We try a new restaurant

The first Sunday in August we drove back to Talcahuano. One week made a lot of difference--this time the sun was shining.

Along the autopista you can see "Talcahuano a Nuestros Nobel" with its metal sculpture profiles of Chile's Nobel prize-winning poets, Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda.

Rain often falls, thankfully, during the night. Sunday morning we saw this arca iris, rainbow, over the LDS chapel.

The LDS stake center in Talcahuano, Barrio Las Salinas, through the window of our Outback. Hilda Gutierrez, the trauma nurse, attends this ward. She came in late from working all night at the nearby hospital.

Sunday evening we went to a dinner at the Concepcion Sur mission home in order to meet President Bluth and his wife, Hermana Bluth. He was an ophthalmologist in Arizona before being called as president. The two of them are close friends of my sister Susan and her husband Blair, from their years living in Reseda, southern California.

Hermana Pendley had cooked the entire dinner herself, in honor of Elder Pendley's birthday. I doubt I will taste mint brownies like those again until we go home to the States.

 

Having lived in Concepcion for ten months, we are finally starting to try different restaurants. Restaurant Peruano, Las Americas, had been recommended as one of the better ones, so we walked up to Rengo and San Martin to give it a try for our almuerzo, midday meal.

 

Since it was 12:30, we were the only people in the restaurant, being silly gringos who like to eat lunch early.

 

The menu was expensive. I ordered chicken with champignones--mushrooms--and potatoes. The food was good with a nice presentation. The bottled water is "sin gas," although it still tastes like soda water to me.  

Elder Kennington was intrigued by the paintings on the wall behind me, including this one of indigenous Peruvians with what is apparently a very small person in front rowing a canoe. We might wonder at the painting's perspective, but we are told there is a strain of very small people living in the Andes. You can observe this in families where all members are normal-sized except for one who is proportionately much smaller than the others, usually several inches under five feet tall.

 Elder Kennington's cell phone wasn't handling the light very well, but I like this photo anyway. 

 

Friday we went to the Concepcion South mission office on Calle Castellon, where Elder Kennington gave a Self-Reliance and employment workshop to a large group of missionary elders and sisters about ready to go home. 

When that workshop was over, we returned to the Self Reliance office and found two groups of sisters happily weaving and sewing. This sister is wearing a beautiful woven jumper she said she tore out at least six times.
Elder Kennington taught the Planning for Success workshop required for those wishing to apply for a Perpetual Education Fund loan, to eight students. There was a lot of laughing from the aula, classroom, and they were surprised how fast the time went by. I was in the middle of compiling a DVD's worth of training manuals, videos, Powerpoints, forms, etc. for stake Self-Reliance specialists, and had 25 of them burned and in labeled DVD covers for Bro. Seguel for distribution at the next training meeting.

Saturday morning we went to teach one of our ongoing English classes, which are finally coming to an end. We already have a number of people signed up for the next go round. Those who have continued coming for over two months have done very well. 

We have learned a lot about our own language, for example, the infinitive verb "to get," meaning to obtain, receive, arrive at, reach, etc. changes its meaning when expressed with another infinitive verb, such as "I get to go to a movie," meaning a privilege or an opportunity.. We also had trouble explaining what the word "such" means. 

On our walk back up Chacabuco, we passed a new restaurant we want to try with the other senior missionaries. The Rosa Amelia restaurant is different because it has parking out in front.

We were counting the Chinese restaurants on Chacabuco. There are at least five, and a couple of sushi restaurants, too. There are several Chinese shops around town selling housewares I can't find anywhere else.

Elder Kennington took this picture of me wearing my rain jacket so you can see the nice soft pink mohair neck scarf I knitted from yarn Vanessa sent me.

Every day we pass this sinagoga, synagogue, on the corner of Rengo and Chacabuco. We are told there are Jewish people in Chile but I have not met any.

Also on Chacabuco is a magnificent specimen of the Chilean native tree, Araucaria Araucana.

The evergreen Araucaria tree

A very large camellia shrub in full bloom, in the middle of the Concepcion winter.