Sunday, January 19, 2014

Week 50 from Quito Ecuador

It’s been another quiet week, though we did have a couple of interesting things happen.  The president and his wife, along with the assistants, went to Esmeraldas for a couple of days to do some training.  Sister Allred stayed with their daughter at night so she wouldn’t be alone.  The only problem with going to the mission home is that it is not always easy to get a taxi.  She had such a hard time on Wednesday that she finally, after more than an hour of trying even with the apartment guard’s help, called Sister Platts to take a taxi to go and get her. To say the least she was very frustrated.

Since we have started taking the bus I’ve gotten used to them.  The buses and bus drivers are kind of different here and sometimes make for interesting rides.  They have standard transmissions which make for very jerky rides.  Sometimes the bus drivers seem to think they are in a race and will pass each other.  Others don’t seem to be in a big hurry.  The other day the driver was one of the “in a hurry” drivers. In fact, as we were trying to get him to stop for our street the light had turned green and he wasn’t about to stop to let us off.  He let us off after he turned left and then an immediate right about two blocks from our stop.  I was a bit frustrated with the whole thing.

We had a new missionary come this week unexpectedly.  Thursday afternoon we got a frantic call from the mother of a missionary saying that she had heard that her son was being transferred from another mission and was told that he was being sent to Quito, Ecuador and she wanted to make sure he was OK.  The Quito mission didn’t know anything about him nor did we.  The office elders finally found out that the travel office had the itinerary for him and that he was coming to our mission.  It seems that he had unknowingly done something illegal while helping an investigator, who lied to him, and had to get out of the country.  He arrived late Thursday night and we met him at the office on Friday.  This will be his third mission to serve in.  His first mission was divided in July and he was put in the new mission and now he will be serving in our mission.   He has been out 14 months and was serving as a zone leader as he left, which indicates that he has been a great missionary.  Our mission will be greatly blessed with his service.

Saturday night we went to the baptisms of a couple who the office elders have been teaching.  They were married last week, since they have been living together without being married.  They have three darling children.  The wife has relatives in the ward and the family was very excited for them to be baptized.  The office elders sang “How Great Thou Art” as a special number.  It was great.

Today Lynn and I received a surprise during church.  One of the councilors in the bishopric pulled us out of Sunday school class and asked us to teach a family history class during Sunday School.  It’s not a calling but just something they want us to help with.  At first he said that we could just alternate with Lynn teaching one week and me teaching the next but Lynn told him that simply wouldn’t work since he doesn’t know anything about family history and I know very little Spanish.  So we will be team teaching, starting next week.  They will invite several members to participate who they think would benefit from the class.  I’m especially excited since this will be my first time teaching family history since they came out with the new videos and manuals that the church produced a few years ago.  I’ve already downloaded all that I need both in English and Spanish.

Today we had our monthly senior pot luck lunch with the senior missionaries.  We always enjoy the good food and visiting that we do afterwards.  Our apartment is great for this since we have more room and a great view of the city.


Sorry no pictures again.

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