These next several pictures reflect a promontory in the middle of Santiago that the early Mapucho Indians called Cerro Welen. This is the place where Pedro de Valdivia was designated by Francisco Pizzaro to undertake the conquest of Chile and, by 1541, Valdivia had founded Santiago. Cerro Santa Lucia, as the site is known today, was the place where Valdivia held out against the indigenous forces that threated to expel the Spaniards. This site was initially a barren quary and was transformed into an urban beauty spot with more than 100 acres of garden, fountains and statuary during the early 19th Century.
This is a picture taken January 9, 2010 at Vina del Mar about 60 miles east of Santiago on the Pacific Ocean. Vina is also the headquarters on one of nine missions in Chile.
This last view is driving up a hill on our return trip to Santiago.January 1, 2010 at the Missionary Training Center, at the map of the world where many of the past missionaries have stood showing on the map where they were headed. The flight from Salt Lake City to LAX and then directly to Santiago, Chile was close to 14 hours in the air plus a six hour wait in LAX for our flight.
Sandy had a tutor for at least two months prior to entering the MTC. All the tutoring was done over the phone. Her tutor was Eduardo Vasquez, of Honduras. He works at the MTC assisting newly called missionaries
in learning Spanish. She continued her classes in the MTC. At the end of the first day at the MTC, the students and tutors had a meeting to determine room assignments. After the meeting, I spoke with Rodrigo, the head of the department, if an extra tutor was available to assist me to brushing up on my Spanish. Remember this was between Christmas and New Years Day. Rodrigo located a young man from Madrid, Spain. His name is Mario del Alba, on the left of this photo. We really had a great time visiting. He was a Real Madrid avid fan. Travis suggested I ask him who won the Spanish league. He reluctantly stated that Barcelona had by a single point. We had some good discussions about sports and other things even gospel discussions.Within a week of receiving our call, we received instructions from the Church Travel Office suggesting we fill out all necessary paperwork for our Chilean Visas. Sandy's fingerprints ended up being rejected twice by the FBI. That set us back a month from entering the MTC. My brother Orlan took me to the FBI office in SLC and had Sandy's prints taken digitaly. They were the second set rejected!! Anyway, we finally received information we needed to travel to Los Angeles and pick up our Visas from the Chilean Consulate. On December 22, 2009 we left SLC at 6:00 AM and flew to LAX. We were met there by our daughter Charlotte, her husband Todd and sons Tyler and Tate. They took us to breakfast and then to the Consulate. This is a banner that was hanging in the Consulate office, our first touch or feeling of Chile. We had a great time with family.
They then returned us to LAX for our return flight to SLC.
