I am going to try to add some pictures. The first is in our living room. I am just coming out brushing my teeth.

This is the entrance to our home. Notice the high ceilings and doorways.

This is our heating unit. It is not central heat as the heater is not in the central part of the room but it will heat the whole area well.

This is our kitchen area. We have all new appliances all in one place. Notice the white box on the wall above the washer/dryer. It is our tankless water heater. The gas supply is outside.

The is the patio out the back door. It is a large area and we will invite people over for a barbeque and activities when it warms up.

This is our back yard or most of it. We have a path from the front to the back and our car is there behind the tree. It is small. We have lots of fruit trees. We will see what happens in the spring.

 

 

Well that is our little home. We will take pictures of the area as we go and some other activities. We do appreciate you all and your support. May the Lord bless you all. 

Please excuse no pictures yet. We are having some technical difficulty with it. We will have some pictures of our home and other things shortly. We hope you enjoy the descriptions.

San Jose de Maipo, city, is a community of about 6-8,000 people, but the area of the Branch covers several smaller villages. The whole area is called San Jose de Maipo. All included there are about 15,000. There is the Maipo river that flows down this canyon and the city is located along this river. In total the area is about 10 miles long and ½  mile wide. It is really pretty. I will try to attach pictures. We are now in fall but the weather is beautiful. The nights get about 45 degrees but the days warm up to about 80. Clear skies every day. It is quite nice.

We live in a house that is circular in shape. It is 36 feet in diagonal. It is about 1000 sq. ft. if I remember my math. It is bigger than the other temple, etc. missionaries apartment. There is one nice size  bedroom, and office, a bathroom and a big open area for living room and nice kitchen area. We have all new appliances (refrigerator, califont (tankless water heater), washer/dryer, stove/oven, and microwave) and cabinets. I am including picture if I can figure it out. We have all wood floors and a wood burning stove that will heat the whole house easily. The first night we were here it was cold and they had turned on the stove and the house was quite toasty. The house is up on the side of a hill overlooking the city. It is a dirt road but quite driveable, with some hairpin turns to get up. We will take a video and send it to you. It takes about 2 minutes to get up the one lane road that is used by two lanes of traffic.

We have a large yard with fruit trees, 4 plums, 1 lemon, 1 orange, 1 apple, 1 walnut, and one other we do not know. I don’t know if we will be able to get fruit. It depends on our time, but it will be fun.

We have our car. All worked out very well for us with the car. It is a little four door car. The sisters have been in the back and it is comfortable, but if I were 6 foot + it would not be comfortable. It has plenty of power. It is a manual shift and fun to drive.

Our biggest challenge has been to get internet service. If we wanted to have TV, telephone, and internet we could get it easier than to only want internet, but that is all we need. The real problem is in the Chilean system. In order to buy anything that requires a contract you have to have a carnet. It is like a Social Security Card. When you arrive you apply and it takes about 3-4 months to get. The cards last for a year and then you apply for renewal. (This is what Scott had to do for several months of his mission in Panama). So you get your first card and it is temporary. You get your second card and it is also temporary. Then for your third it is a permanent resident card. When you enter into a contract, like an internet or phone service for a specified price for 6, 12, 18 months you have to have a permanent carnet, or you have to prove employment with a salary check, or have some type of proof of paying bills. We do it somewhat similar in the states but it is much more difficult here. This is almost like applying for a mortgage to get internet service. I have been to two locations to understand it (no luck) and then I took our office senior missionary (but since his carnet was temporary and could not prove income- no luck) and then to the central office downtown and through church offices and no luck. So what we can do for now is to have a pay as you go service. It is more expensive but it gives us internet. We have to pay for each device separately, so we will have it for our notebooks but not for the Apple equipment. Not Apple because they have their own plugs (not USB) and I have not found a converter for them yet. So we use the Notebooks for internet uses and Skype, and IPAD etc. for scripture study and apps we have already downloaded. We will make it. Not the most efficient but we are making progress.

Some other things we have noticed:

The dog to people count is almost equal. Dogs all over the place. But they do not sniff all over you or jump on you. They don’t enter into stores, but they bark at night. In our area there is an opera sometime each day or night of dogs from all over the area. They are not together in one place but they are talking to each other.

Lines on the street and speed limit signs are only guidelines not anything fixed.

Horns are meant to be used so they use them. “you are in our way”, “I see you coming”, “you are slower than I want you to be”, etc., etc. You just don’t know exactly what the horn is for.

The police and fire always have their lights going. It is like advertising. Only when the sirens are going are they in a hurry.

The people are all very warm and kind. They are glad we are here and the members love the missionaries.

Today is Monday April 1st and we arrived at the Missionary Training Center at 10:30 am. Most of the day was orientation. There was one significant event that impressed me though. When we arrived we were greeted by a wonderful sister. (in the Mormon Church we refer to others as Brother and Sister. We believe we are all part of a family of our Heavenly Father). She smiled and greeted us and gave us an initial packet of materials we will need. In side the packet was name badges we will wear every day for the duration of the mission. Mine is Elder McMurdie and Bonnie's is Sister McMurdie. these are titles in this case. When she put on the badge something changed. It was a spiritual feeling that came over me. I am now a missionary for the Lord Jesus Christ. It was calm but powerful.

The remainder was introducing us to what we will be doing for the next 4 days. There are 3000 young missionaries, young men and young women here and about 200 seniors. Many of the seniors are going to historical sites of the church. There are only about 6 couples that are going to foreign missions, the balance are going to various places in the states.

This is our first day and we are in for a valuable experience.