The title of this email comes from the service we did this week. As some of you might know, it was worldwide service day on Saturday, and the stake of Punta Arenas formed together to go clean up a hill. I promise you it was cooler than it sounds, Club Andino is a ski resort just outside of the downtown part of Punta Arenas. We met up at a local school, and separated into cars to get up to the service location. Living in the windiest city (most windy city) in the world, the trash gets blown all over the place. We chose a field on the way up to the ski resort that was covered with years of trash. I mean computers, mattresses, rebar, drywall, cosmetics, groceries, bottles of all types, bones of all kinds, we even found a baby. A baby doll of course! We were met with some fierce weather as it rained sideways with 45 mph winds, I tested my flying abilities by doing some long jumps with the wind. We ended showing up late to the hill, because our driver got confused about the directions. We drove all the way up to the ski resort and past the site by several miles. Once we hit about 6 feet of snow I mentioned that I didn´t think there was any trash to pick up under all that snow. The little tinny car we were in, was incapable of climbing the snow covered hills, so we pretty much slid back down the hill. I had never slid so far back in a car in my life. I think we slid about a mile back with the car off, and finally we debated whether getting hot chocolate at the club house would be better service for ourselves than cleaning a hill filled with old baby diapers. But we came to our senses, made a couple calls, and finally found all of the members quite a ways down the hill. It was a great experience, and though I forgot my camera, I have evidence that I went from the beautiful bruise I achieved on my elbow, from slipping and falling down the wet hill and colliding with a rock.
With love always,
Elder Haddad
