We went to the temple in Concepcion yesterday and we very grateful for the experience. On the way home, we stopped in a place called Laja and great was the fall thereof.

We had the multi-zone conferences last week. Here are the missionaries assigned to the south with whom we get work for at least the next six weeks. (The eight in the Angol zone attended another conference so they aren't in the picture.)

These are wonderful people.

So, the five senior couples (including president and companion) went on a retreat to a coastal town north of Concepcion.

We went on a boat tour of the bay. (I should have made a more pleasant face for the picture. I really did enjoy the tour.)

There were quite a few fishing boats in the harbor.

 We walked the beach and hiked up on a point later.

It was a wonderful day.

I fought "the man" long and hard and, Friday morning, I finally won - or did I? This is the package that took much time, energy and money to get here. It contained 20 bottles of probiotics and several packages of gum.

I won't bore you with the details but the process involved multiple interactions with the postal service, the national institute of public health, and the national treasury service. We had to get a prescription from a Chilean doctor and pay about 30% in taxes and fees. This all started in January.

We asked for these to be sent to us but won't make this mistake again.

As noted before, one of our responsibilities is to help take care of the temporal needs of the young missionaries in the south of the mission. Friday, we moved two sisters (from Mexico and Argentina) to a new apartment that is in the area they are assigned to work.

On this trip, we tied a wardrobe and two bookshelves on top of our Toyota Yaris to haul them across town. The trunk and back seat were, also, full except for a small place for one sister to sit on the lap of the other. This picture was taken to show the # of flights of stairs we hauled them down (with the help of sister missionaries) before lifting them on top of the car and tying them down. Although they are on the 9th floor of the building we moved them to, that building has an elevator which this one does not.

As for that elevator in the new building, four young missionaries, another man and we were on it when it stalled between the first and second floor. After some time, someone opened the door of the second floor and we climbed out. Mary, being the only one in a skirt, was the last out but she made it fine.