On to Ecuador

This HUGE poster was in the airport in Quito. It says, Coca Cola - Take the lid off of happiness. Welcome. You have arrived at the middle of the world.


12/11 The alarm didn't go off! Forget the shower. Just put on clothes and jump in the car. David was up and wondering why we were so quiet. There was no traffic and we made it to the airport in plenty of time. It was a very long day but all the travel went smoothly. We flew to Chicago and then to Miami and then to Quito. On the last leg of our journey Alex was sitting next to Lewis. He is from Ecuador, has been working in Madrid for the last several years and was going home for Christmas. His mother didn't know he was coming and he was excited for the surprise. He was very nice and in our conversation Lewis gave him most of the first discussion. He was very polite and even interested. We didn't have a Book of Mormon to give him but he said he would get on the internet and learn more.

The senior missionaries came to the airport to greet us. They waited for a lot more than an hour since three flights came in at the same time very late at night. We didn't get through customs until almost midnight. The Area also sent a member with a taxi to take us to our apartment. The senior missionaries had put up a Christmas tree inside our apartment to welcome us along with enough food to get us through till Monday. The apartment has everything we need and we felt very welcome and happy to go to bed.

2/12 It was not easy to get up this morning but we met the other senior missionaries downstairs in the lobby and walked to church. We went to the Colon Ward that is only a 1/2 mile or so from our apartment. It was the Primary Children's Sacrament Meeting presentation and they did a wonderful job. There were about 8 older girls and 6 younger boys and 2 little girls on the stand. They all had a speaking part and did so well. They knew all the words to the songs and it was wonderful. We went to the Gospel Essentials class and the teacher was excellent. After an introduction of all the class members and to the topic he divided the class into groups and gave each group an assignment. This is very often used but afterward he numbered the individuals in each group and had them form new groups and teach each other what they had learned. He circulated among the groups and joined their discussions briefly. It was very effective and everyone participated. The class was about evenly divided between members and investigators and I was impressed with how well it worked. The logistics would be more complicated with a large group but it worked very well for our class of about 20. Relief Society went well also. It looks like the church is doing very well in the Colon Ward.

At 4:00 (thankfully after a nap) we went to one of the sister's apartments and enjoyed a great dinner with all of the senior couples and the office elders. The food was American and familiar and the welcome was warm. The humanitarian couple are sort of similar in situation to ours (not working directly with the mission) and will be showing us the ropes since they have been here for six weeks. After one day in Quito we are feeling ready to go to work tomorrow. This is Elder and Sister Yost who are the Humanitarian Services missionaries here in Ecuador. They are from Rexburg, ID.

This was our first day on the job. The senior missionaries walk to work at 7:30 AM. The single sister missionaries need someone to walk with them and all of us work in the same building. It appears that our office building was the Area Office before the South America West and the South America North Areas were combined. Now five countries are in the South America Northwest Area - Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Our Area Office is in Lima, Peru now. So there is this nice office building that now houses all of the country functions like finance and membership along with the employment resources center and the Quito Mission office. Everyone is anxious to make us comfortable. Lewis has his own office. I have a space but no computer yet. And there is a service center with two computers and telephones for contacting the participants. One girl came in but the other one has had surgery and has not been in for a long time. We will be very comfortable with the office. All we have to do is get the work done! There is a lot of it. It will be easy to improve our record of calls made. There are over a 1,000 participants and only one girl who made about three calls today.

Monday is FHE for the senior missionaries. They have opening and closing songs and prayers, a short Spanish lesson, a regular lesson, a testimony given in Spanish and refreshments. Next week it will be at our home and we get to make the refreshments. This is Elder and Sister Geldmacher who work in the mission office and are responsible for all of the apartments and the mission finances.

12/14 Second day in the office. We walked with the Yosts, Sister Dresen and Sister Naylor. It takes a while to walk the mile and a half because the sidewalks are anything but smooth and there are lights to wait for. Pedestrians have no right of way so you have to be very careful of cars but it seems to be a bit better than in the Dominican Republic. (You might like to read Sister Yost's blog at http://mapayost.blogspot.com/ Go back a couple of posts to see her slideshow about the perils of walking in Ecuador. It is good to keep your chin up, except when you are walking.)

Sister Sloan and Sister Yost in the kitchen of the mission home. The Sloans have two daughters living with them and four children who are married and/or going to BYU. Their family home is in Lehi, Utah.

We were given the assignment to help the Yosts serve lunch at the Mission President's home. For Christmas, President Sloan and his wife were bringing in all of their missionaries for a day in Quito complete with meals. Apparently Sister Sloan has gone all out to treat the missionaries as pampered guests. They love it. The senior missionaries who work with the mission and others who have time help prepare and serve food. The missionaries from Esmeraldas were there today and were treated to sweet chopped ham in rolls, potato casserole, cut up fruit and soup. They had hot chocolate and mostly homemade cookies for dessert. The food was delicious and it was fun to meet the missionaries. It was our first chance to meet President and Sister Sloan. They are both impressive and down to earth. Sister Sloan is obviously very well organized and welcomed us warmly. President had only a few minutes to talk with us but was very happy that we asked for an opportunity to work in a ward or branch that could use some support. It seems that perhaps we will work along with the Yosts for a period of months in several units one after another. He would like us to teach how a ward council should operate. I like that idea because we can travel together and perhaps provide support for Primary and Relief Society. We may have very long Sundays. More photos from the mission home. The back of our mission president's head is visible below.

And just in case you thought missionaries are always serious and solemn, especially while in the mission home under the eye of their mission president...

12/15/It looks like we will have regular office hours as a default. The single sisters need someone to walk with them to the office and home again in the evening.

The light above my desk needed to be replaced so that took a while. The people in charge of physical facilities spent time with us. They have agreed to install another computer and phone to be used for the service center. That will give us three stations and they will arrange to have a space for a fourth when that is approved and funded. I will move into Lewis' office and they will arrange two desks for us. The previous space will become an extension of our Quito Centro de Servicios for FPE.

We had scheduled a time in the conference room to have a video conference with Samuel Gomez (Coordinador FPE del Área) and Henry Utrilla (Supervisor Centro de Servicios). But when the time came the Area had a conference going with Human Resources. We didn't have our cell phone yet so it took a while to communicate and set up something else. Our office phone wasn't working. Finally we communicated by email and got Skype to work with the videos and were able to talk for an hour or so. He told us that the previous South American West Area and the South American North Area were combined in August of 2009 to form the South American Northwest Area to administer Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. They needed to combine the policies and procedures of two different areas and now form the second largest Area in terms of participants. We have almost 10,500 with 1,300 new ones every year! They say it is very fast growing with the resources to support it growing more slowly than the number of participants. In the beginning there was little screening of participants and there is a huge number of old loans with problems. They want to continue working on those problems but put even more effort into training the new participants on how to follow through with their commitments to prevent future problems. So there are lots of concerns but also lots of very good things taking place. We have our work cut out for us but these men understand the goals and how to reach them. We are grateful for strong leaders and we understand that our Area Presidency is one of the strongest supporters of PEF in the whole world. I am assigned to be the Service Center supervisor in Ecuador. I am worried because we have three people currently calling and a workload of about 1200 participants to contact each month! I will have plenty to keep me busy.

We went out to lunch with the Yosts after our call. There is a bakery just around the corner that makes sandwiches and sells bread and desserts. We got two little pizzas for $1.80 each. They are about the size of Pizza Hut personal pizzas and not bad at all! I took half of my pizza home, we should share next time. We also bought 2 rolls con mermelada that were like a croissant filled with jelly and topped with honey. Delicious. Better not eat those every day. There is a nice kitchen and dining room in our building where we can eat lunch. On the walk home from the office we were shown an English bookstore and where the Institute building is located.

Our landlady came to our apartment and we filled out a contract and paid our rent and a deposit. She is very nice and a profesora of Spanish. She also speaks English quite well. She agreed to take out some of our furniture and decorative objects so we will have more room.

12/16 We came early to the office for our Skype conference with Salt Lake. Then we figured out that it was at 12:00 noon rather than at 8:00. Two hours difference but later rather than earlier. We had to delay our appointment with Yolanda, our landlady, a bit but it all worked out.

The conference was to introduce the new e-learning available for PEF. It is wonderful. It consists of many short videos showing PEF functioning. There are interviews with participants, bishops interviewing students, stake leaders teaching, volunteers contacting and so on. It will be wonderful to show rather than just telling. We will find this very useful. It will be online and we will get computer CDs soon and after that they will make CDs that can be shown on the building library equipment. You can choose to show just what will be most helpful to any particular audience or individual learner. We invited Paola to view it with us and she is excited also. Apparently she has done training in the past and is willing to help us in the future.

A young man who works for the cable company came to our office to sign us up for an internet connection. It was much more convenient that going to their office and standing in line. He says we will have it installed by Tuesday of next week. I can hope that is true. Life will be great when I can use my computer with internet at home. I've missed my freebies from Scrapgirls and my Google Reader will be bursting at the seams.

We made it home in time to meet Yolanda. She came to take the furniture and decorative items that we do not want to keep in the apartment. It feels better to have a little more space and less stuff. I still need to organize and it is time to vacuum but we have done a load of laundry and things are coming together.

We went on a wild goose chase to look for a narrow table to hold my laptop and external hard drives. Finally found the stores that were recommended but they did not have what we wanted at any reasonable price. Lewis is thinking of making one but I predict that making one would involve more cost. We'll see.

12/17 Went to work in the rain and spent most of the day going through Lewis' filing cabinet. We threw away lots of stuff. Hope we don't regret it but no one needs pounds of training materials for obsolete processes.

We got very wet at lunch time. But it was our own fault. We went out to lunch with the Yosts and two sister missionaries, one of which is a nurse as is Sister Yost. The two of them have responsibility whenever any of the missionaries have a medical problem. It had rained on our way to work but the sun was out and it looked like no more rain. Not so, it was pouring by the time we were eating and we stayed to get the check because the others had appointments. When we left the restaurant we went the wrong way and it was raining very hard. We bought another umbrella. When we realized that we were lost we went back to the restaurant and started over. We got back to work just fine but in crossing the streets got our feet soaked and we were quite wet before we bought the umbrella. Back at work we took off our shoes and then dripped on our plastic carpet protectors at our desks and wiped it up with paper towels. It is very cool but not cold so we were fine.

We had gone to Pizza Hut. It was very impressive. Much more attractive than any Pizza Hut I have been to before. Our food was served on large heavy square white plates. I heard one crash to the floor in the back of the restaurant so they may not be very practical but they look nice. They had a lunch special where you can get two items for $5.99. You could choose from salads, pasta dishes, bread sticks, pizza or desserts. Those who had been there before were smart and got four different items and split them between the couple or companionship. The food was very attractive and they made squiggles on the plates like they do at Cheesecake Factory. And the "personal pan pizza" is much larger than we are used to. We asked the waiter how much an additional pizza to go would be and he said $7.95. (!?) So we got the pizza at a discount and an extra item and a drink besides. It’s making me hungry. I want to go back soon. But one must wait a long time to get the food and the bill. Our waiter had way too many crowded tables to attend to.

12/18 Saturday was the first day that we did not have to get up early and Lewis got up long before dawn to make bread. We had found whole wheat flour and also some quinoa flour and Lewis wanted to experiment. He made about 7 loaves and we gave a loaf to each of the two other couples and the two single sisters who each live in their own apartment. It was good but there is room for improvement. We organized a bit more, vacuumed and mopped the floors. I ironed all of the clothes that were wrinkled from being packed our suitcases. We gave up on finding or making a table to serve as my computer desk and went back to MegaMaxi and bought two very large TV tray type tables that will work fine. Together they cost $66 but anything else would have been much more. So we are in pretty good shape and only need our internet connection. We had bought a $35.00 desk chair on our first trip to MegaMaxi with the Yosts. I'm ready to have my computer with internet available to me so I can blog and make birthday photos and communicate with our family and read my favorite blogs.

MTC and Salt Lake City - Second Week

The Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City, Utah. A high school choir is singing Christmas carols from the balcony.

Over the weekend I helped Nancy by making a invitation for Morgan's surprise 16th birthday party for later this month. Nancy is having a disco theme and we ordered 100 4x6 prints. There is her basketball team and her volleyball team, the Young Women and more friends at school. Nancy hopes that they will all come in disco attire and have a great time together. It will be at the church on the Saturday night before her birthday. Best wishes Morgan!
We enjoyed our CES training today. I asked about the name change to S&I and learned that CES is the larger (including the universities and other things) organization while S&I is just seminaries and institutes. The teachers we have are personable and skilled and they taught us great principles and had activities that not only gave us a chance to practice but were at least as fun as they were stressful. They told us there are two imperatives: 1. Teach by the Spirit and 2. Love your students. Elder Scott said, "Truths presented in an environment of true love and trust qualify for the confirming witness of the Holy Ghost." He also said, "It is worth great effort to organize the truth we gather into simple statements of principle." We need to do that and help our children and students to do that also. Then we can apply the principles to our own lives.

We went to our mailbox and along with finding the name tag that Lewis ordered there was a Christmas card and letter from Alan and Carolyn Barnard. It was fun to receive a Merry Christmas greeting and learn about their family. Our Christmas will be different without our children around us but we will have a wonderful Christmas. I don't yet know what it will be like but we can celebrate our Savior's birth anywhere and without any props. And we will still get to communicate with our family.

On the second day with the S&I guys who work in the Church Office Building we learned that the scriptures are a mirror or a well depending on what we bring to them. We need to get to the bottom of the pool to find the treasures. Put students to work in the scriptures. They suggested:

• Use words and testimonies of the Brethren
  
• Ask questions that cause students to analyze truth and ponder its meaning and significance
• Invite students to consider truth in the context of their own experiences - then invite them to explain, share and testify of what they know and feel
• Use stories, illustrations, examples
• Encourage writing
• Offer sincere, heartfelt invitation to apply truths learned
• Bear testimony
  

Are you a "Sage on the Stage or a Guide on the Side" What would our children/students prefer? I hope we can put the skills we have learned to good use on our mission and in every teaching situation.

Elder and Sister Craig Zwick spoke at the devotional fireside held Tuesday night. They were both very impressive. Their theme was the importance of coming to know and trust Jesus Christ and they told several personal stories of their mission experiences to illustrate. Sister Zwick told us about her first day as the mission president's wife. Their first phone call was from an elder who was calling from a pay phone wearing only his companion's overcoat. He said that they were at the church and several "terrorists" with guns forced him to remove all of his clothes in front of the Seminary class then poured floor wax on the clothes and burned them. He asked, "What would you like us to do now?" She told her husband, "I don't think I can do this with our four little kids." The 9 year old said, "You can do it Mommy, Heavenly Father will help you."

Elder Zwick told us that when he was young and on his first mission he had a very scary three weeks in Argentina and then the mission president asked him and three others to go to Bolivia and build a meetinghouse in one of three small mountain villages and convert the people. He and the three other missionaries and the four horses they took with them in a boxcar until the end of the line. Then they had to find their way to the villages by swimming rivers and following a single track through mountains 12,000 ft high. They worked with the people in their fields by day and taught them the gospel by candlelight at night. They made adobe bricks and purchased the other building materials in a small city up in the mountains. They rented 12 burrows to carry the supplies on wooden "saddles" they made and began the trek back. There was a huge storm while they were on a high mountain pass. The mud caused the burros to slip and one fell to his death in the river below. They knelt on the edge of the cliff and asked for help. They were able to get back, they did finish the building and baptized 500 people to fill it. All in 15 months. (One of the companions was a rodeo champion and Elder Zwick had lots of building experience. Nephi, Ammon, Abraham and Alma (the horses) helped with the labor and provided the only transportation they had.) Exciting stories for the Zwicks but all of us live our own experiences and hopefully learn to trust in the Savior and come to know that He trusts us as well. I have no desire for scary adventures but I do desire to draw closer to the Savior and learn to trust in Him always.

On our last day at the MTC we finished up our S&I training and had a testimony meeting. Everyone was short and sincere. It is amazing how close you can feel to people in such a short time. We will probably never see any of them again until the next life but many would be best friends if only we had time to get to know each other and spend more time together.

We bought two "wedding bands" so our gold rings would not be temptation in Ecuador. We got stainless steel and mine feels different but I still feel married so all is well.

Today we met in the Joseph Smith Memorial building with Brother and Sister Coombs (pictured here) who was mission president in the DR and then the first president and matron of the temple in Santo Domingo. It was a great day. We were on the 10th floor with huge windows to look down over the city. It was a very gray day that looked like it might snow but it was still impressive. Sister Chavez was there. She was in our MTC group and is going to Mexico City to the Service Center there. Brother and Sister Shaw are going to the Employment Resource Center in Lima. And Franklin will be the new PEF Coordinator in Africa West. I was very impressed with the presentations we received. Rex Allen told us that they are trying to prepare for the future. Currently the church has about 14 million members. 7.5 million live in the United States and Canada. 7.5 million live in the rest of the world. The church is trying to be ready for when there are 100 million members. Perhaps 20 million will live in the USA and Canada and 80 million will live in the rest of the world. The USA and Canada cannot carry 80 million people. Every part of the world needs committed and skilled Priesthood leaders, self-sufficient members with everyone contributing to the tithing that pays for the buildings and all of the work of the kingdom. The church is rich in people. We all need to improve ourselves and be willing to serve. Now PEF is providing more hope and the opportunity to progress. Teaching doctrine and principles will provide the needed motivation to break the cycle of poverty. The time was right, the people were ready and the PEF was revealed to President Hinckley. This year $3.3 million dollars was paid back into the fund by participants. Lives are being changed for the better. It was a wonderful day to see the broad picture of PEF and how it helps individuals, families, counties and the church.

In the evening we went with the Evans to Legacy elementary school to listen to the 5th and 6th grade choir. It was all Christmas music and very fun. Hannah was our favorite singer.

We received Emily's Christmas card in the mail here at Nancy's house. The photo is precious! We are going to miss those two little boys. They will change a lot before we get back home. But that is OK. We can love them bigger just as well.

Our last day of training. We were in the Church Office Building. We saw Elder Scott as we came out of the cafeteria. He smiled at us. We were in a computer lab today and learned more about the computer programs that help us do our work. It is such a privilege to get to know the people who work full time to make PEF happen all around the world. They obviously love what they do even when things don't go smoothly. Tom Rueckert is one of our favorites. He deals with requests and problems all over the world and treats every email like you are his only priority. He gets just a bit choked up when he talks about the PEF participants. He deals with reports and numbers most of the time but he is doing it for the individuals.

This is a photo of Sister Chavez. We wish we could take her to Quito but Mexico City needs her too. One of our small class members is a young man from Ghana. He joined the church six years ago and has been working with the employment office. The PEF program has grown there in the Africa West Area and they qualify for a 1/2 time paid position. So Franklin will work 1/2 time with Employment and 1/2 time as the PEF Coordinator in his Area. His wife is named Nancy and he has two little boys just like Emily. I now know two people from Ghana: Franklin and Tomas, who was the Los Cristianos Branch president when we arrived in Tenerife. Isn't it cool to know people from other parts of the world?

We repacked and weighed the suitcases again and labeled all of them and tied shiny, curly red ribbon on the handles. Here's hoping that we and all of our stuff get to Quito at the same time.

Provo Missionary Training Center - First Week

First day at the MTC for our mission to Quito, Ecuador. There is construction going on and the snow was falling so it was a bit of a trick to park and get settled. There were several young missionaries to help us carry luggage into our room. We knew the drill so things went smoothly. We met lots of very nice people from all over the USA and going all over the world. There is only one single sister who said she would be working with PEF. Today was just orientation and getting supplies and getting organized. We had lots of homework to get ready to dive into Preach My Gospel tomorrow through Friday. The food is good in the cafeteria and it is so fun to see so many beautiful sisters and handsome elders who will be teaching the gospel all over the world. Things have got to get better even as they get worse in this old world. We look forward to getting acquainted with out peers as we learn and teach together. We checked with Travel and our visa has arrived in SLC. There will be no problems waiting for a visa. And...there is now wireless internet access in our rooms! Yea! I'm grateful to be here and look forward to our MTC experience and our mission in Ecuador.

We had a great second day. Taught the first discussion and learned about great teaching principles. Found out that the only couple with a Spanish surname are living in Boston where David E went on his mission, the husband is from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and the wife is from Ecuador. Another couple we met this afternoon will be in Santo Domingo, living in the "Casa" next to the temple and working in the Area Office. We need to talk tomorrow so I can tell her how wonderful it will be for them there. I wanted to whisper to her while we were listening to our teacher.

On Tuesday night there is always a devotional with a great speaker. Julie Beck (Relief Society General President) spoke to us. Of course it was wonderful. She told of growing up for five years in Brazil with her 10 brothers and sisters. (One of her brothers now lives in Melba.) They sold everything and moved to Brazil as if it would be forever. There was no set term for mission presidents then. It took two months to get a letter to the US and no one telephoned unless it was an emergency. She said they played missionary growing up because they always had 6 or 8 living with them and missionary work was their life. She said her father drew the line when they tried to baptize her 2 year old sister in the font in their backyard. She said that there were 2000 members and no church buildings and now there are over a million members and I don't know how many missions and temples and buildings. The growth has been incredible within her lifetime.

She told a story about her daughter's mother in law who was in the audience right in front of us. They are Oriental and were living in Korea and she was enthusiastic about missionary work. The full time missionaries asked her to talk to an investigating family cause they would not accept tithing. Sister Chin said she would be happy to help them understand. She told the couple, it is not just the 10% tithing you are expected to pay. There are also fast offerings and she explained that was and how it is used. She said you should consider donating to Humanitarian services as well and you must begin to save money so your sons can go on missions when they are 19. She told them it is not just the 10% but the Lord expects your whole heart and it is a privilege to give your all. They accepted tithing and baptism. I loved every minute of listening to Sister Beck and to hear all of the missionaries singing Called to Serve is worth the price of admission.

As we left the Devotional this evening the center of the complex is alight with Christmas lights in the trees. Christmas has arrived. It is beautiful.

We started our training Wednesday with a visit with an "investigator" in order to teach the first discussion. Volunteers come in and role play. Previously we had this experience where they came into our room but now there is a training center where little living rooms are set up and there is a video camera. A little more pressure but since I didn't have to watch our video I'm hoping no one else did either. Our investigator was a great actor or he really was a crusty old man who was realizing that he might have missed something very important because he didn't want to give up his coffee. He married a Mormon and his children went on missions but he never participated himself. He kept asking questions that did not fit into our agenda but I think we answered him and accomplished our purpose. He agreed to read a chapter in the Book of Mormon and meet us at church on Sunday.
We talked more about how to teach and will have another similar experience tomorrow with the second lesson. It is a good experience and we are learning useful skills and how to work together in a teaching situation. That comes up often on a mission and in real life.

A new batch of missionaries came to the MTC today. We saw lots of suitcases and some less confident missionaries in the cafeteria. They continue to feed us well and we learned that there is ice cream every Wednesday to celebrate. It is a good day of the week. Two more days of working with Preach My Gospel.

Today at the MTC we continued our process of being taught and teaching others. We taught a volunteer again in the Training Resource Center. He told us he had lost his wife in the last week and his eyes leaked tears for 45 minutes. He was a great actor or maybe it really happened. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation and it went pretty well. He agreed to meet with us again and asked us to come tomorrow to teach him more. It is fun to get to know more of our fellow missionaries. One couple told us that they spent 35 years of their marriage not going to church and here they are on a mission. Don't neglect those who are not interested. They might change their minds.

I had salmon for dinner. I don't get to do that very often. I lost my coat earlier today because someone else thought it was theirs. Fortunately it showed up again on the coat rack and I am no longer cold. We got an email from Brother Samuel Gomez, our boss, in Lima, Peru. He is aware that we are coming and hopefully someone will come to pick us up at the airport.

Today was our last day of training in Preach My Gospel. We learned about how to work with less actives and part member families and also with ward councils. It is a little sad to realize that these great couples that we are just getting acquainted with are leaving and we will never see them again...except for the ones that have Seminary and Institute training with us next week. And we will meet many wonderful people in Ecuador!

We came to Nancy's house at the end of the day. She is enjoying a dinner out and a volleyball game with a friend visiting from Idaho Falls. We will get to see her tomorrow. The girl's bedroom across the hall has a least one mouse in it so there has been lots of excitement to see if one has been caught yet. Not yet. (In fact, before we left for Ecuador it seemed that the mice had outsmarted the people so far.) I bought a 1 T external hard drive at Costco tonight. My smaller external hard drive has been making suspicious noises. I suspect that on sale at Costco is a better price than anything in Ecuador. Gotta keep the photos of the grandchildren safe. Here are some of the Evans children. We are grateful that Morgan always lets us use her bedroom when we visit.