PROYECTOS
Most of this week was spent counting school kit supplies. On Monday we counted out items for 570 school kits for Friday’s Viña del Mar assembly project. On Tuesday we counted supplies for the Talca & Rancagua assembly projects. This required dragging heavy boxes out of a room and then reorganizing them into piles by city and putting them back into the room. On Wednesday the youth were sent home from the Viña del Mar PFJ session because some tested positive for COVID. Chile has moved back to level 3 because of the rising level of COVID cases which limits the number of people who can gather in a group. Long story short-next week the youth will be divided into two groups that stay half the week. This means next week we go to Casablanca twice. So, on Friday we counted out two piles of supplies for Santiago South PFJ, alongside the Viña del Mar boxes. The area outside our office has towering boxes labeled for different cities. We are hoping to reschedule the Viña del Mar service project at a different time.
Other project news this week included the second wave of Venezuelan refugees being processed and bussed from Iquique to Santiago in our Family Reunification project.
We spent Saturday afternoon at the mall buying items for a pediatric unit in a hospital. Our purchases included bottle warmers and TV’s for patient rooms.
COMIDAS –ALMURZO (LUNCH)
On Thursday we took a much-needed break and delivered lunch to our friends in the Santiago East mission office, Elder and Sister Crocket. We heard about a place that made giant hamburgers. They were giant but they were not hamburgers. The meat was sliced beef instead of ground beef. One was topped with avocados and thinly sliced green beans (who would have thought green beans were good on a sandwich-they were!) The other had sauerkraut and a pepper spread which was yummy. Both were heaped with mayo.
COMPRAS (SHOPPING)
On Saturday we saw that same pepper spread for sale in a big barrel at the Vega Central Market. The market was an experience! Thanks to Sister Ridd (Hermana Lamb’s Spanish tutor) for showing us a video of Vega Central Market months ago. We purchased cheddar and parmesan cheese in bricks and lots of wonderful produce.
There were streets and streets of vendors before we even got to the market itself. People were sitting along the sidewalk with chickens in shopping carts- chickens with heads and feet still attached. Chicken for dinner anyone?
We also visited Pergola de las Flores, the flower market nearby. The roses were carefully sculptured pulling the outer petals down to form a fan around the inner bud.
Our market metro station was located at the site of Estacion Mapocho- a beautiful old train station built to commemorate the 1910 centennial of the Chilean Republic. It served as the hub of transportation from 1912 until 1987. In 1994 it was turned into a cultural center and is now a historical monument. We had to pass over the famous chocolate river “Mapocho River” to get there.
We observed several creative entrepreneurs during our Saturday travels beside the usual windshield washing and fruit sellers that walk between rows of traffic when the lights turn red, there was a guy jumping rope while dribbling a soccer ball.
COMIDAS- CENA (DINNER)
We found a yummy Italian restaurant in our neighborhood on Friday night and had guests for dinner on Sunday. We alternate eating Sunday dinner every other week with our upstairs neighbors, Elder and Sister Lindquist. Today Sister Estella Mendez joined us. Estella was in our virtual MTC (Missionary Training Center) group. We have been in-country for three months together and finally met in person. She is a lovely sister originally from Columbia but has lived in the US for years. She serves in the Santiago North mission office.
PERSPECTIVA
Mission life is like regular life with ups and downs, joys and frustrations, highs, and lows. This week a quote by Louise Hinckley Crosby helped bring perspective back to our work: “How dull and uninspiring a composition of music or art would be without contrast. Light versus dark, calm versus storm, soft versus bold. So it is with the composition of our lives…Lack of contrast means lack of progress.”
We will say goodbye with this picture of the rising moon taken from our upstairs neighbor’s apartment window. Quoting Mary Anne Rademacher, “We are not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.”
With love, Elder y Hermana Lamb, (aka Ed & Debbie, Mom & Dad, Pop Pop & Tu Tu)
Lambs in Central Europe 