The Rogers' Neighborhood: HXP Vina del Mar

Wednesday, June 5, 2024

HXP Vina del Mar

Fair warning, these next photos are not in order. There are too many for that. But these were all taken in Vina del Mar, our home for the two weeks we were there.

Arm wrestling tournaments one of the first nights.

Breakfast. food was alright during the trip. We had the same thing for breakfast every morning; egg sandwiches, cookies and cocoa puffs, fruit, and cake stuff.

Guys' rooms. At the end of the trip when they finally saw the girls' rooms they were outraged by how nice our rooms were compared to theirs.

We had devotional every morning and every night.

Our hostel

Church the first week. We couldn't understand what they said, but there was a cello performance at every meeting.

Completos. That is not cheese...that is straight up mayo. Mayo, avocado, diced tomatoes, and ketchup. I mixed the ketchup with the mayo so I could pretend it was Chick-fil-a sauce. It was really gross, but I finished the whole thing.

Empanada night in Veronica's home.

The empanadas were really good.

We were looking at the ocean the night before the storm. The waves were huge.

City view

More devotionals.

We had to go to the store to stock up before the storm. Maya found some hot sauce she was really excited about.

Drinking mate

It may rain, but we had our soda.

One of the guys in the ward taught us how to salsa dance. He was really good. I was definitely not. I was kind of a lost cause. But then we did line dancing and I can do that.

We couldn't go down on the sand for some reason, but we liked it anyway. there were two stray dogs that followed us home to the hostel.

One of the marketplaces where we went souvenir shopping.

This is where we got our bracelets.

Red light street performer. This guy was juggling on a slack line. A few times there were umbrellas involved.

When it was raining we hung out at the church to play games.

There was an elevator thing that took us to the top of a hill.

Dan told the boys that if they asked a girl to dance at the ward dance then he would buy them pizza. So we all had pizza.

Cutting Owen's hair. That was my laundry trash bag. It kind of worked as a cape, but he just kind of looked stupid.

Most of us ordered Fanta, but Owen was the only one nearby who had ordered a Coke.

That was us at the beach. We were posing with the dog because he really wanted to be part of our group.

Kind of silhouetted, but we looked cool.

Staring dramatically into the distance.

Getting my ears pierced by Maya. No I did not tell my parents.

Chillin' at the airport. We had a lot of time to wait before we checked our bags.

The squad at the beach.

Carter stole Hazel's camera.

Washing Hazel's hair because she couldn't do it herself in a timely manner.

Splits with the missionaries. We went to this one lady's house and she had cats. I think I was the only one who sat in a dry chair. We had written out our testimonies before hand in Spanish and we tried to share them in Spanish. It was difficult.

Pia (from the ward), Collette and I had a friendship. The smallest girl was so shy during the dance and wasn't talking to anyone. I walked over to her and wrote on a whiteboard back and forth for awhile until she decided to dance with the rest of us.

Our last Sunday.

Humberto! He was our driver and guide. He showed us around everywhere and we loved him.

Everyone would just call out "Humberto!" at random times.

Hazel purchased a big lemon pie from a bakery. We took it back to the hostel, grabbed a fork and just started eating it there on the floor. We devoured it.

Dessert night

Functional flower clock.

Sophie, our group leader, served in the area. We went to one of the homes she ate at while on her mission. It was one of the best meals we had on the whole trip.

Rainbow from our hostel.

Temple trip. Walked performed my baptisms and he was really good. I didn't have to do any work in the font. It was a pretty small temple. Hazel couldn't walk very fast so Sara carried her, and Tanner and I carried their bags.