Mano del desierto 1/25/2016

Posing with the Hand of the Desert

This week has been a busy week! On Wednesday every missionary in the world took part in a world wide training broadcast. Everything in the broadcast was translated into Spanish so it was a good opportunity to take some notes. My Spanish has made leaps and bounds these past 2 weeks. I can understand pretty much everyone most of the time but now I am having trouble talking back to people. I can have a conversation but not all of the words come to me as naturally as I would like them to. But that is one of the things that I am going to have to practice these next couple of months. Guess that is why every missionary have a 3 month training, I am almost done with my first month of training and I cant wait to be done.

 

Also I had the opportunity to help open an area this week during intercambios (exchanges) with other Elders that work near us. Whenever an area is opened that is brand new for the Elders that are working in that area and it was an awesome experience to help work in this area. All together my companion and I had 3 different intercambio in one week.

And lastly today for our preparation day we asked some members to take us to the Mano del Desierto! ( Hand of the Desert ) It was like an hour drive out of Antofagasta and it is in the middle of nowhere. But it was cool to go and see it, I'm not really sure of the back story behind it. * see end of blog

I want to talk really quick about the day to day life in Antofagasta. We do a lot of walking, no missionaries have cars or bikes in the entire mission because the roads are really crazy. There is a public transport system of buses that can take you anywhere in Antofagasta for a little less than $1 USD if you can figure out what bus number you need. But we never use them unless we need to get somewhere far away. Our area isn't huge but it is extremely steep. Some of the streets that we track on I just about need to crawl up.

Thanks for all the emails!

Elder Brayton 

 Mano del desierto

The scorched moonscape of Atacama stretches for hundreds of miles on both sides of the Pan-American Highway, undisturbed by any sign of human activity. About 75km south of the town of Antofagasta, its monotony is shattered by a sight even more alien then the desert itself, and yet undoubtedly human: an 36-foot-tall hand protruding out of the sand.

Mano de Desierto is a work of the Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrázabal, built in the early 1980s. It was financed by a local booster organization called Corporación Pro Antofagasta.

This views shows the size of the sculpture.

Road trip to the desert!