Week 37 from Quito Ecuador

The weather has been a little on the cool side this week.  It rained just about every day and that made it cooler.  I even resorted to wearing my coat in the office a couple of days.  Since the weather is fairly mild here they don’t have heat or air conditioning in the buildings so we are pretty much dependent on the the sun to warm things up.  So, if it’s raining, no sun, and no heat.   I’ve felt especially bad for
Sister Allred.  She is seldom warm here and when it is cooler so is she.

When it rains we need to either walk home in the rain, try and get a taxis to stop or take the bus.  We have started to take the bus now when it rains since taxis just aren’t that anxious to stop when it’s raining.  It’s not as bad to take the bus from where we catch it just a few steps from our office building.  The bus is usually not very crowded at that point and we can find a seat in the back and it only costs 25 cents to ride.  It’s not as bad as taking the Ecovia a few blocks further down the road and which is always packed with people.

Sister Allred has had a bit of bad luck this week.  It started out with her umbrella disappearing and then on Friday she was robbed while she was at lunch with the Kaneens, Sister Platts and the Nuttalls.  She had put her bag strap over the chair back and was sitting with her back close to the counter.   A man came in to get change, was right next to her at the counter and the next thing she knows her bag is gone.  He was really slick.  She lost her credit and debit cards, her camera, her cell phone, money and the saddest part was she had some irreplaceable pictures of her late husband in the bag.  When she was in the process of calling the credit card company they said that her card was being used as they were talking.  He was a fast worker.  It’s such a hassle for her and I feel really bad that it happened.  It made me grateful that I don’t carry a purse or bag with me.  I am usually wearing a safety money belt under my clothes with my money, credit cards and a copy of my passport in it.   It’s pretty hard for anyone to get at those.  I’m also glad that I have taken the time to scan all my most precious pictures into computer images that can be reproduced whenever I need or want them and have stored the original in a safe place.  None of my pictures are the only copies I have.  It’s also really easy to share them with others when they’re in that kind of format.

My biggest project right now is preparing the mission Christmas card to be printed.  I’ve been making sure that we have a good picture of everyone and organizing it and preparing it using Microsoft Publisher.   I used the Christmas card that was prepared last year for the Quito mission as a guide and I think it’s going to turn out really nice.

It’s been a fairly quiet week again.  Sister Allred has started to do Family Search Indexing in her down time and that has helped her fill the time when she has nothing to do.  When I noticed her doing that it reminded me that I can also do that when I have idle time.

This weekend was our stake conference.  Last night was the adult session and today the general session. Since it’s at the stake center we have to take the taxis to get there and back.  It’s not always easy to get taxis at night and we were tempted to not go.  The Nuttalls and us shared a taxis.  It took a while to get one to stop but we finally got there and were lucky to get another one to return home.  It was a good meeting.  We had a member of the seventy, Elder Torres, as our visiting authority.  We also had the Guayaquil temple president and his wife, President and Sister Groberg who attended and spoke.  Today we thought it might be kind of hard to get a taxis since there were so many needing to get rides after the conference was over but one stopped for us right as we got to the main street.  We lucked out.  I sat in the front seat.  Elder Nuttall asked if I was going to tell the taxis driver where to take us.  I was able to tell him the directions and make sure we knew what he would be charging us.  I felt pretty proud of myself and the other three thought I did a good job.  The taxis driver smiled and nodded his head as he understood what I said.

Our senior missionary group had a pot luck lunch after conference today.  As usual, there was lots of delicious food and good conversation shared.  We finalized our plans for our trip next weekend to Baños. I’m excited to be going.  It will be a fun trip. Hope I don’t get sick again.  I’ll make sure to take the motion sickness pills again that seemed to help last time.

Well, this is going to be fairly short and, sorry, no pictures to share this week.