Another Mission visited and progress with the apartment

The middle of March seems like yesterday and yet ages ago. As predicted, I was very busy with appointments through the end of the month and into April. General Conference was wonderful and seemed to have a calming, reassuring effect on most missionaries. However, some of those who were really overwhelmed seemed to come to the end of their endurance and in the past six weeks there have been four elders and two hermanas who have returned home early due to mental health concerns. Because the usual rate is one missionary every one to two months, the number is extraordinary. One mission president's wife jokingly told me she thought I had decided I needed a break, but the only way I could do that was to send everyone home. Today there is another elder in crisis. He will travel about six hours by bus to see me tomorrow. Hopefully, we can figure out a way to stabilize him so he can stay in the mission field, but given his symptoms, that doesn't seem likely. It is a sad situation in many ways when missionaries need to go home for mental health reasons. However, it would not be right to keep them the field and have them continue to decompensate.

Dr. and Sister Welch and I spend April 18, 19, 20, & 24 doing presentations and giving flu shots at zone conferences in the Rancagua Mission. Jim MacArthur is the mission president. So, it was fun to be with him and his wife. Our travel to that mission was different than usual. Two of the zone conferences were only a forty-five minute drive from the area offices. One was 1 1/2 hrs away and the other 2 hrs away. It was a bit expensive, but less than motel rooms, so we had a driver take us back and forth each day.

That area is known as the fruit basket of Chile. There are many beautiful orchards and vineyards. The fruit stands along the freeway are so picturesque they look like a painting. We saw many large packing houses from which the fruit is shipped all over the world.

It is fall here and the weather is quickly turning cold. The outside temperature is in the low 70s or 60s during the day which is nice. As I have mentioned, because many of the buildings are made of cement and have no insulation, the temperature inside is often 10degrees lower than outside. Last winter the only heat I had in this apartment was a little electric heater that only warmed my bedroom if I had the door close. Well, this winter I am hoping for a better quality of life :) A man in the temporal affairs office negotiated with the landlord to let the church arrange to fix the windows to shut tight and install a gas wall heater in the living room. They also replaced the old stained carpet. The cost of all that will be taken from the rent over the next several months. In addition, I am having the shredded sheer curtains replaced. The contractor finished his work yesterday and the curtains are coming Thursday. I feel like I have new lease on life knowing I can stay warm and have a much cleaner apartment.

Recently three senior couples have left the area. Two couples , the Dahlstoms and the Kimballs, because they completed their missions and one couple, the Masons, because he was transferred to Buenos Aires to be the auditor for the new consolidated area. It will only be another five weeks and the Welches will be completing their mission. there is a constant coming and going of senior couples. Within a little less than six months. I will be the one going home.

Well, this entry brings me up to date. I will be in the office for one more week and then will spend most of the next week visiting the Antofagasta mission. It is the farthest north mission and covers a very large area that includes the worlds driest desert. Shortly after the time I reach the one year anniversary of my arrival in Chile I will have been in all nine of the missions.

Visit to Concepcion and Concepcion South

The month of February flew by. I was as busy as in January. Nothing too out of the ordinary happened. Although, I do have to say, I never see a boring case. One missionary I saw every week for over eight months completed a successful mission and returned home. An accomplishment for all involved. In fact, the mission president and his wife took me out to dinner the following week.

On March 12 the Welch's and I flew to Concepcion to work with the missionaries in the Concepcion and Concepcion South missions for the week. The president in the Concepcion mission is Pres. Neal Humphrey and his wife Leslie. The Concepcion South president is Pres. Osvaldo Martinez and his wife Adrianna. They are the parents of children ages 11, 8, and 5. We spent two days in the Concepcion Mission and one in the South Mission. Since the Martinez speak little English and the Welchs and I speak little Spanish we were all challenged, especially when the five of us were traveling in one car from city to city, but we had some good conversation and got to know each other better. What a blessing it is to work with such dedicated people who love the Lord and love the missionaries. I did seven presentations and talked with many missionaries during the week.

It is such a small world. The Humphreys are from California, but have some real estate investments in Utah which happen to be with Knight-West, one of the companies my brother, Bill, is a partner in. Neil remembered meeting Bill.

Thursday afternoon we visited a fabric mill that makes some of the most beautiful fabric I have ever seen. It is custom made for high end companies around the world. Much of the fabric is wool and retails for hundreds of dollars a meter/yard. Your can buy mill ends that retail for $500 a meter for about $25 a meter.Some of the other fabric which would costs around $100/yard is sold at the mill for $6.

That part of Chile reminded me of Salmon, Idaho, mountains and a lot of trees. I am very impressed with the way the Chileans care for their forests. They have certain areas that are designated as native forests that are like national parks. Other large areas are designated for trees that are grown specifically for harvesting. They rotate the areas. They grow a pine and a eucalyptus tree that matures in seven years. As you drive through the forests you can see trees at varying stages of maturity as well as freshly cut and newly planted areas. To me that makes a lot more sense than all the fighting between the environmentalists and industry.

Tomorrow will begin a busy week of catching up with some of the missionaries I didn't see last week due to being out of the office. So, I had better get to bed.

January and getting rather hot!

During the month of January I stayed very busy. Monday and Friday are usually somewhat light, but the other three days of the week are so packed it is not unusual to be booked solid for 8-10 hours without a break. Luckily the restroom is not far down the hall from my office. Anyway, I am so blessed to have the chance to work with the missionaries and only wish I knew how to be more helpful to some of them. One of the missionaries i worked with this month had been in combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan, had his best buddy killed on one of their missions and had also experienced some hard times growing up. I knew I couldn't give him the intense treatment he needed here in the mission so advised the mission president to send him home then got in touch with the VA system and set up treatment for him the day after he arrived home.

It is hot here. All the windows in my apartment face west. Each morning I make certain the windows are open until I leave the apartment then I close all the windows and the rubberized blackout drapes. Some nights when I get home the apartment is filled with the smell of over heated rubber. However, I must say the heat hasn't been nearly as hard to deal with as the cold last winter. At night I open my windows and put a fan on a chair by my bed. The fan is not only cooling, but blocks the sound of the traffic on Pocuro, the busy street on the other side of a large parking lot next to this apartment building. That constant sound of traffic and sirens is something I won't miss when I return home:)

I had a very nice birthday. The day before my birthday, Saturday, one of the senior couples invited me to go to lunch and a movie. They also invited any of the senior missionaries that work in the area offices or the temple to join us if they were free. Altogether,five couples and I went out to lunch, which was really fun. The next day,my actual birthday, Renee Mason, the woman I walk with, invited me to Sunday dinner. She and her husband are also senior missionaries. He is the area auditor. That afternoon and evening I was able to skype with Megan and Maren and their families and got e-mails from Mandy, Bill and other family and friends. About a week later I got an e-mail from Bobby saying he had tried to call on my birthday. What more could I ask for!!

For some reason I am getting a lot of referrals of missionaries with insomnia. Some I can help, but some continue to struggle regardless of what we try. The missionary medical department does not approve the use of Ambien or Lunesta and I try to avoid going through the involved process of seeking approval to use an antidepressant as a sleep aid. Usually it is the missionaries who, for whatever reason, stayed up late and slept during the day before their mission who have the worst insomnia.

When I did the January report, I realized that there was a reason I was feeling overworked and tired. I usually get around fourteen new referrals each month and work with 50-60 missionaries, During the month of January, I had 21 new referrals and worked with 72 missionaries. In addition there were three missionaries who went home early which always involves many phone calls and extra paper work..