Sunday, April 6, 2014

Week 61 from Quito Ecuador

This has been a great week.  Since we had some of our missionaries that came from Venezuela that needed to get visas some of my time was spent in preparing the packets.  One thing that is challenging about dealing with the government offices it that they want only cash, even when it’s large sums of money that has to be paid, like when we get visas.  Lynn had to make sure that the financial secretary would have the money that he needed to get the visas since they would cost about $150 each.  Since we were getting 8 that makes for a lot of money to have to have with him. This is an example of the challenge that money transactions can be here.  Most places, besides government offices, won’t take credit cards and want exact change and really frown on $20 bills.  The exception to that is the bus.   Lynn has found that they seldom turn him down when he gives them a $10 bill for a .50 cent fair for the two of us.  He will get lots of change, mostly .50 cent pieces and smaller, plus some $1 coins.  These coins seldom last long after he has been to the post office or some other store to buy things for the office. 

On April Fools day our daughter announced that she was expecting.  Since it was April 1st I wasn’t really sure if I should take it seriously or not, but she later confirmed it. We are excited to have another grandchild expected in September.  That will make 42 grandchildren for us.

This weekend was great.   We enjoyed the two sessions of conference during both days.  Saturday night we had a dinner with the seniors at the two sisters’ apartment.  They made Navaho tacos, having the rest of us bring ingredients to go with them.  They were great, really light.  We then separated to different apartments, the men to the Kaneens to watch the priesthood session and the sisters to the Greers apartment to watch the movie “Miss Potter”.  I hadn’t seen it before and really enjoyed it.

I really enjoyed the conference talks.  For me it seemed that there were a lot of talks about how to cope with trials and to be spiritually prepared for hard times ahead.   Several of the brethren were speaking directly to the youth to stay strong.   I’m seeing more and more how hard Satan is working to win over to his side.   We have to stay vigilant and strong.  We know who is going to win. The big question is which side are we going to end up on.  Let’s pray that we all stay strong for the Savior.  I loved Elder Stevenson’s comment about our “four minutes” of life and how we will have all of eternity to consider what we did with our “four minutes” of this life and the choices we made. 


Stay strong.  

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