Delivering mattresses

It turns out we are still visiting the dentist on Calle Colo-Colo. Elder Kennington let Dr. Araya check one of his old amalgam fillings, and after poking around, he agreed that that one needed to be drilled out and replaced. The dentist made a mold of his tooth, like mine, and the next week he installed a perfect little South American capa, tooth cap. We are both carrying around mementos of Concepcion in our mouths now. We have one more visit, so Dr. Araya can clean Elder K's teeth. We are interested to see how much all of this will cost.

The last Sunday in July we visited Barrio Centro in the Talcahuano Norte Stake. Since Barrio Centro is on the shores of Bahia Concepcion, it is generally cold, windy and wet during the winter.

We were thinking of our dear ones in Eastern Oregon, Idaho, and Florida, where the weather has been perpetually hot and (at least in the west) mid-summer dry. We are actually glad to be instead enduring the not-so-cold Chilean coastal winter.

On our way to the capilla, LDS chapel. Talcahuano houses the Chilean Navy base, which we have not visited yet. There is also a golf course nearby. Maybe when the sun is shining.

The chapel was up a steep hill, sandwiched between apartment buildings. You could fit maybe three cars in the driveway, so we parked on the street. We met several ladies from our weaving workshops like long-lost friends. One of them wanted me to teach her basic computing, so we set a date for Tuesday morning.

During Sunday School Elder K. had to tease one of the ladies, naturally, for bringing a purse-load of snacks. So she made him take one. When we got home and opened the package, it appeared to be giant chocolate-flavored Cheetos. We still haven't dared to eat any. 

During the week we picked up a few extra colchónes, mattresses, from the mission office. With the volume of missionaries coming and going, and houses and apartments rented throughout the two mission areas, there are always leftover or used items like these mattresses. We asked Hermana Rosa who might need them. Since she is the humanitarian chairman in her branch, she knew just the family--a woman with five children, two of them married, who had been abandoned by her fireman husband. Several family members were sleeping on the floor of the earthquake-ruined house she still lives in.

Although new pre-fab government housing is being built for these families, it is still not ready, and they don't come with mattresses, anyway. So we drove the hermana to the lane near her house, and she and Elder K. carried each mattress through the rain. She told Rosa they were thrilled to have mattresses to sleep on. We also picked up some sábanas, sheets, from the mission home, and a couple of new pillows at Lider, and gave them to Hna. Rosa to deliver via microbus.

Friday we stopped at Andrea's for haircuts. I took a picture of this black bird perched over the Laguna Tres Pascualas in her back yard.

We have been seeing beautiful work come out of the latest of Andrea's weaving groups. The chaqueta--a hooded, sleeveless jacket, modeled by this young weaver--is the finest example of woven squares finished with crochet I have seen so far.

A back view of the chaqueta.

I finally started on another wall hanging. This one is of Chilco, the beautiful Fuchsia Magellanica of Chile. It will be a companion piece to my now-famous Copihue wall hanging.