Just a quick note on one important aspect of our mission - no bake cookies.

We take some every time we inspect an apartment and for most birthdays. We even gave some to the maintenance supervisor in our building. They seem to be a big hit with everyone. One Latino missionary, who liked the cookies, said that he heard them called monkey poop.  Rude.

We went to the western-most city for which we have responsibility last week and noted that they seem to have a passion for collecting and displaying old steam tractors. (I'm not sure if they are tractors.)

They must have had 25 - 30 of these lining two streets. Someday I will have to learn the history.

Another unique aspect of being here is that many of the roads and parking facilities were developed with a much lower expectation of traffic growth than has played out.  Therefore, you park where you can and everybody seems to be OK with it.  Here are two of my parking jobs today.

Yes, I am parked on the sidewalk.

Here I am up on the "grassy" area by the curb.

Both of these are accepted and very common here.

I have to mention another parking norm for which I do not have a picture. It is that you just stop on the street and turn on your emergency flashers. It seems that turning on the flashers gives you a pass to stop your car just about anywhere. People don't seem to get angry at the resulting inconvenience - probably because we have all done it.

Just a quick comment or two on situations that remind us we are not in the US.

There was a time in my career when I followed trends in mixed-use buildings. Here is one mixed-used I would not have anticipated.

I don't know if you can tell but this is a funeral parlor with a little store attached to it.

I have probably mentioned before that most homes and all church buildings are surround by fences, usually topped with something that would hurt you if you tried to climb over. That is part of a general tendency to assume motivated criminals are all about you. One manifestation of this assumption can be found in our church buildings.

The clerks' offices literally have a vault door on them - heavy metal with four rods that protrude into the metal frame when the door is locked. (This office has been converted to a family history center - thus the dinosaur microfilm reader.)

Sometimes you need to celebrate the small victories.

This graph represents a comparison between YTD 2019 & 2018 for members of our branch who have submitted names for temple ordinances. We got to the branch in late November of last year.

It is interesting to me that the scale on the left goes by 2.5. I don't know how half of a person would have submitted names so I am guessing somebody did it half-heartedly. (Queue the laugh soundtrack.)

We had our Venezuelan friends over for dinner Saturday night and they wanted to take pictures on the balcony.

If I haven't mentioned it before, there are many Venezuelans in Chile who have fled the oppression and economic challenges of their country. We know this family because Mary helped teach the mom and daughter and we attended their baptisms.

I almost walked 2 kilometers yesterday to pick up something at the bus terminal only to be reminded it was a holiday.  (While the walk would have done me good, not being able to complete my task would have offset the benefit.)

We have noticed that there are a lot of national holidays here so I decided to document them. (This will provide an opportunity for you to work on your Spanish.)

Those in gray cannot be ignored. The others can but, in most cases, are not. Yesterday, for instance, was the celebration of the Virgin being taken up into heaven. As you can see, it is a religious holiday that is not mandated. However, many shops were closed and the traffic was maybe a tenth of the norm. 

It is interesting that all Sundays are declared holidays but not mandated. I wonder if there are strained relationships between the Navy and Army since the day celebrating the glories of the former is not mandated while the day celebrating the glories of the later is. Since the Evangelicals and Protestants get their own day, I wonder if we should push for one. 

Yesterday, we moved two hermanas into this house.

The three satellite dishes on this relatively new, small house suggest to me that the former tenant took FOMO to a new height.

This house is one of many in government sponsored housing projects. Here is a view looking down the street.

These are all single family homes and, as you can see, keeping up with the Joneses in these neighborhoods is fait accompli the day you move in.

Today was the Día del Niño (day of the child) so the branch celebrated last night.

We have had to adopt a few grandchildren since we are so far away from ours. I can't wait to hold ours again.

Today, Mary was able to participate in one of her favorite activities - sewing. She borrowed a sewing machine and is repairing her skirt.

No, really. She loves it.  How much does she love it? She sewed model garments for ClothWorld when she had three or four young children under foot.

Before we came on our mission, it had been many, many years since we lived in an apartment.

After living in this one for almost nine months, we have been reminded of the benefits. For instance...

• The neighbors play their music loud enough for us to hear without our even asking.
• A baby's room was next to ours so that we could fondly remember the many years we had infants in our home to keep us company at night.
• We feel like we have been invited to several parties by complete strangers who know how to enjoy themselves into the wee hours.
• We get to be a part of other people's lives as we hear them conversing in the hallway which, because of concrete construction in anticipation of earthquakes, is an echo chamber.

I read an article the other day which referenced a perspective that diversity and unity are usually at odds with each other. I would like to provide an example of where that is absolutely not the case.

Here are the countries from which missionaries in our mission hail.

These missionaries serve in companionships and, most days, spend 24 hours/day together - in unity.  81% of them are companions with someone from a different country. I would say that both diversity and unity are alive and well in this mission.