CONIN

We finally went to CONIN for the first time on Friday. It was a very emotional experience. There are four rooms and the kids are separated depending on their age. Each room has about 10 cribs where the kids spend most of their day. There are four workers, one for each room, that take care of the kids. But this is just a job to them so they do little more than feed them, change them, and make sure they are ok. We went for just a few hours on Friday and Saturday to get familiar with things there. It was so hard because there are so many kids in need and I'm only one person. Whenever we would go in a room the kids would all try to get our attention and as soon as we picked one child up the rest would all reach for us and beg to be held in our arms. Once we set them down they would just cry and cry because a few minutes isn't enough time. There was one little girl that as soon as I set her down in her crib to hold another child she started banging her head agains the metal crib. I really wish I had more arms or could split myself into multiple people in order to give these kids the attention they need. Hopefully the month we're here we will be able to not only give them more attention, but also the love they crave and don't get. Thank you for your love for these kids. As soon as we start a program with what we've brought I'll post more so you can see any progress we make. Please keep the kids of CONIN Chillan in your prayers, they are children of our Heavenly Father and life is so hard for them right now. They need that love.

Here's the second to youngest room.

Alfonso and Brayan are twins in the baby room.

Avea with two babies

Hailey with one of the girls in the third room.


Kim with a couple of kids. (Sorry it's sideways)

Me and Jorge "the politician". He always has his head tilted up and is looking down so they call him "el politico". Makes it kind of hard to burp him like that.

Little Belen. The newest in the baby room.

Ezekiel in the second room. He just smiles whenever anyone looks at him. So cute!

Elaina in the oldest room. She would hold onto Paige and not let her go.

Jamie, Ava, and Hailie with some of the kids in the oldest room.

Little Belen again.

Our first time holding one of the babies.

Ava with the second room. The church donated those walkers so the kids now have something else to do besides be in their cribs.

Jorge in the oldest room.  He's probably the sweetest kid you'll ever know.

Hermana Zeballos

Last Tuesday we went jewelry shopping with Hermana Zeballos.... Dangerous woman to shop with. Her husband, Elder Zeballos, will be speaking in the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference so be sure to watch for him! I got to take a taxi and the subway for the first time to get there! We all got a couple of things from the jewelry store and I discovered my love for pearls. There were millions of colors of pearls, but don't worry, I limited myself to one strand.

Us with Hermana Zeballos in the subway

Downtown Santiago

Monday we went to downtown Santiago to see the sights. We went to Cerro San Lucia which is a hill with an old fort on it. We also went and looked around at different famous buildings then looked at some shops. We had our first completo. It's a hot dog with avocado, mayo, and tomatoes on it. It was pretty good. Quick explanation for why we look nasty - we were walking in a cloud all day so our hair got soaked and our makeup ran off.

Us on Cerro San Lucia with Santiago behind us.

A building on Cerro San Lucia

A cathedral in downtown Santiago



Inside the cathedral

A burial building on Cerro San Lucia

Us showing that there's a dead man in there

We had to copy the dog statue

Our first completo's!

Us with the guard of their white house

WARNING may contain some PG-13 material

If you haven't been looking at Paige's blog she is also posting some of what we see. Don't look though if you can't handle some slightly dirty humor. She is posting the funny things we see or hear that are a little off or strange. Parental guidance advised for children under the age of 13 or children that need to keep their innocence a little bit longer.

What can we say? We're Single Girls.

I know I didn't post very many pictures of us at the parade or on the hill or at the rodeo, but here I'll make up for it. Here's the many pictures we -- meaning Kim-- took.

The start of the parade

On top of Cerro San Cristobal with two police officers.

More men in uniform

And more. The girls aren't old enough to appreciate this yet.

Gotta love the guns



Jamie with our new friend that kept saying he was very lucky that day.

Me with our new friend

Paige with our new friend

Us with a rodeo participant. Kim made us wait forever for a young enough one to pass by us.

Cerro San Cristobal and Rodeo

After the military parade on Saturday we went to Cerro San Cristobal which is a big hill in the middle of Santiago that has a statue of the virgin Mary on top with a statue of Christ on the cross a little below. At the top of the hill you can see a lot of Santiago. It's huge, I had no idea that it was so big. On the hill there was a little place we stopped at to have cheese empanadas and a popular Chilean drink called mote cone huesillo heladito. It's a peach syrup kind of liquid with peaches and wheat in it... Paige liked it, but me and Jamie just drank it for the experience. Funny story, there was also a few souvenir shops we looked at. Paige barely touched a magnet and it fell and broke. With a little persuasion from Dave though she got it and another one for the price of the one she broke. So now we just don't let her near magnets.
After Cerro San Cristobal we went to a rodeo. The rodeos here are a lot different than any I've been to in the states. The people participating wear a poncho, very large spurs, and a flat sombrero looking hat. They are in pairs and their objective is to herd an angry cow halfway around an arena then pin it to the wall as long as they can before it breaks away. It was mostly older men participating so it wasn't quite as fun for us single ladies as the military parade, but it was a lot of fun.

The Mote con Huesillo Heladito. Don't worry we didn't spend $600 on it.

The brain looking peaches in the drink

The virgin Mary on top of Cerro San Cristobal that you can see from a lot of Santiago on a clear day.

Another view of the virgin Mary



Christ on the cross that's a little lower down the hill than the virgin Mary. A little backward I know.

Hailey, Jinnie, and Ava on Cerro San Cristobal. Aren't they cute?!

A view of Santiago from Cerro San Cristobal. It's a little smoggy, but better than most days.

More Santiago.

The arena at the rodeo

One pair trying to trap the cow

Us at the rodeo :)

Here's a video of a pair trying to pin the cow on the side. Gotta love the music here.

Mmmmmen in uniforms.

Saturday morning in Santiago there was a military parade that we decided to go see. We got there at 8 only to be told that it actually started at like 10... welcome to Chile. It wasn't a bad wait, just funny to be the only ones hanging around on a street corner waiting for a parade to start.

Us waiting on the empty street corner.

:)

More :)

Breaking and Entering - Moms don't read!

Tuesday in Algarrobo the destination of our walk on the beach was the "island" that's really a peninsula. This island has wild penguins living on it so of course we had to go explore! We got to the gate to enter the "island" that's really a peninsula and the guard there wouldn't let us in. With a little persuasion from Kim he finally let us pass. We walked to the island part of the peninsula only to be stopped by another gate, but this one without an easily persuaded guard. It was just a locked gate, so what do we do? Climb around the gate of course. It was a little tricky so only me, Jamie, and Paige went. The "island" that's really a peninsula was full of seagulls that really made a lot of noise when we invaded their privacy. We walked around the "island" that's really a peninsula trying to find the penguins. We had to climb all over bird poop covered rocks and bird carcasses to get to a point where we could see penguins. We saw three!!! We weren't really close, but it was the coolest thing ever to see penguins in the wild!

Here is a view of the "island" that's really a peninsula

Us sneaking on the island

Two of the three penguins!