Week 72 from Quito Ecuador

This week has been busy as we have been training the Williamsons to take our place.  They are both catching on really fast and I know they will do a great job.  Elder Williamson is picking up the Spanish very quickly.  We are enjoying our time together.  Lynn took Elder Williamson on the Ecovia and he came back telling Sister Williamson that she would probably not be doing that ride. It was scary.

We received 9 missionaries this week.  One of them was a missionary who is part of 14 we are receiving from Peru who have been serving there but having problems with visas and will be assigned to our mission permanently.  The other 13 will be coming this next Thursday.  We also had one missionary that was from the Quito mission that arrived with our group.  This will be that last group of new missionaries we receive before going home.

On Thursday I was on my way to the Colon chapel for our last day of training for the new missionaries.  I was in a hurry because I was running late and as I stepped off the curb at the end of the parking at our apartment building I tripped and fell.  I scrapped up my knee, got a cut on my right eyebrow and my glasses broke apart.  There were two women and one gentleman that stopped to help me up.  Since I was bleeding from my cut the man gave me his handkerchief, though I was reluctant to take it from him since I wouldn’t be able to give it back.  But, I was glad to have it as I limped my way to the chapel.  After I got there Elder Burleson saw me and got Sister Richardson to help me. She had a bandage for me.  After we were finished with our training part I was hurting from my injuries so decided to just go back our apartment, take a Tylenol and lie down.  I put some ice on my knee and my cut.  I used some essential oils on my wounds and it helped.  The Williamsons came by later to see how I was doing.   After going our whole mission with no problem I just have to go with a bang.  It’s kind of ironic.  When I had my little amnesia episode they asked if I had any falls or bump to the head but then a couple of weeks later I do but don’t have any memory problems.  Lynn was able to get my glasses fixed for $2 in a little eye glass shop on the bottom floor of our complex.

This actually looks a lot better than it did when it happened.
I used some essential oils to help with the healing and the pain.

On Friday the Williamsons took Sister Allred and Lynn and I to lunch for fries, since it was “Fry-day”.  We actually went to Teik a Breik and had a nice lunch.  I’ve been there a couple of times before. The owner is very friendly and attentive and gives good service and good food.

Today they made some changes to stake boundaries and to the stake presidency of the Santa Anna Stake.  They took the Colon and the La Gasca wards and reassigned them to the Santa Anna Stake, changed the name of the Stake to the Colon Stake and made a new stake presidency, since the previous stake president was moving.   Our building is now the stake building for the newly named stake.  These changes were made in a special stake conference that was held in the Colon chapel, which will now be the stake center for the Colon Stake.  It’s not any bigger than any of the other church buildings in the stake but is a little easier to get to with the Ecovia and the Trolly not too far away.  We were told that they will televise stake conferences to some of the other buildings to be able to accommodate those who live too far away to meet at the stake center. With this change these two wards are now in the Quito mission instead of the Quito North mission so there will be changes in missionaries assigned to these sectors.  These changes were necessary because the Santa Anna Stake was smaller and needed the strength from these two wards.  The Quito Stake was a lot larger and now both stakes have about the same number of units.  The Quito stake has a nice full size stake center to meet in, the Iñiquito chapel.

Usually our church meetings start 10 to 15 minutes late on Sunday.  We were told that we should arrive early for this stake conference since there wouldn’t be much room.  I wanted to go at least 45 minutes early.  Lynn said that 30 minutes was plenty early.   We got there about 9:30 and sure enough we ended up sitting on the stage in the back and it started right on time at 10am.  I told Lynn that he owed me an ice cream cone.

We had FHE at the Kaneens and he talked about how we strive to stay spiritual.  This will be our last FHE with the seniors.  As we wind down our mission we are having a lot of these “lasts”.  We are excited to be going home and get to know a couple of our grandchildren that we haven’t met yet and become reacquainted with others.