A Lovely Celebration of the Martin's Mission in Guayaquil

The Martins wanted to take several local couples out for lunch at the Granchef buffet to thank them for their help and friendship during their mission. They also invited several senior missionary couples to accompany them. We enjoyed a wonderful meal and an even better time all together as friends. You can see Tim Martin standing above. Below are several shots of the food.

Here are Nancy and Tim Martin below...

The Martins pose with the Torals. President Toral is the Kennedy Stake President and also a member of the ward we attend. His wife is a temple worker. President Toral's job is to be one of the engineers in the Temple.

You know this couple. We are happy to be here in the temple and with these great people.

The Martins are with the Estrellas. Victor and Katy are senior missionaries from Quito serving here in the Guayaquil Temple.

The Martins with the Veras. He is the first counselor in our bishopric. He is a taxi driver and often takes senior missionaries on outings when it fits in with his other commitments. His wife, Emy, is a temple worker and so is Brother Vera.

The Martins with Alfonso Valero. He is the second counselor in our bishopric. His wife, Mariana, was not able to take off from work. She works as the principal and a teacher in a school for special needs children in another city. They both work every Saturday morning in the baptistry. We all get a chance to work with them. They are marvelous and we always have very, very busy Saturday mornings with several stakes and their youth coming each week.

The Martins with the Calderons. Consuelo and Juan live in our building and Juan is an employee responsible for the building and all of the people who come to stay overnight and attend the temple. He is so kind and attentive to everyone. Consuelo has cancer. Her faith is incredible. She is back working in the temple. They have two daughters, both are returned missionaries. One was married last week in the temple and the other is engaged. She has a bottle in her scarf that is dripping into her intravenously but she is always beautiful and happy and doing well.

The Martins with the Bottorffs. Dolores and Clare are on their fourth mission. They served a proselyting mission in Loja in the south of Ecuador. They were temple missionaries here several years ago. Then went to the Family History Library in Salt Lake and now have returned here. Wonderful people. She has many musical skills and Clare is a great photographer. They are from Ohio.

Martins with the Johnsons. Byron and Nova are here for the second time. The first time they worked in the baptistry most every day and Nova went home in a wheelchair because of her back. They wanted to come back and are making it all happen. Byron broke his hip on Christmas Eve but his bone is healed and he is working his way back to full mobility. He just has a cane for balance at this point and is doing great. Nova taught Spanish in high school. They are from California and live in Oregon now. 

When we saw these I had to have one. They made it for me while I watched. Delicious! It has some chocolate and caramel sauce inside as well. Hurrah for crepes.

The Latin couples conspired with the waiter and they brought this little cake to the Martins. Nancy and Tim had revealed that it was their 46th Wedding Anniversary. The waiter asked Grandpa to write out "Happy Anniversary" in English for them. The other couples insisted that they conform to Ecuadorian tradition and take the first bite of the cake together. They did.

It is a privilege to get to know such wonderful people.

Jeri and Lewis Pettingill

Photoshoot with Margarita Chiza

Fotos de la Hermana Margarita Chiza, misionara de La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias serviendo en el Templo de Guayaquil en Ecuador. Ella es mi amiga y un excelente ejemplo de servicio y amor para todos.

Photos of Sister Margaria Chiza, missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints serving in the Guayaquil Temple in Ecuador. She is my friend and an excellent example of service and love for everyone.

A Missionary Mother Story

On Tuesday we were in the baptistry and I was told a lovely story by one of the participants.

I was talking with another woman who was making arrangements to bring 400 family file names to have her stake's youth do all of the baptisms and confirmations. She said her oldest son is leaving on his mission soon and will participate with the youth by doing the baptizing. She said she is terribly sad to have him leaving their home.

The unendowed participant had just finished being baptized and confirmed for her own family file names. She was waiting for me to finish with her cards and heard the mother explain how hard it was to have her son leave. She asked if she could share a personal story about her oldest son who is currently on his mission. She said that she was not a member when he left last July. She said that she lives diagonally across the street from the LDS chapel and her son went to church alone for 8 years. He received a mission call and was determined to serve. She was devastated and cried and complained and after he left she continued to cry and did not eat. Her daughter sent a worried email to her son and somehow he replied and told his Mom that he was doing just what she had taught him. He was being diligent and dedicated to what was most important in his life and honoring God. He was loving and serving others and she needed to support him with strength and positive thoughts. He thanked her for her teachings and her example and bore his testimony. (Something along those lines. I am listening to all of this in Spanish of course.) She said that she stopped feeling sorry for herself and decided he was right. He was indeed following what she had taught him. I guess she rethought a lot of things and when he called at Christmas she told him that she had been attending church and was taking the missionary lessons. They had a long and wonderful phone conversation on Christmas Day. Her son told her that the Christmas of 2013 was the best Christmas of his life and his favorite present was that when he came home he would no longer be alone when he went to church.  She is so proud of him and she told the other woman that it is OK to miss her son but she needed to support him in his important mission. It was a very touching exchange and I was happy to be able to witness it.

What a great Mom. She said she was baptized in December and I see that she is already working on her family history and coming to the temple. She is very excited that by the time her son returns they will not only go to church together but can attend the temple together as well.

A Little Tour of our Apartment

I have not yet given you a tour of where we live. We can picture you in your homes. Now you will have a better idea of where we are when we are not in the temple.

Here is grandpa at his computer at one end of our bedroom.

I have a little built in space at the other end of our bedroom. This bedroom is larger than both of the bedrooms put together that we have at home.

We do spend a lot of time on our computers. What a marvelous invention they are. We can communicate with you and learn about almost anything we want to know. We can also waste time in amusing ways. I tell myself I am doing family history when I care for my photos and put pictures and words together to preserve memories. I hope I am sending a message of love when you receive a small something on your birthday this year. There is lots of storage space in this apartment. There are more of those cabinets outside of the bathroom. We don't have a lot of stuff so it feels very luxurious.

This is the living room. It is also larger than our living room at home. We are very comfortable here and appreciate our great accommodations in the alojamiento on the temple grounds.  The flowers on the table were brought by several sisters from the Relief Society in our ward. They had a cool activity where everyone donated fruits and/or flowers. They arranged the bouquets of flowers and made pretty containers of fruit and divided up in groups to visit the less active and the elderly. I was surprised to find myself as one of the ones visited. But I guess I am elderly these days.

We have a nice TV. They just replaced a big old one with a sleek new one but we never watch it.

Grandpa and I always play dominoes when we eat lunch and dinner. The loser has to wash the dishes. Grandpa puts hot sauce on almost everything.

One side of the living room is the kitchen. It is behind the two upholstered chairs. We do have a bigger kitchen at home, unless you count the size of the living room as part of the kitchen. The square footage of this apartment is about the same as our home in Nampa.

You can see that there are two faucets. The one on the right has drinkable water. This is the first time we have not had to buy our drinking water - much more convenient. There is a small microwave above the sink. We bought the crockpot. Life is good. Grandpa is making our bread. Lots of fruits and vegetables are readily available and reasonably priced. For two months now we have been doing intermittent fasting. It is a fancy way of saying we don't eat breakfast and we eat lunch and dinner within a 6 hour window. We have found it easier than "dieting" and are loosing a bit of weight. The best part is that Grandpa's blood sugar is much improved.

This is the temple schedule that we followed in January. We worked in the morning in January and will work in the evenings in February. This hangs by our door so we can keep track of our hours and duties. We are feeling a little sad because our friends, the Martins, are leaving at the end of February. We have not known them very long but we will miss them very much. 

We love you,
Grandma/Mom/Jeri and Grandpa/Dad/Lewis

A Private Concert and Lunch at Sister Pacheco's home

We had a lovely experience when the choir that sang at our Christmas Devotional came and sang to the temple missionaries before a training meeting. They were at least as wonderful as they were in the stake center. We felt very privileged to have a special concert just for us. They also shared their experience of singing at the temple dedication 14 years ago. They said that they were sure that their voices were joined by others beyond the veil during the dedication meeting. They remember their experience vividly and enjoyed sharing it with us.

Sister Pacheco is a small, regal lady who has worked in the temple for many years. She apparently has quite a life story. I found a copy of the book she has written about her life and am in the process of reading it. It is in Spanish so it will take me a while. She invited the Tuesday morning shift and all of the temple missionaries and the president and his wife to her home on January 6th (which is the official end of the Christmas season and was conveniently on a Monday) to come and have lunch with her and welcome the new year. She lives about a 1/2 hour away from the temple by taxi and we traveled with the Martins. When President Groberg and his wife arrived we were welcomed formally by Sister Pacheco with a speech. Sister Viteri conducted and we had a spiritual thought by Brother Estrella and then each of us was asked to say a few words. Spanish speakers have a hard time saying only a few words but I enjoyed it and was able to understand most of what was said. It was all positive and grateful and a very nice beginning to a new year. We were served pork chops, Russian salad (a potato salad with lots of extra stuff in it), rice and something I thought was very strange. I was surprised that it was cold and I couldn't identify what it was. Another cultural mystery. I should ask Sister Chiza. Sister Pacheco tried to send some home with me later and I deferred - I hope tactfully.

Sister Chiza, Sister Gallo, Brother Chamorro, Sister ?, Brother Estrella, Sister Estrella, Sister Pacheco, Sister Groberg, President Groberg, Brother Zuñiga, Sister Zuñiga, 

 Sister Landetta, Sister Chiza and Sister Gallo

 Sister Estrella, Sister Pacheco, The Grobergs

Christmas tree, nativity scene, the painting of the Salt Lake temple was done by Sister Pacheco

Sister Groberg telling us about Sister Pacheco's book.

 Another of Sister Pacheco's paintings

She painted this view from the living room's front balcony. The Christmas tree is in the right corner location in the painting. The balcony visible in the photo above is on the side wall of the living room. We are on the second floor of the house.

The Martins are thanking Sister Pacheco, in her kitchen, for a lovely afternoon.

Celebrating Christmas

It is all about the food. Not really but it seems you can't get members of the church together to celebrate without good things to eat. We decided to have a very casual Christmas Eve. We were each going to bring something nourishing and something with sugar. I took a couple of photos when we first got to the Bottorff's apartment and then forgot about my camera. There was lots of yummy food both with and without sugar. We brought a spicy Asian noodle dish with chicken. I'm not sure where that idea came from. It is certainly not traditional in our family but it hit the spot. We had lots of treats as well: cornflake cookies, toffee bars, pies, candy, brownies, cake. We certainly missed the Johnsons They were both still at the hospital but we talked with them by cell phone and learned that Brother Johnson would have surgery in the morning to put screws in his broken bone. He had indeed broken his hip but if one had to choose which kind of a break to have, his was the easiest to heal.

Christmas Day we all got together to enjoy a delicious roasted turkey and stuffing - thanks to Sister Bottorff, mashed potatoes and gravy with salads and vegetables and more goodies of course. It was a lovely meal with good company and we were happy to be together. We learned that Brother Johnson's surgery went well and that he should be home in a couple of days. Then we were all anxious to go back to our apartments and spend time "Skyping" with our children and their families. Christmas is for families and we were so happy to have the chance to talk with you and wish you a Merry Christmas from sunny Guayaquil.

Good Bye to the Ripples

This is one very special couple. They were called to leave their home in Nova Scotia, Canada to serve as missionaries in the Guayaquil Temple several years ago. Neither one had ever had any experience with Spanish. They served in the temple every day that it was open but Brother Ripple had more energy and desire  to serve than the temple used up, so his wife set out to find something he could work on. With her limited Spanish she tried to explain to Sister Valero that her husband was a carpenter and needed additional work to do during their mission. I'm sure it was an interesting conversation. I understand that before it was over there were a lot of sketches on scrap paper and both were in tears. The Valero family had been saving for years and buying used building materials. Their family needed (not just wanted) improvements in their home. It was not completely enclosed--both the elements, and other people, could enter at any time. The bathroom and the kitchen did not have all the most basic requirements to serve their purposes. There were no interior doors or closets. This wonderful couple, who both work outside the home long hours, serve 1/2 day in the temple every Saturday and have heavy responsibilities in the ward did have a need and Brother Ripple was the man to provide a solution.

Debbie and Peter Ripple had been wondering why they were in Guayaquil and promptly decided that the Valeros had simply prayed them here. Over the year and a half of their mission the "house" was transformed into an appropriate home for a family. There remained a problem with the roof that was aging rapidly but the time and money ran out. The Ripples returned home, saved for a couple of years and came back to finish the job. Again they lived in the alojamiento and served as patrons every morning and worked on the house every afternoon for two months. It now has a new roof, several more improvements and will serve the Valero family well for many years.

Brother Valero is a counselor in the bishopric and Sister Valero is the Primary President of the ward we attend. We work with them in the baptistry on Saturdays. They are remarkable. They decided when they were baptized that they would take their covenants very seriously and devote their lives to serving others. They do that. He works in the rice fields that are over an hour and a half away from here. He gets up at 4:30 every morning to catch a bus and returns home long after dark. Sister Valero works as the principal and one of the teachers of a school for handicapped children that is located several hours away. She spends the weeknights in that city and comes home by bus on the weekends and school holidays. Their children are now grown; 2 daughters and one granddaughter live in their home with them. They have educated their daughters and now they each have promising employment. On Saturday mornings the Valeros always say they are fine and not tired.  I am amazed at how much they are willing to do to serve others. Brother Valero comes here to be a home teacher to the temple missionaries once a month. Our records are not even here in their ward. They must not have any idea of what leisure is and therefore do not miss it. They certainly set a great example for us. And they are never late to anything! That is remarkable in a Spanish speaking country. I do not yet have a photo of Alfonso and Mariana Valero.