Week 22 from Quito Ecuador

This has been a very full week.  It started off with the Richardson’s arriving at the new mission office.  They actually got there before the Ghents so we had to have them make a second entrance so the Ghents could put up the ribbon for the “official” ribbon cutting ceremony.    We had a small crowd to welcome them, come from the other offices and some missionaries.  We are now getting settled into the office and have our own little nooks.

Pres. y Hna. Ghent and Pres. y Hna. Richardson
Opening a new mission

The financial secretaries, Elder Morton and
Elder Cantera, in their new office

Sis. Thomas at her new desk.

Elder Nelson in his little domain.  The perfect spot for him to 

greet visitors with his Spanish.  Sis. Thomas and I are more 

than willing to let him function in that capacity.  He’s happy to 

now have his own computer and not have to wait to do his referrals

 for a computer to become available, which he had to do

 since we arrived in February.

Me in my little corner of the office.

We had a great group of missionaries leave on Monday, some of which we have gotten to know really well and will miss, like Elder Papworth.  He was one of the office elders when we first arrived here in Quito and we grew to love him a lot.  Hna. Cooper was one of the four sisters who were called as the first Sister Training Leaders of the mission.  I always loved it when she came to the office.  Her smile just glowed and lighted up the whole office. It was such a large group that instead of having their farewell dinner in the mission home, as is usually the case, they did it in the stake center.

The departing missionaries.

Tuesday we had 42 missionaries arrive in the Quito Mission, eight of which were visa waiters.   It was quite the task to meet them at the airport.  They arrived in four separate groups. The first group arrived from the Colombia MTC at about 10:30,then a small group of four arrived at about 1pm from Peru MTC, which included three sisters from the USA.  The third group arrived at about 4pm, also from the Colombia MTC (they couldn’t get them all on the same plane). The last one was Sister White who is from the USA and came from the Mexico MTC.  Since this was also such a large group we did it in the Colon chapel.  After the first group ate lunch President Ghent started his interviews while the rest of us had various tasks to do in training them, giving them an opportunity to email home and obtaining all their papers and passports.  We had decided that, since we had them all here Lynn would take about half of them over to the government office, which was just around the corner from the chapel, to get their empadronamientos.  In order to prepare the packets needed I had our computer and President Ghents scanner/printer and started scanning their visa papers and passport pages to send with them, while they ate lunch.  After the packets were prepared Lynn led the group over to the office.  He actually looked somewhat like the Pied Piper, leading the group of about 16 or 17 missionaries down the street.  He did the second group on Wednesday.  There was only one missionary that we didn’t get done since he kept forgetting to bring his visa papers from his apartment.  But since he has a two year visa there is no real rush to get him taken care of.

The new arriving missionaries.

New missionaries with their trainers. The Institute of Religion is in the background.

The Ghents decided that they would try doing a mini-MTC with this group of arriving missionaries.  They basically just extended the usual one morning training, which was held the day after they arrived, to two days, giving them extra training before sending them out to their assigned areas.   It was quite the task to feed this many three meals a day, but Sis. Ghent managed quite well with the help of the Kaneens, McDonalds and Pap Johns Pizza, and Lynn and I part of the time.

Thursday I had my own “tender mercy” from the Lord.  Tuesday I had taken individual pictures of all 42 arriving missionaries. These were needed for various reasons.   Early Thursday morning I decided that I should download all the pictures onto my computer.  To my great surprise and frustration there were no pictures on my camera.  It was like it had been reformatted somehow.   So, I knew that I had one last chance to take their pictures and went to the chapel early before the missionaries started arriving.  With Lynn’s help we lined up the new missionaries and took their pictures again before they went into the chapel.  Now some would say, “What rotten luck that all the pictures had been deleted.”  But think of the timing of me deciding to download the pictures when I did and find that they were deleted.  I could have very easily done it a couple of days later and then I would have had no chance to get the pictures.  The missionaries would have all been out to their various assignments, since they were leaving that afternoon, and I would have had no pictures.  I continually feel the Lord’s hand in my life as I do the things that need to be done.

Thursday evening all the senior missionaries got together at the Sego for a 4th of July celebration.  Elder Sego shared with us the poem “The Midnight ride of Paul Revere”, which is a family tradition for his family.  We had a nice evening of visiting and eating.

Friday we had the first Mission Leaders Council for the new Quito North Mission.  Since Elder Vega and Elder (Pres.) Burr are now in this mission and are zone leaders we were excited to get to see them again.  Since Elder Burr is now serving in Oriente Norte as a Branch President in addition to his duties as zone leader, it was nice to address him as President Burr but he seemed a little uncomfortable with the title.

The first Mission Leaders Council for the Ecuador Quito North Mission

The Richardsons attended our ward today for church.  They have three children, the oldest of which did not come here to Ecuador.  He is attending the university.  The two youngest are adopted.  Their second son graduated from high school last May and has a mission call and will be leaving in August.  I forget where he’s going.  Their daughter is 13 years old.  Sis. Richardson told me that when they met with Elder Eyring in regards to their call he told them that they were being sent to preside to the place that would be the best for their daughter.  She doesn’t speak Spanish right now but I’m sure she will learn quickly.  She has had to leave behind many friends and what was familiar to come to be with her parents here in Ecuador. They are from Sandy, Utah.  Both President Richardson and Hna. Richardson speak very good Spanish, having served missions when they were young in Venezuela.   As the Richardsons decide where they will attend church it will be what will be best for her.  They want to help her feel comfortable. They were trying out our ward today to see how it would work.  They were very impressed with the ward and the members. Time will tell which ward they end up attending. More than likely the ward where most of the US Embassy families attend since she will be going to school with them.

The Richardson family

As we were leaving church I had asked the Richardsons if I could take a picture of their family.  As Pres. Richardson was gathering his family he couldn’t find their son.  He figured he was probably with the assistants but we couldn’t find them anywhere and they weren’t answering their phone.  About then the door to the kitchen opened and all three of them stepped out with a couple of women, one a member of the church and the other her friend.  Apparently the friend was an investigator and they were teaching her a missionary lesson. Soon to be "Elder" Richardson was helping them teach.  As we were visiting with these two women, the member mentioned something about trying to find a place to wash their clothes. They had tried to use a launderia but they were closed.  They were here visiting from Guayaquil because her mother was in the hospital here.  Lynn mentioned that we had a washer in our apartment but not a dryer.  After they finished visiting with the missionaries and the Richardsons and everyone was leaving she asked if we would mind if she used our washing machine.  We agreed and they walked home with us.  I fixed lunch while their clothes were washing and we hung them up on our drying racks.  We had a very nice visit and they will be returning tomorrow to get their dried clothes.  She said that she is going to fix us an authentic Ecuadorian dinner.  We look forward to the treat.