|  Welcome to my Chile Travel Tips site for missionary moms (and dads)! I thought it would be best to use the home page to share a little about myself and my family and why we are currently living in Chile. So, here is my story.A little bit about me To start with, my wife (Daisy) and I are the ones in the picture above. My name is Tom Woodworth and I was born and raised in the LDS Church. I served a mission from 1993-95 in the Santa Rosa California Mission, where I served the first six months in english and the last 18 months in spanish. Daisy and I were married/sealed in the San Diego Temple in 1996. Although she is Chilean, Daisy never lived in Chile before we moved here in 2008, so moving to Chile was a new experience for both of us - but I'm getting ahead of myself.Why am I in Chile? My mother-in-law (Vinka) was born and raised in Chile and her mother still lived in Temuco until 2010. Vinka left Chile around 1968 and hadn't returned to see her family since. Daisy and I had been discussing visiting Chile since about the year 2000, but everytime we were ready to make the trip, some emergency would come up and all of our savings for the trip had to be used. Around 2005, Vinka was diagnosed with alzheimer's and we have been taking care of her since. Well, towards the middle to end of 2008, all she could talk about was seeing her family in Chile. Her memory was getting worse and there was no way we could send her by herself to Chile. If my wife went, she would have to take the 3 kids (at the time, the oldest was 8).
As you can imagine, I didn't want to be left behind. So, we prayed about it - a lot. We came to the decision that round trip tickets for 6 people was more than we could afford, but we had enough for a one-way ticket for everyone. So, we decided to sell everything we had and move to Chile - it truly was the hardest decision I have ever made. We still have our house in the US, and most of our personal items (photos, journals, etc) are with family, but we literally sold or gave away everything else we had and moved to chile with 2 suitcases each and 2 carryons each for a total of 24 bags.
I could go on about the many miracles that proceeded to come our way, but suffice it to say that we have been blessed and we love the people here. Vinka was able to see her brother, sister and mother before her memory faded and she is now in a wonderful home about a mile or two from us where she is receiving the best care I could ever imagine and we get to visit her often. | | How did this site get started? Back in February of 2010, you might recall that Chile experienced a major earthquake. As soon as power was restored to our area, I started calling/emailing as many missionary moms in the US as I could to let them know that their son or daughter was alright. While talking to one of the parents, they directed me to the Missionary Mom's site to find more moms (and dads) to contact. Thanks to Betty, I promptly signed up. Shortly thereafter, I received an email with a question on how to get to Concepcion from Santiago - one of the families was planning a trip to Chile to pick up their missionary. That question prompted a series of emails to the entire group. Since then, I have received other emails asking similar questions and I finally decided it would be best to put the information together on a website and share the link with those requesting the information.
I have taken the information and divided it into three pages as per the links at the top of the website (Airport/Money/Transportation). Just click the appropriate link for more information on those topics.Disclaimer Yes, there always seems to be a disclaimer, so here's mine.
First of all, I do not claim to know everything - I am constantly learning new things every day. If you find something to be incorrectly stated or have better information than what you find here, please email me and let me know so I can update the information. For the most part, the tips found on this site are things that I think will help those traveling from the US to Chile for the first time - if you're traveling down here for a second time, you probably already know most of this.
Second, refer back to the first item - I don't know everything and I have been known to be wrong before. This is by no means an official travel site and the information here is based on my experience and my opinions. Hopefully the information here will help you in preparing for a trip down here.
If you have any questions about traveling in Chile that are not answered here or have additional information or links you would like to share on this site, please email me. I'll do my best to find an answer or post your links.
I hope that you find the information here to be useful and thanks for visiting.
Tom Woodworth
Temuco, Chile | |
