and 128,276 women)."

Although we live here, most of our efforts will be focused in smaller communities in the southern part of our mission.

We left the MTC on Friday, November 16 a little before 11:00 a.m. Right before doing so, we got a picture with our district. The 14 of us spent the most time together in training.

These are all wonderful people who are sacrificing to serve the Lord. We learned that many have challenges that might, to some, make it counter-intuitive to serve at this time. Yet, here they are.

Kevin, McKenzi and Owen came to pick us up at the MTC. Seth joined us at the airport.

We sincerely appreciate their taking time from their busy schedules to give us a nice send-off. Can you imagine leaving this cute grandson for 23 months, along with his 20 Lunt cousins? That is the hardest part. (Give me a minute to cry.)

We flew to Dallas and then to Santiago. That flight took us through the night. We stood in long lines at Santiago to get through immigration and customs. All went well however, and here we are arriving in Concepcion.

Here are the people who came to welcome us.

They include the mission president and his wife, 3 office couples and the assistants. We certainly appreciate how they have made us feel welcome. As part of the welcome, they had a nice lunch for us at the mission office - a former chapel converted into offices for ours and the Concepcion mission.

The mission president and his wife drove us the 3.5 hours to where we will live. It is spring time here and there was lush greenery the whole way.  (Pictures of that will be taken Friday.)

Here we are with the couple we are replacing. (Sorry about the bad lighting.) This was taken in the living room of the apartment we now occupy.

They are the Hatches and they are from North Carolina. They have been VERY helpful to us and we sincerely appreciate it.

Here is the view out of the back "porch" of our fifth floor apartment.

I think I am going to like it here.

I would like to introduce you to some of our teachers.  Here are our morning teachers.

The sister on the left is from North Carolina and the sister on the right is from Hawaii.

Here is our afternoon teacher.  She is from AZ and supervises the other teachers.

You might think it strange that these twenty-something women are teaching people who are old enough to be their parents or grandparents. (We have seven children who are older than the first two.) Actually, they have beautifully articulated important truths and have responded to tough questions with maturity and wisdom. They are returned missionaries themselves and I have been edified by their testimonies.

Yesterday morning, another young returned missionary taught us for an hour on how to strengthen our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

As part of her teaching, she had us write our own Psalm. She gave us the structure and had us fill in what we felt. I thought I would share my psalm. (My part is in bold.)

Praise ye the Lord

For He has lifted my burden and raised my view

The Lord, He is my true, pure friend

And I will be His hands in helping others receive what He offers them.

I think I may refine this psalm in the future and/or write others but this is what occurred to me yesterday.

Finally, I would like to introduce you to the Matkins. They currently live in Idaho but previously lived in Flagstaff and Showlow, AZ, among other places. His time in Flagstaff resulted in him and Mary having many common acquaintances. 

On the first day, we were assigned to get to know each other so that we could prepare to teach each other something that we really need. They are wonderful people who are serving in spite of adversity and we have truly been edified by our association with them. We taught each other yesterday and today and it was an amazing experience.

It has been another wonderful day here at the Missionary Training Center ("MTC").

Tonight, we were privileged to attend a devotional with all 1800+ missionaries being trained in the Provo MTC.  It was also viewed or will be viewed in the other 13 MTCs around the world. Elder and Sister Stevenson were the speakers.

It is always a privilege to listen to an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. What added to the experience was that we were able to sing "Called to Serve" with all of those missionaries. That was truly a blessing and I was energized by it.

Here are some statistics that Elder Stevenson shared.

• 3,640 full-time missionaries are currently being trained in the 14 MTCs (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, England, Ghana, Guatemala, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Spain, United States).
• 40,000 missionaries are trained each year.
• Missionaries are being trained in 58 second languages.
• 65,871 full-time missionaries are currently serving in 150 countries

April and family took us down to Provo to enter the MTC. Kevin joined us there. We really appreciate them making that sacrifice.

Here we are, checking in and receiving our name tags. I guess that makes it official.

We had to follow the custom of taking a picture standing next to the big map and pointing to our mission location.

I became emotional when I saw that we are surrounded my something like 1800 young missionaries. They are clean-cut, well-dressed and enthusiastic. I am edified by their faith in choosing to go and that of their parents for sending them. You can feel the energy.

The Church's missionary website was nice enough to countdown the days until we reported. This is the day we have been looking for.

Today we had visits from my brother, Dale, and several of his family members as well as my niece, Jessica, and her family. We sincerely appreciate their taking the time to come by.

Mary and I were set apart as full-time missionaries by President Edgington who was assisted by Bishop Hampton.

We were joined by Kevin, McKenzi, Owen, April, Clarke, Emmett (not pictured) and Seth. We appreciate their being with us to support us as we officially begin our mission.

After the setting apart, our Kevin, Seth and Clarke gave us priesthood blessings which we sincerely appreciate.  Then we enjoyed dinner and visiting together. It was a good night.

Mary thought I should add a picture of us opening our mission call. Our stake piloted the process of receiving calls electronically so that is what happened to us. I think all of our children participated either in person or electronically. I hoped for Argentina but am pleased to be sent to Chile. Somehow it is appropriate that Mary was in her Mexican moo-moo for this picture. Orange you glad I wore the T-shirt I did?

The call