On the way to Work

Everyday on our way to work we pass a little police station. I took some pictures the other morning for one of the Senior Sisters who wanted to mail them to her kids. As I looked at them I thought you might enjoy them too. It is fun to watch them line up and do roll call. At times there are one or two that are late and come running in. I think life is much the same where ever in the world we may be, there are times we are late for work and have to rush.

Pictures lots of Pictures!!

As promised here are some of our pictures, we have lots more but it is late so for tonight this is it. WARNING looking at all of these may become boring.


Meeting with President and Sister Sloan.


Arriving in Ecuador October 23, 2010.


Here is where we'll be tomorrow. Just ignore the date on the photo.


Grandpa dividing all his change. The final good bye, this was hard.


Our final morning at the MTC we attended a session at the Provo temple.


Near the end of our final day of training at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

Visiting the Sick

I was asked to help with some of the nursing duties in the mission. The last couple of days has been really busy with nursing, it is kind of like home health in Ecuador. I told you about the Young Women the President asked us to check on, they were robbed and injured. All the other nurses are away at Zone Conferences, so we took a taxi with the Elders from the office to find them. It is interesting to find apartments in Ecuador since there are no real addresses. This one was above a restaurant. We had to go through the restaurant, and the kitchen out to the garage through a door then up the stairs and through a gate. The girls are fine, they are leaving next Tuesday for home. We are thinking of visiting them again tomorrow. Last night we got a call from Sister Rogers, one of the young nurses. She asked us to go and check on a new Elder that was just transferred here who has been sick. We don´t usually go out at night and we are not very familiar with the city, but she gave us directions to the apt. they went something like this: Tell the taxi driver to go to streets La Frenza and Rio Curaray, it is by La Iglesia Concepcion (a Catholic Church), turn right, the street goes to the left, it is about 40 steps and is the house with the green wall. Well nothing was as described. We called the District Leader in the area, he is the only Elder with a phone, he only speaks Spanish, but a new Elder was with him that spoke English,(a tender mercy) he tells us to go to the wall with graffiti on it and turn left and we should find the house. Well - Every wall in the city has graffiti on it. The Elders were on their way to where we were because they were doing transfers last night (another tender mercy). We went back to the main street and waited for them. I now know what it is like to stand on the street in the dark. We found we were in the right place but the green wall was a green metal gate, in the dark it looked black, the apt is the upstairs of a home and you had to ring the owner to get in. When we did finally get there the sick Elder was out teaching. I left instructions for him to call but never did get a call last night. It was an adventure and we have now seen some of Quito at night. It actually looks pretty good after dark. We did contact the Elder today, he is feeling much better and had an appointment with the Doctor today. All in a days work as a missionary.

We Are Now Legal

Tuesday November 9, 2010

Well today all of our paperwork was completed and we went to the Ecuador Immigration Office and got our Censos cards. These are essentially green cards stating we are temporary residents of Ecuador. The Elders came with us which is always nice. After, as is tradition, we went next door and got a doughnut. While we were there we received a call from President Sloan requesting we find some Young Women from Idaho who are serving here with a charity organization. They apparently had an incident where their camera was stolen and they where knocked down and injured. One of the Mother´s had phoned the President and he was anxious we find and check on them. We did find them and all was well. Blessings were given and they were feeling much better when we left. Understandably they are anxious to get back to Idaho.

Our First Official Project Closing

O.K. so everyone has been anxious to figure out just what we do, including us. Last Friday we were able to visit Casa de Refugio Matilde. This is a shelter for women and children from abusive situation or refugees mostly from Columbia. They do some really good work here in Ecuador, and have been doing it for more than 20 years. Several months ago the church donated a new refrigerator to the facility. We went to close the project. We submitted the final report today.

Serving the Elders

November 4, 2010

We have been busy the last two days with preparing and serving food for the District and Zone Leaders of the Quito Mission. I wish I could post some pictures, but alas we still do not have Internet at home. The Senior Missionaries do a lot of cooking and baking for the Elders in our mission. Then we take all of this food to the curb and hail a taxi, load it all in the taxi and head for the Stake Center. I am sure the people of Ecuador must wonder about these funny Americans taking so much food in a taxi.

We then set up and feed Helaman´s army. It is so much fun to be with the young Elders and Sister missionaries. They are an awesome sight. Dad really enjoyed attending the meeting, it helps him learn his Spanish. I just enjoyed associating with such wonderful young men and women. They can really pack the food away and seemed to enjoy every bit of it.

Tuesday night we served dinner with Elder and Sister Rose at the Mission President´s home. They had asked us to give a testimony, since we are new and the Roses´ are leaving soon, so we prepared our testimonies. Of course when it came time all I could do was cry, I am such a cry baby. The sight of these young men serving God made me think of how proud their mothers would be and I lost it. I did try to read my Spanish testimony. I asked Dad if you could understand anything I said. He told me no. I did try! Dad did really good though, his Spanish is really coming along great. He can get us where we need to go and knows the way home. I am still very lost even walking home, and we have been walking for over a week now. Of course we change our route every day for security reasons. There is such a big group of us I really don´t think anyone would mess with us. I kind of feel part of a herd. But it is great to belong. I´ll post some pictures when I can.

Last night on the way home we stopped at two shops. One was an artist shop, he had some very interesting paintings and carvings. I think we may go back and buy one or two. Then we stopped at a very nice (expensive) shop. It was delightful to just see all the art, weavings and wood carvings. They have some very beautiful things that I would love to get but we have decieded to wait for a bit and explore some more before we buy suveniors.

Baking In Ecuador

November 1, 2010

The mission is having Zone Conference Tuesday and Wednesday. The Senior Sisters do a lot of baking and cooking for these meetings to feed all the missionaries. So, I was given the assignment of 3 dozen cookies and a cake. Saturday we went shopping at Super Maxie (that`s the name of the grocery store) and attempted to purchase the ingrediants for the cookies. There are many things not available here and many things that are a little different from home. The shortening comes in a bag and is very soft. The butter comes in a large cube and is very hard. The sugar has much larger granuals than at home and doesn`t taste as sweet to me. We couldn`t find crasines but did find some cranberry snacks in a very small bag that I could use. Then we had to go to Mega Maxi (this is a bigger store) to buy a hand mixer. When we got everything together I started to cook. My kitchen is the size of a closet and no counter space at all, very cozy. Anyway I got the cookies put together and started baking them. At home it takes about 10 - 12 minutes to cook. At about 5 minutes these were buring. I really for some reason thought it would take longer at 9,000 feet but that is not the case. This is another thing I miss, my stone baking sheets. The other Senior Missionaries said they tasted good, but I thought they were a little flat compared to back home. Tonight I am trying a cake. We`ll see how that goes. We were suppose to get Internet Saturday but the installer did not show up. We are in a holiday now until Thursday, so it may be another week before I can post some pictures.