Week 11 from Quito Ecuador

I’m feeling a lot better this week and back to normal activity again.  Monday was another busy day at the office.  We had a group of five visa waiters who had appointments on Monday.  After spending a good part of the day at the embassy it was found out that they all needed a paper that was not required when the last group went a couple of weeks ago.  That is the frustrating thing about trying to get the visas and getting the ones we need renewed.  The government will keep changing or adding to the requirements from one time to the next.  Paulina, who is the one in charge of getting visas, is really overwhelmed with the task, especially since she has to do this for all the missions in Ecuador, not just our mission.  To be of help Lynn and I have been trying to gather all the information that is needed for the visa waiters so that Paulina can make the appointments for them to get their visas.  When the visa waiters came in on Monday we made sure that we got copies of their “cedulas”, which is a sort of ID card that all Ecuadorians are supposed to have with them at all times, and a passport type photo of them with a white background.   This group that went in Monday returned to the embassy on Tuesday and finally got their visas and will be leaving the first part of this next week.  We also have appointments for this next Wednesday for another five visa waiters.  Hopefully they will have all that is required and be on their way to their missions in the next week.  That will leave only one that is going to a mission in Mexico that needs his visa and about six that are going to Argentina that need them.  Our list is getting down just in time for four more that will be coming in May.

This last week has been very rainy.  Each day will start out nice and sunny and then at about 3 or 4, just before it’s time for us to go home, rain storms will come up and we have to go home in the rain.  But, that’s pretty common for here in Ecuador.  April and May are the months when they get lots of rain in Ecuador.  We thought that it was March since it seemed to rain a lot then, also.

As I’ve mentioned before one of my duties is to make sure that we are getting all the records we need for the baptisms and they are as complete as they need to be so that membership records can be made for them.  That is sometimes a challenge, but most of the missionaries get the records in as they are supposed to and with all the information that is needed.  We had one record that has been in our “problem” file since last December.  This was for a sister who had been baptized but they only had a birth year, 1932, without the month or day.  The Convert Data Entry program requires the full birth date.  We finally got the missing information this last week and I was so glad that we could get a membership record made for this dear sister who had been baptized back in December but no membership record had been made for her.

President Ghent asked that I design a special card to be handed out through the missionaries to the members that they could use to invite their friends and family members to church.    It says “Venid y ved”  or “Come and see”  with a picture of Christ with his arms outstretched and has a place for the time of the church meeting and the address of the church house.  He got the idea from one of the talks at general conference.  He was very pleased with what I came up with and we are getting them printed by a brother who is in the bishopric of our ward and has a printing business.

I think I mentioned before about how I came up with the solution of using Dropbox to share needed files with the missionaries.  We are now using it regularly and it is proving to be very successful.  I even use it to place files in a separate folder that I need to be able to work on both at the home and at the mission office.  Elder Papworth had approached me this week saying that he got a call from a missionary who needed to get a copy of a form he needed to use.  I sent him the link to the folder while he was at a computer and within minutes he had what he needed.  It’s working very well.

 One day last week I went with Sis. Thomas to an Otavalian Market, which is just down the street from the office.  There are many little shops with many different kinds of goods for sale.  It’s hard to be limited in what we accumulate.  I have to be very selective in what I buy because I know that we won’t have a lot of room in our luggage to take things home.  But I did find a little nativity scene to add to my collection made from a large seed or nut.  I forget what it is called.  Sis. Thomas and I also added to our collection of scares.  The vendor was selling them for $12 each but went down to 2 for $16 so we each got one.

As mentioned before, another one of my new duties is to collect the information, including the passport numbers, for those arriving to the mission and pass this information on to Bro. Gonzalez, who then passes it on to the health insurance company so that coverage for the missionary can be in place when they arrive in the mission.  Many of these numbers are available in a program called “Global Visa Manager”.  The ideal is that this information is entered as soon as the missionary receives their call, usually by the area office from the area that the missionary lives in.  About half of the missionaries had this information entered for them.  But, I was still missing the rest.  We tried contacting their stake presidents to ask that he get this information from the missionary before they left for the MTC.  We received a few back this way but still have many without the passport numbers.  I had been in contact with a sister who works in the travel office of our area office in Lima, Peru, to see if we could come up with a solution to the problem.  This last week I got an email from her with information of a person to contact that is over the travel department.   This brother is going to work with the area offices to see that they get the necessary information entered more quickly.  They also are using the my Excel spreadsheet that I had used to gather all the necessary information to connect with the Global Visa Management program so that all I need to do is access the program and it will automatically enter what information I need and then allow me to send it to Bro. Gonzalez with all the needed information, including the passport numbers.  The trick will be in getting the area offices to follow through on their part so that the numbers are there to input as needed.  Oh, the challenges of running a mission.  It can get you down sometimes but then I see the Lord’s hand in the solutions and it encourages me.

Since I’ve been working with the Global Visa Management program and since we have all the passports of the missionaries that are in our mission I’ve decided to use them to make sure that all the information is up to date in the GVM.  Since I need to scan the needed pages from the passport to make the “ID cards” that I am making for those that need them I decided to just scan all the passports that we have of all the missionaries, even if they don’t need an ID card.  By doing this we will have this information on the computer without having to pull them out of the safe each time we need to get a copy or look at the passport.   This also made it possible for me to work on it at home, since I can put the folder with the scanned passports in our Dropbox account and access it at home.  I’ve spent a lot of time making sure that GVM is up to date.  With these scanned pages I can now make the ID cards that are needed.

Every Thursday Elder Sego has been meeting with the Kaneens to teach a little Spanish to them.  I found out about it and asked if I could join and did so this last Thursday.  We have a Spanish reading primer that we are reading through.  He listens and corrects as we try to pronounce the words.  It’s good practice and maybe I’ll learn something.

Iglesia de San Francisco & El Museo Franciscano

Yesterday, Saturday, our senior missionary group had an excursion day to what is called “Old town” Quito.  There are many museums, old churches and sites to see there, many more than can be visited in one day.  I loved seeing all the architecture and old buildings. We visited a beautiful Catholic cathedral and “El Museo Franciscano” which is located within the Convent of Saint Francis.  It had a large collection of religious artwork and artifacts.  They wouldn’t allow pictures to be taken except outside so I wasn’t able to get as many pictures as I would have liked but I did get some good ones.

As we came out of the museum there were many vendors trying to sell their goods.  One little girl, who looked so adorable was selling little bracelets so I bought one so that I could take her picture. We ate lunch in a restaurant under the museum.  The food was delicious.  There was a gentleman, I think he was the father of the little girl, who played Peruvian music as we ate.  The Kaneens and I bought a couple of his CD’s to enjoy later.






As we were sitting, waiting for our food to come I noticed a shop across that way that sold material.  The name on the shop caught my eye as it was “Brin” which is our daughter’s name.   Then a little later we came across a shop with the same name and, of course, I took pictures.  These are in your honor, Brin.

Brin's Fabric Store

The other Brin's Fabric Store

Some of our group visited the Presidential Palace but it required a very long wait, as they only let about 20 people in every 15 minutes and there was a very long line by the time we got there.  Sister Kaneen and I have a hard time standing for very long so we opted to see some other things in the area.  We visited another church, which was almost all gold decorations and very beautiful.   We were both exhausted by the time we headed home.

Presidential Palace

La Compañia de Jesús

When we got home and got online on Facebook I found out that we had a new grandson born that morning.  Our son, Kaleb and his wife have a new son, Talmage Isaac, 7 lbs. 11oz. and 20 inches long.  We are excited for this addition to our family.  This give us 38 grandchildren, including two step-grandsons.

Lynn spoke in church today.  As we and the Kaneens  were walking to church he gave us a summary of what he was going to talk on so we had a clue while he was talking, otherwise we are usually in the dark as to what is said.