September 15th - 21st, 2025
This week we experienced our first “Fiestas Patrias” - celebrating the independence of Chile from Spain. September 18th & 19th are the official independence days, but most people have school and work off for the whole week. When I was a missionary I always joked that they needed 2 days to celebrate because most people got so drunk on the 18th they needed the 19th to recover! Overall it was still a normal week for us, and we did get to join in on some of the celebrations which was fun. Before we jump into the week, enjoy some pictures around Santiago showing off some Chilean pride (including some of our missionaries in their red, white & blue).
To start off the week on Monday, we had the chance to meet up with Monica’s great-nephew, Elder Walter Browne (her brother Roger’s grandson). He is serving in the Santiago West mission and we got permission to take him and his companion out to lunch in their area, which was only about 40 minutes from our house. Walter and his family live in Florida so we haven’t seen them much throughout his life, so it was fun to connect with him and hear about his mission here in Chile before he heads home in a couple weeks.
On Tuesday we attended a district council meeting in San Miguel. Afterwards we bought a cake and went to the office to celebrate Hermana Clark’s birthday (one of our senior missionaries).
Wednesday we had a very special experience at the temple with a couple of our missionaries. Elder Nuñez from Argentina had reached out to us a month ago and let us know his grandpa had passed away. His grandpa wasn’t a member of the church, so after he passed, his family wanted to do his work in the temple and decided to have Elder Nuñez be baptized by proxy for him. We of course gave him permission to go to the temple an extra time and I felt honored to have him ask me to perform the baptism. In addition to the baptism for his grandpa, we were able to help another lady that came to the temple that day with a list of 40-50 family members who needed their baptisms performed as well. It was wonderful to be a part of helping these individuals receive this essential ordinance.
As we were in the temple, one of the workers shared his testimony of temple work and a story about his great grandpa with us. This brother was baptized in 2006 after meeting with the missionaries. Years later when he was learning about his family history, he came across the records of his great-grandfather and found out that his temple work had already been completed by someone else in a temple in Utah. When he checked the dates he realized that the day his great-grandfather was baptized by proxy by someone in Utah, was the same day that he had received a copy of the Book of Mormon from the missionaries prior to his own baptism here in Chile. He said he knew that was no coincidence and that he felt a very powerful connection to his great-grandfather and was grateful for the temple blessings in his family.
On Thursday, I started our next round of interviews with each missionary. We went to 3 different areas; Buin, Hospital, and Vi Luco, and interviewed missionaries at each. It was nice to break up the day a bit by driving between each area instead of just staying in one place and interviewing all day long.
Friday we had a meeting with all our district and zone leaders to help them standardize their weekly district meetings so they look the same across the mission. Historically these meetings have focused more on reporting the numbers and key indicators for each companionship, but I wanted them to start counseling more about the needs of individual people the missionaries are teaching and how to help them keep their commitments and progress toward baptism.
Afterwards, we came home and changed our clothes and then took the metro together for the first time to meet up with President Miranda and his family for an independence day celebration (called a “fonda”) at a park in downtown Santiago. They had live music from a Colombian Band, games, food and dancing. We had some traditional chilean dishes including completos (hot dog with avocado, tomato, mayo), empanadas, and mote (a drink made from dried peaches & wheat that have been boiled). We tried our best to learn the national dance, the cueca, and overall just had a wonderful night immersing ourselves in the culture.
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| Our new favorite drink, mote! |
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| Completos |
Saturday was a catch up day filled with groceries, working out and then watching the BYU football game with my son Brandon over FaceTime. We miss going to games in person together, but this is a fun substitute for the next 3 years.
Last Sunday after we spoke at a stake conference we were introduced to a young man named Brian who the missionaries had met 3 weeks ago. He had attended church every week since meeting the missionaries and had decided to get baptized. In chatting with him last week he asked if I would be able to baptize him and I said yes of course. The elders texted me on Saturday night saying that Brian was super excited to have me baptize him, and I felt so honored. Today, before the baptism I realized that I had forgotten to bring an extra white shirt to change into after the baptism, but luckily Elder Berrett was about my size and their house was close by so we rushed over there to grab a shirt. As I changed I realized there were 3 buttons missing and when I showed Elder Berrett he just laughed and apologized for grabbing that shirt. He said he’s been meaning to fix it, but figured his tie hides the missing buttons when he wears it so it wasn’t a big deal for him. I was grateful nonetheless. Brian was pretty nervous before the baptism, so I talked with him a bit in the hallway right before to try to calm his fears. Everything went great and it was a neat experience. It was my second time baptizing someone here and I am so honored and grateful every time we get to witness or assist with these special ordinances.
On our drive home this evening, we got to listen to our niece, Haili Bartholomew’s farewell talk. She is going to Mongolia on her mission, and we know she’ll be a wonderful missionary and a great blessing to the people of Mongolia and especially to her mission leaders!
Last week we mentioned Elder Rhoton who had to return home to fix his torn labrum. Well, he reached out after arriving home and shared with us that on his flight home he was seated next to an older gentleman that had served a mission when he was young and also had to return home for a torn labrum. So that was a great experience for him to have God place that man in his path on the way home, and again another evidence that there are no coincidences in the plan of a loving Heavenly Father. We testify that he is aware of each of us and sends other people to help us out along our path back to our heavenly home.
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| Dropping off Elder Rhoton last Sunday |
