We live on the fourth floor of the temple housing. The third floor houses the missionaries in the Chile Missionary Training Center - CCM in Spanish. The second and first floors are housing for those who travel long distances to go to the temple.
Some folks travel great distances and spend more than 14 hours on a bus to get to the temple. Some people cannot even get here by bus. For example, there is really not a road that goes between here and Punta Arenas without crossing into Argentina. If a person travels by land from Punta Arenas to here they would be spending multiple days on a bus. Fortunately, the national airline has very low fares if you reserve ahead far enough. They can be so low that it is less expensive to come to Santiago by air than to ride the bus. Of course, this requires good advanced planning, but people from the north and the south of the country do fill airplanes to come to the temple.
Chile is a very long, narrow country. If you were to turn Chile sideways and place it on the US, it would go beyond Los Angeles into the Pacific ocean, and still reach New York City. Yet, at its widest point it is less than 300 miles wide. Therefore, like most temples that serve large areas there is temple housing made available at a very reasonable price to travelers who come to the temple.
So where am I going with all of this? In our building there is an elevator. Of course, Claudia hardly ever takes the elevator, preferring the stairs. But in the elevator there is a place to post inspirational thoughts, just like in the church office building in Salt Lake. President Alder has asked me to use some of my photos and to make sure that there is a new thought placed there weekly. This is good for several reasons. First it forces me to make a connection between my images and the gospel, second, I get to display some of my photography, and third, I'll have something to post in this blog every week.
I have also started making a list of thing I have learned in the temple during our mission. So far, that list is fairly long, and getting longer. It actually is perhaps the basis for a book about learning in the temple. I will endeavor to write about at least one of the things I have learned each week, starting next week.
Here are the first three elevator postings:
Week One "Higher Thoughts" John 14:27 "My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
The photo is our back yard right after a Spring snow storm.
Week Two. 3 Ne 9:13 "I am the light and the life of the world."
The photo was taken at sunset from a restaurant on Easter Island.
Week Three Hymn 167 "Firm as the mountains around us, Stalwart and brave we stand, On the rock our fathers planted, for us in this glorious land. On the rock of honor and virtue, of faith in the Living God; They raised His banner triumphant, over the desert sod."
This photo is taken from a airliner headed from Santiago to Calama in the north of Chile. The big rock sticking up above the rest is in Argentina, Mt. Aconcagua, 22,838 feet. It is the tallest mountain in the southern hemisphere, and also the tallest mountain in the western hemisphere.
Week Four, Hymn 141 "Then wake up and do something more, than dream of your mansions above."
The photo is of the only moai on Easter Island that has been restored with eyes. All moai that are standing have been re-erected. They were all knocked down by rival tribes, but restored by an archaeologist from Wyoming.
The English version of the hymns is many times (always) different than the Spanish version, and the page numbers are different That means that what you read in English is not exactly what it says in Spanish, but you get the idea.
See you next week.
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