Rancagua, Chile - June 2008

We arrived in Santiago, Chile on June 20th. Rancagua is a city of about 200,000 people and is located about an hour south of Santiago. We were warmly welcomed by President & Sister Resek and the elders associated with the office. The Reseks are from Buenos Aires. The President is a lawyer who has been working for the church. Sister Resek had her 40th birthday last week. She is very outgoing, fun and adds lots of spark to the mission.

Our 5th floor apartment is in a 15-story building in downtown Rancagua. Our apartment consists of 2 bathrooms (one that is being changed into a laundry room), a small kitchen, a spare bedroom with a set of bunkbeds, a small utility room, a nice living room and our bedroom. We have electric space heaters but with no central heating we've had some very cold days and nights.

The church office is directly across the street in a similar building on the 7th floor. There are four cubicles with computers. The President's Office is in an adjoining room. He isn't here much. Last Saturday we did a major clean up of the office. We're working with some great Elders. One is from Argentina so lots of Spanish is spoken and we're struggling to understand.

We have a great view of the city from our balcony. Here is the view looking east, note the Andes Mountains in the distance. We live two blocks from the city square. We haven't had time to do much exploring yet. We're looking forward to getting more acquainted with the lay of the land here.

The Assistants and the three office Elders live in a similar apartment directly across the hall from us. They are frequent visitors. From left to right are Elders Sappenfield, Oakes, Casper, Latimer, and Arevalos. they are patiently trying to train us to take over some of their responsibilities.

We have been to President & Sister Resek's home several times. They live the mission home with their four sons ages 14, 12, 8 and 5. The Mission Home is located in a suburb about 15 minutes from downtown.