Our July Birthday Stars

It wasn't very many years ago that our family did not have any July birthdays. That has been taken care of. We now have five special family members born in July:


Adam







Allison








Talitha








Kate








Emmett

Visit to the Grand Plaza in "Old Town" Quito

We left work in the middle of the afternoon in June and went to the historic center of Quito with the Yosts. We took the trolly. It is a bus for part of the way and then hooks onto an electrical cable and becomes a trolly. It becomes much less noisy. We were literally smashed in and held upright by the crush of people. One must guard one's possessions. A pickpocket has it really easy if there are good pickins within reach. We did not experience any problems. We got off at the Grand Plaza or the Plaza de Independencia. (You can figure out that Spanish word I am sure.) There were many cute small school children at the base of the monument in the center of the Plaza.

Below is the "White House" of Ecuador or the Government Palace. They have a changing of the guard on horseback every Monday morning. We want to arrange to come again on a Monday.

This government building takes up the west side, to the right on the north side is a big beautiful hotel and what used to be the castle of the archbishop. It now contains many shops and has several big interior courtyards.
This is the very nice and very expensive hotel. President and Sister Sloan were telling us of a dinner they enjoyed there with some important people.

This photo shows the former palace that is now a lovely collection of shops and restaurants. The hotel is at the far left. The pink building on the right is not directly on the plaza but across the street. The Cathedral of Quito is on the South side. Here is grandpa approaching the broad steps that lead up to the main doors of this church.

This door is carved with a depiction of Peter. He is carrying keys and there is a rooster at his feet.

The church has this high patio that extends the length of the plaza and there are a dozen or more of these stone balls that decorate the top of the wall. No two are the same.

The photo below shows the fourth side of the plaza. There is a building of much more recent construction that is the "City Hall" of Quito and some other commercial buildings.

We went to the street that the Government Palace sits on and walked south. This beautiful door is on the side of the Cathedral.

The door is wonderful but how do you feel about the stone work around it? Very impressive.

The name of the street is Garcia Moreno but there is a sign (above) that says Street of the Seven Crosses. There are seven lovely churches that each have a stone cross visible from the street within a few blocks from here.

This is the first one we passed. It is called the Church of La Sagrario (the sacred).

We could see El Panecillo from this area. El Panecillo literally means a little piece of bread and is the name of this hill. The statue is of the Virgin of Quito. She was constructed in the 70's. It is said that the ancient inhabitants had their temple of the sun in this same location.

Above is the entrance to the Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus - the church of the Society of Jesus. This is just a tiny piece of the front of the building. It is amazingly detailed and I suppose all of the carvings are symbolic. It promises more splendor inside and it delivers. We each paid $3 to enter and no photos are allowed. The interior is almost entirely covered in gold leaf! The walls, the ceiling, the pillars, the doors, the niches, almost everything that is part of the building that you don't walk or sit on. It is very impressive but a bit overdone for my taste. Every surface is ornamented with carvings and decoration. The ceiling is amazing. If you were bored with the service you could spend years trying to take in all of the detail in the building. The thing I found the most interesting was a huge painting of the 7 deadly sins and what the people in Hell will be experiencing. I suppose its purpose it to scare people into doing good and avoiding evil. I think it might work. I found that someone else had purchased a small copy of the painting. Perhaps I should get one.

This building (above) says it is the Central Bank of Ecuador.

Above and below is a famous tunnel on this street. It is called the arch of the queen and looks like a little building built on top of the street. Below you can see three children playing soccer in the area in front of another church. There is a chapel on one side and other church buildings on the other side. The tunnel is very old and I see pictures of it in various colors. Now it is white and bright yellow.

We passed a shop selling eggs. My interpretation of that sign is that they are promoting eggs that came from Ambato. But I certainly could be wrong.

We stopped in to see what used to be a big old hospital but has now been made into a cultural museum. It has a large beautiful interior courtyard and plenty of room for displays. Sister Yost and I plan to come back, park our husbands somewhere that has ice cream so we can leisurely look at whatever we want to. We walked around the back of the museum to a street called La Ronda. I loved this street because it reminded me of the older cities in Tenerife.

We are walking down the street and will pass under the bridge. The name comes from "the rounds" the night watchmen took a century ago. This street was the furthest from the center and the most distant that their rounds took them.

From the looks of this door perhaps they wish they had night watchmen in the present.

The tiny narrow street, tall buildings with balconies that are decorated with flowers remind me of our first mission. (The first man on the right is cardboard.)

There were posters on the houses that talked about the history and culture of La Ronda and Quito many years ago.


There were many children playing in the street this day. They did have the street blocked off from cars on one end. I don't know if this is an everyday occurrence or a special day but the children were having a wonderful time playing Foosball and several other games.

Kids of all ages were having a great time together.



They were playing ring toss with plastic bottles and plastic rings and below they had hula hoops.

Sister Yost and I had a great time taking photos of everything that caught our eye. Elder Yost and Elder Pettingill like to walk at an efficient pace and call it good. But they do wait for us when they get too far ahead.

Below is another view of the Panecilla at the other end of La Ronda.

It was a lovely afternoon. I love to see the beautiful old buildings that were built with such craftsmanship. Can you imagine carving stone, let alone wood, without power tools? It is amazing to me what has been been accomplished and that their creations stand for hundreds of years and influence so many people. (That Church of the Sacred above took 160 years to build.) It is seldom in our world that we build objects that last for hundreds of years but we are building our characters and extending influence that will last for a lot longer than that. Let's build well and share goodness wherever we are.

Farewell to President and Sister Sloan

President and Sister Sloan finished their mission at the end of June. They have accomplished much. The mission had many problems when they began 3 years ago. They worked very hard to gain the confidence of the priesthood leaders and build the missionaries into a dedicated team devoted to their Savior and willing to work and serve. Both the statistics and the love they have both given and received are evidence of their success. They are wise and wonderful people who have given their all in this special time of their lives. I hope they have a chance to rest a bit and catch up with their family before they dive back in to work and serve in the future. President Sloan said one of his first goals was to buy a barbeque and invite all of their family and friends to come over. The Yosts purchased two aprons as parting gifts. Many of us had a chance to write on them. On the bib, Sister Yost wrote, "Called to Serve--Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner". They certainly won the hearts of the missionaries (and many, many Ecuadorians) through love, teaching, testimony and lots of good food.

We wished the Sloans a fond farewell at the Vista Hermosa Restaurant. It does indeed have a beautiful view. It was a lovely experience to be on that rooftop as the sun set over the beautiful city of Quito. The food was delicious. These good people in the photo above have their hearts set on loving and serving and doing their best to contribute to the good in the world by building up the Kingdom of God. The Sloans honored all of us for our service with this dinner and it is indeed a privilege to be here and make a bit of a contribution.


This is an amazing cathedral close by. The skyline is filled with towers and beautiful architecture as well as the more ordinary rooftops.


This is the Panecillo. It is a huge statue made of 7,000 pieces of aluminum and stands on a tall hill in a city made up of hills at the top of the mountains. The Panecillo is visible for many miles. It was created in 1976. This is a closeup. The statue is a mile or two in the distance.

After dinner we enjoyed traditional dancing by a local youth group. They danced to live music (with pan pipes as well as guitars and percussion) and performed dances from several regions of the country in traditional dress. This took place in an interior courtyard of what used to be the palace of the archbishop. We all were seated on the stone steps around the courtyard. Wonderful evening.