Week 54 from Quito Ecuador

This last week has been a very typically busy change week with several zone leaders and missionaries moved around.  We received a great group of 18 new missionaries, ready to get to work. .  It was nice to have all but one in the group come at the same time.  The week went fairly smoothly, with very little problems.  Even the empadronamiento process went well and they were done within a couple of hours. I got a couple of pictures with Lynn leading the missionaries over to the government office by way of the Institute building at the back of the Colon chapel.  He was somewhat like the Pied Piper with the missionaries following behind him.

We had one missionary who has been waiting in El Salvador for his visa to be processed.  He was serving in a mission there while he waited, much like our visa waiters from Ecuador who serve in our mission as they wait for their visas.  It was good to get him here after several days of not knowing for sure when he would be arriving.  He ended up coming on Thursday evening and missed all the training and the welcome dinner Wednesday night, which was a bit sad, but he comes well prepared to start work here.

One of our missionaries does not have the traditional missionary haircut.  His family is from Otavalo but they are currently living in Venezuela and that’s where he came from.  He is allowed to have the traditional men’s Otavalan haircut which is long hair which hangs in a ponytail.  It is an accepted part of their cultural. He is a very enthusiastic missionary.  The Otavalan people were among the first to join the church in Ecuador and they have very strong testimonies.

Our Otavalan missionary on the right.

I love helping with the welcome dinner.  Sister Richardson goes all out to make the missionaries have a special meal at the mission home.  This time Andrea, their daughter, folded the napkins in a special way and they were put in the glasses and they looked like flowers.  The whole table setting was beautiful.  While everyone else is getting the dinner ready Sister Richardson puts me to work preparing the adjective wordles (or word clouds) using a special program on the Internet called Wordle.  One of the first things we have the missionaries fill out is a questionnaire.  On the back it asks them to list adjectives that describe what kind of missionary they hope to be.  Then we use these words in a type of word cloud.  They are presented to the missionary at the last meeting of training as they are getting their trainer.

An example of a Wordle

I also love to attend the meeting where the new missionaries get their trainers.  Pres. Richardson makes it a special event by having other missionaries say some nice things about the trainers before they hear who they will be training. It makes for a very exciting time.

Lynn and I celebrated Valentine’s day by having dinner at Pizza Hut.  They have a very nice restaurant and the food was good.  We’ve been to several local restaurants with the senior missionaries and have enjoyed them but Lynn likes the American food ones best and they accept credit cards whereas the others usually require cash.

Elder Sego is on the mend after nearly a week in the hospital and a few complications from his surgery to remove the kidney stones.  He was at church today and came to our senior pot luck lunch.  He was good to see him up and about but you could tell he was not quite up to his usual healthy self.  I’m sure that he would have been a lot worse off if he hadn’t been working out most days at the gym.

As I mentioned, we had our monthly senior pot luck lunch today at our apartment.  As usual, there was lots of good food and conversation.  Sister Platts did not come since she’s been sick for the last few days, but we had the Browns and another couple who are here visiting with the Greers.  They are also missionaries serving with the humanitarian efforts of the church, and are here helping the Greers with one of the projects for equipment for new born babies.  I’m not sure of all the details but it was nice that they could join with