Day Trip to Calama

Today we drove to Calama for interviews with the Calama Zone.  This is a two hour drive north and when we arrived we could see snow in the mountains off in the distance: evidence of the rain and cold weather in the mission.  As soon as we arrived I was given a list of things from the Zone Leaders of things the missionaries need, which consisted of heaters and electric blankets.  One companionship keeps blowing out their fuses with the heaters so they need electric blankets.  I guess their landlord gets really upset when all the electricity goes out at night.  I wonder why?  So off to Lider I went with Elder Edwards as my driver.  This didn't give me much time to spend with each missionary individually, but I did get a chance to visit with them as a group.  And of course I brought them a batch of gooey chocolate brownies which they all enjoyed.  Before all of the missionaries departed for lunch we took some photos.  I'm trying better to document this mission (more blog posts Jilly).  All of the pictures that we took can be found on the Camina Conmigo blog.

A group photo with part of the Calama Zone.  Pictured are Elders Kennedy, Montes, Mallory, Madariaga, Carcamo, Koons and Lovell.

The token goofy shot.

This is a heater that is used to heat the chapels in the mission.  They are propane powered so the chapel smells like gas and I'm wondering if we are all getting asphyxiated as we sit there.

Calama is an easy day trip and it feels good to return home at the end of the day.  I kinda wish the whole mission was only a 2-hour drive.  Good thing we like to travel.