Greetings from Santiago Chile on this beautiful Sunday, December 29, 2013.  This is our first Christmas season that we have not been around family members.  While it has been a little lonely, and we have missed our children, grandchildren, and friends, we have had a wonderful week.  On Christmas eve when we would usually be having dinner with family, we were actually having a wonderful Christmas dinner with our mission family.  Elder and Sister Candland hosted a delicious turkey dinner with all of the trimmings at their tiny apartment (all of the apartments are quite small, around 7-800 square feet).  Finding a turkey and all of the ingredients necessary to bake is no small task here in Chile, and when you can find them, they are quite expensive.  Turkeys for example run about $2.00 per pound.  Evone made her famous homemade dinner rolls and pecan pies, which actually had walnuts, because you cannot buy pecans in Chile.  As always, they were delicious and much appreciated.

On Christmas morning, we woke up to some beautiful email letters from our children.  Definitely the highlight of our day.  A group of senior missionaries that are close to the temple gathered for a Christmas brunch of the usual eggs, bacon, waffles and wonderful fresh fruit.  Being that it is summer, we have water melon,cantaloupes, strawberries, grapes, etc. and they are fresh and delicious.  There are 11 senior missionaries who work here in the church office buildings in various capacities (legal, auditing, medical, mental health, humanitarian, and of course perpetual education fund).  There are also a number of senior missionaries who are serving in mission home offices, temple  and as member leadership support missionaries.  There are four missions headquartered here in Santiago, and so we had some of those missionaries join us for our Christmas brunch.  It was truly wonderful to see them all and to visit and compare missionary experiences.

Then we came home and spent the next several hours calling and "Face timeing" with our kids and grandkids.  It was so fun to have them show us what they got for Christmas.  We love our weekly phone visits with the family!

On Christmas afternoon, Evone and I had the pleasure to visit a woman who is investigating the church.  She lives about 45 minutes to an hour away from our apartment depending on how the buses are running.  Her name is Victoria and I would guess she is in her late 60's or early 70's.  The young missionaries who are teaching her met us at a stake activity in Sept. We told them that if they ever needed our help, that we would love to go with them to teach and to fellowship.  They called us about 4 weeks ago and asked if we could go with them to teach Victoria.  We did, and have been back several times with them. Christmas afternoon was very warm (high 80'- low 90's), but we had a wonderful visit with this dear lady.  She insisted on serving us some peach juice and some pan de pascua (Chile's version of fruitcake, but very, very dry).

After a wonderful visit, we made the 45 minute return to our apartment and then over to our friends the Candland's for turkey leftovers from the night before.  Overall, a truly wonderful Christmas.  Oh, by the way, if anyone doubts that Santa is for real, we are here to tell you that he is.  On our way over to visit Victoria, we were walking across the street to make a bus connection when we saw a cab pull up to a house.  I first saw two red legs emerge from the back seat, and I thought to myself, can this really be Santa Claus.  The next thing I saw was a beautiful white beard and long white hair.  It was indeed the Chilean Santa.  As I said hello and asked for a picture he was glad to oblige my request.  As I saddled up next to him, I could tell he had had a very long day.  He had quite the smell of Christmas Cheer and was feeling no pain.  What a fun occasion.

The house where Victoria lives

Elder and Sister Pope, Victoria and Elder Caden

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Chilean Santa Claus on Christmas Day

 

Christmas night we walked a couple of blocks to the Providencia Municipal Building to view the giant Christmas tree, life sized Nativity (baby Jesus was unveiled at midnight Christmas Eve) and watch the light show on the facade of the Municipal Building after it got dark -- it was so interesting, my picture doesn't do it justice -- One of the scenes was a giant toy train going past the windows of the building- like it was moving room to room from top floor to bottom floor.

 

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!!!

Here at the Santiago "Temple Square", the church hosts a Christmas Program of song and dance.  Last year and this year, the program has featured Elder David Archuletta who is serving in the Chile Rancagua mission, about an hour south of Santiago.  A truly outstanding missionary but even more than that an outstanding young man.  We have heard some very tender stories of his service here over the last two years, and in a previous post talked about the opportunity of meeting and visiting with him for a few minutes.

We have been watching from our apartment balcony for two weeks as the young people have practiced the dances and the grounds workers have assembled the stage, put up Christmas lights and built a life size nativity.  We have been getting more and more excited for the performance.  Last Thursday evening we walked over to see some of the action of the dress rehearsal.  The following day the Public Affairs director, Valentine Nunez, said he could use our help to finish setting up the staging and chairs.  So we spent Friday afternoon decorating Christmas Trees and putting the finishing touches to the stage, as well as setting up hundreds of chairs!

The program was wonderful.  We were amazed at all the musical talent and we were THRILLED to hear Elder Archuletta sing 4 songs.  The amount of time and effort to put on such a production is indescribable.

Dance Rehearsal

The stage 24 hours before showtime!

The youth coming to practice "on stage" for the first time

In another corner -- another dance routine

The "String" section was excellent!

The drummers had a major part when David Archuletta sang

 "Little Drummer Boy"

Putting lights on a Christmas Tree

Five hours before show time these two were still plastering "bricks" to create the stage!

Decorating four Christmas Trees four hours before showtime!  The Chileans didn't seem at all concerned how much work needed to be done and how little time to do it.

Waiting for Showtime -- while we waited for the show to start the crew was still putting the final touches on the stage.

The Choir assembled about 30 minutes before showtime and stood on risers for 2 1/2 hours!

David Archuletta is truly professional when he performs.  He sang three "rehearsed" songs and then on the second night he added one from his Christmas Album.  He finishes his mission in February.

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After the concert we walked over to see the Christmas Lights and met a young couple who snapped our picture.