Mission Presidents Seminar

Last week we had the wonderful opportunity to go to the Area Mission Presidents Seminar in beautiful Bariloche Argentina. To make an adventure out of it so we decided to drive along with President and Hermana Martinez of the Chile Concepcion South Mission and President and Hermana Rappleye of the Chile Osorno Mission. It was a lot of fun and Kent was able to cross Drive over the Andes Mountains off his bucket list. 

Martinezes, Arringtons and Rappleyes

There were miles and miles of fields of these yellow flowers. They extract some kind of oil from them.

See the triangles? Look closely and you can see more about 60 yards up the highway. They are
warning indicators used in heavy fog areas.  The more you can see, the faster you can go. If you
can see them all you can go 120 kilometers per hour, if you can only see two you need to slow
down to 60 kilometers per hour and even slower if you can only see one.

Crossing the border took about an hour and reminded us of how
Elder and Sister Dahle had to do it several times a week in South Africa.

We stayed at the beautiful Llao Llao Hotel.  Llao Llao is the name of the fungus from a tree that the
 indigenous people ate. Llao means sweet and when they used a word twice it meant very sweet.

The seminar was for the 28 Mission Presidents in the South America South Area which includes Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. We spent most of the three days receiving some great instruction from the Area Presidency - Elder Gonzalez, Elder Zeballos and Elder Viñas and their wives. We came away with a lot of great ideas to implement in our mission. We did take one morning to do some sight seeing. We went on tour buses up into the Andes Mountains behind the hotel. The scenery was breathtaking.

Wishing his hiking buddies, Mark and Gerald, were there.

Elder and Sister Viñas.  Elder Viñas was a good sport. He went to the top of
the mountain even though he was afraid to open his eyes and look down.

It was a Winnie the Pooh blustery kind of day!

President Monson always talks about "The Rescue".  Look who had to be rescued.

Bariloche is famous for chocolate. Wish we could send you a bar or two. Yummy!

The seminar was such a great experience. We learned so much from the Area Presidency.  We laughed and cried with other mission presidents as we shared experiences - we hope to NEVER have the experiences that some of them have had. Our time together was priceless but soon it was time to hit the road and return to doing what we love - spending time with our missionaries.

At the border crossing with Hermana Martinez

Welcome to Chile!

The best surprise ever was waiting for us when we got home. Our awesome Assistants, Elder Carvajol and Elder Evans, had dinner ready for us. The made completos - Chile is famous for them, they are hotdogs on a toasted hoagie bun with diced tomatoes, guacamole, and mayonnaise on top. Yummy! For the second course they made spaghetti. They weren't sure how much to make so they cooked TWO big bags of noodles for the four of us. We will be eating spaghetti for many days to come :)  They are the best and we were so grateful for their thoughtfulness.