Santiago Sunday

Continuing the saga of our adventures in Chile.... It was Sat. evening, we were back in the hotel after touring Vina del Mar and Valparaiso. We had the whole evening ahead of us and were wondering what to do when we hit upon the idea to find a church to attend the next day. We found the address of the closest church meetinghouse on the web using the building locator. It had a map showing where our hotel was and the location of the church--an impressive new feature. We decided to do some exploring and find the church. We walked for about 30 minutes through a beautiful part of Santiago....

...and discovered that the meetinghouse was located next to the LDS temple! The temple was beautiful.

We found some members and tried to communicate (they didn't speak much English). We were able to discover the time for church the next day, though. We walked around the temple grounds and took some pictures. We met some missionaries and learned that one of them had a brother in Uruguay on a mission. We met a missionary couple from Jerome, Idaho who knew President Luker. We saw a wedding party on the temple grounds taking pictures. It was a beautiful evening. We felt right at home.

We found a cafe on our walk back to our hotel and ordered dinner. The food was delicious.

The serving sizes were surprisingly huge. We felt like we were back in the USA! That is a salad on my left.

This lion was a landmark on Avenida Los Liones that helped us find our way back to the hotel.

Shortly after passing the lion, we met up with a stray dog that became our protector through a dark, and somewhat scary neighborhood. He walked along in front of us. Every so often he would stop, turn and look at us with his ear cocked up, and wait for us to catch up to him. He would wait for traffic lights to turn green before leading us across the street.

Soon a female dog started following us. She would stay behind us. Both dogs stayed with us until we got to the hotel several blocks later. We felt well protected.

We took a taxi to church the next morning. We arrived early. We enjoyed watching the members arrive and give each other hugs and a kiss on the cheek. A couple of the members came up to welcome us. Communication was interesting! I was trying to remember Spanish words learned as a teenager and Jim had his dictionary. The members would try to use what little English they knew. We understood little of what they said but we felt very welcome. We didn't understand much of what was said in the testimony meeting either but we felt the Spirit. Sunday School class was in English. Most of those in the class were senior missionaries. The teacher was a young man from Chili who had served a mission in Pocatello, Idaho!

We met a missionary couple from Boise. We learned that they are the parents of our friend, Heather, the owner of the family reunion center where we had our reunion last summer! What a small world. They invited us to their home for lunch after church. We gladly accepted their invitation. We had a wonderful visit with them. They shared some fascinating missionary experiences with us.

We started the walk back to the hotel and took some pictures of some of the interesting sights we encountered along the way.

Most of these photos were taken in the gardens of the building above on the left. I believe it was a city government building.

This was the embassy for Uruguay.

After walking several blocks in the hot sun, we decided to hail a taxi. We were surprised to see that the cab driver had a brand new copy of "El Libro de Mormon" on his dashboard. We asked if he was a Mormon. He said he had been baptized about six months earlier. His wife was so happy because now all their family were members of the church. He was excited to hear that we were members and that we had just attended church next to the temple. He told us he was planning to be married to his wife in the temple in November. He explained that he had three copies of the Book of Mormon that he was planning to give out. When we arrived at the hotel, he told the doorman that we went to the same church. Also, that we were brothers in the Gospel.:)

We changed and took another taxi to an old monastery, Los Dominicos. The monk's cells have been converted to shops. It was a fascinating place.

There was every kind of shop imaginable, including a pet shop and a nursery for plants.

The little boy pictured below was getting soaked in a water feature. He was so cute!

Most of the shops sold indigenous crafts. It was interesting to watch the artisans at work.

We tried an empanada baked in the oven below. Yum!

We loved listening to the harpist. His music was very soothing.

As we were leaving Los Dominicos, we noticed that it was finally clear enough to see the Andes mountains. They are huge! Some of the peaks were still covered with snow and it was the end of summer.

Dinner was seafood and pasta with Jim's HP colleagues. Humorously, the restaurant was out of just about everything we wanted to order. We found plenty to eat, though, and enjoyed the visit.
As the day came to a close, I couldn't imagine how we could top the day we had just experienced. It had been an amazing day.