Ambato and Riobamba

December 22, 2010
Yesterday we took a day trip to Ambato and Riobamba. I was so excited to see some of the volcanoes. We left our apartment at 7 a.m. with Fernando driving. Fernando is the country welfare supervisor, and is the person we work with and report to. Once we left the city I started taking pictures, it was awesome. I totally drained the battery in my camera before the day was over. The countryside is beautiful. Fields are cultivated to the tops of very steep mountains. These areas are steep and so they have to be tilled, planted, cared for and harvested by hand. The houses would seem so poor and primitive to us, but the people were working and happy. There are huge green houses that vegetables and flowers are grown in. Unfortunately it was cloudy and rained so I did not get any good views of the volcanoes; we will have to plan another trip. We visited a hospital in each city to make final arrangements for a Neonatal Course that will be taught in January. It was a delightful day! I can see that I am defiantly a country girl at heart, no city life for me.



Fernando, our in country supervisor.



Beautiful hillside in Ecuador.



About as close as I got to seeing a volcano. Fernando would point and say there is Cotopaxi get a foto, all that was there is clouds, he would laugh.
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We stopped for breakfast at a place that had all sorts of antiques. I thought Trudy and Jessica would enjoy this picture of an antique saddle.



Countryside of Ecuador.

Preparing for Christmas in Ecuador - our first!

In front of the Christmas Tree in the office.


Christmas here will be different. No family to come over or to go and see. No snow!!!!! No fireplace!!! We did however have a Ward Christmas Party. A talent show was presented and then a dinner. I was even able to help in the kitchen for a while. The Church buildings here are not as big and there are no tables and chairs to set up for a dinner. We turned the benches around so they faced the stage for the talent show and everyone just held their plates for the dinner. The kitchen is very small, no fridge, but there is a stove and a small sink with cold water. We enjoyed a very good meal, rice with ham, onions, peas, green pepper, red pepper, walnuts, and raisins. It sounds odd but it really tasted good, it was served with fresh tomatoes, mushrooms and sliced green olives with a salsa hot sauce on top. They have the Americans bring dessert and chocolate is requested. So we all baked chocolate goodies. Sorry we didn´t get pictures of the food, I was helping in the kitchen and Dad is not a pathological photographer like I am.
I have tried to do a little decorating in the apartment without spending too much. We leave the decorations for the next missionaries so we are adding to them each year.
The country really gets into Christmas; there are lots of decorations up, mostly Santa and Christmas Trees. We hear that New Years is the really big Celebration. There are fireworks and then effigies are burned. We will have to watch from our window because I don´t think we want to be out. I´ll post more after our Christmas Day.
We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!


Our new nativity. It is beautiful.



Our Christmas decorations. Dad decorated the tree all by himself.



The Relief Society did a traditional dance.



Several of the Sisters sang Christmas Carols.



The Primary Children did a Fashion Show.


One of several Christmas trees in the city and the malls are all decorated much like home.

Ibarra Children

Ibarra Children from Brenda Yost on Vimeo.

I am attempting to post a video, hope it works. Would love your feedback and suggestions.

Guayaquil

We had the opportunity to take a short weekend trip to Guayaquil last week. It was delightful to get away and see some of the country. The two office Sisters and Dad and I all flew down Friday morning. Guayaquil is on the coast and is much warmer and more tropical than Quito because it is at 100 ft above sea level. This is also where the Temple is located and we were able to do two sessions. One on Friday evening and another on Saturday morning. Dad did both sessions in Spanish and did very well. The Temple grounds are beautiful and there were many people there attending the temple. Both days we were there groups of youth were doing baptisms. In between we did some tourist things. We visited a park full of iguanas, walked for miles (seemed like miles) along the river in an area that has been built as an urban renewal project and is beautiful. On Saturday we spent the afternoon at a Historical Park, I fell in love with the plants and flowers. Saturday night we went to dinner with a former missionary from Quito that we ran into as we were going into the Temple. Sunday we attended church with the family of one of our office elders. It was a busy weekend but very nice we really enjoyed ourselves. Unfortunately my camera battery died and I did not bring the charger so we missed out on many pictures, lucky you!

I am going to have to do a whole book of the pictures I've taken of flowers.


Some members we met while at the Melecon 2000, we later met them again at the Temple.


Walking by the river, this is a beautiful area that the city has built.


The grounds of the temple are beautiful, notice the poinsettias.


Hna Dresen, Hna Naylor, Hna Yost, Elder Yost.


Quayaquil Temple.


Iguana park, there are 100's of Iguanas all over the place!


They are even in the trees.

Ibarra, Children and Christmas

¡FELIZ NAVIDAD!!
How blessed we feel to be in this place and able to do this work.



Branch members, missionaries and us, notice the smiles of service.


One of the dances, they were so excited.


Yummy Yummy it´s the same in any language.


Giving out a Christmas treat.


The children with their new desks.


December 16, 2010

We had the most delightful day. We have been working on a project for a day care center in Ibarra. This is a center that cares for children while their mothers work so the children do not have to stay home alone. We understand that many of the children are from single mother homes. The church provided 100 desks for the center and the senior missionaries deceided to make little treat bags to give to each of the children. We attended what is known as the presentation ceremony. The desks had been delivered the day before, and it appeared they were enjoyed and being used. We notified the missionaries in the area and asked if they could attend to hand out the treat bags. Several members of the branch came also and sang some Christmas songs. The children did several dances and put on a very special program. This center was wonderful, we are hoping that perhaps next year we can do another project for them and get a stove and some toys for the children. This just made my Christmas, it was wonderful.

Walking to Work

I had told Trudy that I always looked down whenever we walk to work (or any where here). She told me I need to look up not down and enjoy the city. So to let her and all of you know why we all look down when we walk I will attempt a slide show of some of the dangers present as we walk to work. All of the Senior Sisters have fallen at least once, I have come close but have not fallen so far (knock on wood).

Evidence of Good Works

We were walking to work, like we do every morning, and noticed this gentleman in a wheelchair. When we got to looking we saw that it was one of the chairs that the Church donates. Fred asked if he could take a picture, we thought we might be able to use it to close one of the projects, since we can´t seem to get other pictures. Anyway he was so excited; he told us that the vice-president of the country had given him this chair. Then he saw the name tag, pointed to it and said "you too". It was wonderful to see evidence of the good work being done. Because of his wheelchair he is able to help direct traffic and parking at a hotel close to our office.
Just as an added note, while we were in Guayaquil we saw a child with a wheelchair from the Church, it was awesome.