Zamora Branch

I want to share some images and words about the Zamora Branch. We thought we would be living in Zamora for many months and I regret not taking photos of the members from day one because now we are no longer part of that branch and will only be visitors in the future. I do not even have a photo of our Branch President and his family even though I have been in their home for Family Home Evening and have enjoyed their wonderful rice pudding parfaits. I also must have a photo of Pedro Bedoya who was formerly in charge of everything. He gets a break now as Elder's quorum president. I will find a way to get some more photos but I want to share what I do have so you can get a glimpse of the church in Zamora.

Let's begin with photos of Primary children. The first week I was there they needed someone in Primary and I volunteered. I stayed there till we left. I loved it and it was challenging. We had two long hours in that small room every week.

This was the first week and we did a lot of coloring because I had paper and crayons and a stack of pictures. We found a gospel principle to talk about for each of their pictures--except I did have to really stretch it to work Sponge Bob in.

 

 

 

 

 

Above is Sarahí. She was so patient and focused on her picture. She used the little pencil sharpener to shave off curls of the colored pencils and then rubbed the color on her picture. The gentle coloring on her picture is not crayon. It is color she created by rubbing tiny shreds of color on her paper. That never would have occurred to me. Watercolor effects from colored pencils. Cool.

Above is Yaiza. She couldn't draw what she wanted to so she asked her brother to draw a picture for her. Kevin drew Sponge Bob and she was delighted. 

Here are a few more photos I took of our cute Primary kids in the Zamora branch.

Yaiza, Saray and Anabel

Antoni, Kevin and Sarahí

This is Rosa Tenesaka and her son Santiago. We had visited with them in their home. They live quite a distance from Zamora. They only have a motorcycle so when money is tight the family walks to church. It takes them an hour one way. Santiago was a little shy at first with this strange lady and I was grateful for Rosa's help the first hour. We got through opening exercises, sharing time and the lesson. Then she went to Relief Society and the rest of us used most of the time with my homemade play dough. It is a big hit and you would be surprised at how deft the kids are who have a family bakery. This is how I packaged it up beforehand. I have learned the hard way that in Zamora you must also bring a zip lock bag of flour because the dough absorbs moisture from the air and gets very sticky rather quickly. They love sprinkling flour all over. Good thing I know where the broom and dust pan are after church.

Here are some photos of the building the branch is currently meeting in.

Above is the Bishop's office. Grandpa spent hours and hours sorting through all the stacked up paperwork and organizing everything. We got a filing cabinet and bought folders and labeled and filed it all. It is amazing how much information is sent from Salt Lake to church leaders. We have a lot more time than they do and were able to be helpful.  I spent a "week" sorting Primary pictures at home. There were hundreds all mixed together. We bought notebooks that come with attached page protectors and I sorted them all and put them in order for each manual. Now they will be useful for the teachers.They can now find the Gospel Art pictures as well. Everything in the building is now better organized and much cleaner.

This is the Primary room.

This is at the front of the Relief Society space. They do not have a separate room and the Primary does have a door but there is no glass in the window of the door and the RS ladies can hear us all too well I'm sure. We also end on time. None of us in Primary want to stay in the room beyond the assigned time. Look out mothers - we are finished at 12:00 noon on the dot.

This is the chapel. The ceiling lights did not work in the front of the chapel so Lewis replaced the switch and solved the problem. The problem of the columns in the line of sight can't be solved so we are very happy to be moving to a larger space with no columns that block your view of the speaker.

It is a two story space. The class rooms are above. One interesting thing is that there is a house right behind this place with an open dining area. You can see what is going on in the house behind the speaker in Sacrament meeting and still look like you are paying attention. Right behind that house is the river. But you can only see that from the second floor.

Below is a snapshot of the new building. There is a three step elevation to the back half of the building. They will make a strip of the higher part the stand for the chapel and build classrooms behind the chapel and two in front of the chapel. They are just starting to build the walls in this photo. They will have drywall and make a lower ceiling. It should be nice when they are finished and make it a lot easier to provide a good experience for the members on Sundays. Yea for progress.

We were able to attend one baptism. It was a very beautiful experience and we were all quite wet when it was finished because it was raining but only Elder Castro and Monica were freezing because the river water is very cold. 

Elder Larrea, Elder Castro (he had been transferred to Loja but was able to return for the baptism), Elder Carmona, and Elder Huamani. 

This is the space the elders have dug out a bit and used in Zamora over time. It is not the Zamora river. It is called the Bombuscaro river.

It is quite swift and they say it is cold. I didn't test it myself. I was wet enough. 

Elder Castro helping Monica get to the right spot. Monica was wearing Grandpa's plastic sandals but they were way too big and her foot slid all the way through the front. Kevin is having a great time. After the baptism I asked him to pick up many small rounded river rocks for me to take home. 

 

Elders love to take photos too.

This is what I did with the river rocks. In Primary we learned about prayer and they each got a special "rock friend" who would serve as a reminder to say both their morning and their nighttime prayers.

We had a fun experience with the Barney family from somewhere near Ogden, UT. Brother Barney was a missionary in Zamora 21 years ago. He reopened the area and spent several months here. This is his second visit to Ecuador with a group of about 80 people this year. The fathers (or mothers) are returned missionaries who served in Ecuador and every 3 years they visit and participate in service projects. Some are doctors and dentists. Elder Barney said his specialty is building chicken coops that they donated to needy families to increase their self sufficiency. He said that two of the families that he delivered a chicken coop to spoke of the missionaries that baptized them many years ago. These two families got to meet their missionaries again because they were participating in this trip and Brother Barney got them together to greet and hug and see the old photos. He brought his sons (Thomas, Joshua and Nathan) this trip and it was fun to see them interact with the missionaries and the members and have a wonderful pre-MTC experience with their dad. He brought only his wife last time. He says he will bring her and the three girls the next trip. They met Zoila Castillo (she is the one with the bakery and she brings treats for Primary) at church. She knows a younger sister of one of the families he baptized. She will take them to visit Sunday evening. The sister was too young to be baptized when he was here as a missionary. We invited the Barneys and the missionaries over to eat after church and we all had soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. I'm sure you are not surprised at the menu. Grandpa is very good at making lots of grilled cheese sandwiches efficiently.

 

 

 

Former missionary with current missionaries and future missionaries. A great group to have in our home.

Love, Hermana y Elder Pettingill

Zamora

We have moved to Loja but I never posted enough about our experiences in Zamora. I will try to do some catching up while I have some free time. I have not yet been assigned to specific church assignments here or discovered where I can be helpful and involved beyond the young missionaries. Our first Sunday here we attended church in Catamayo which is an hour away because Grandpa had several interviews to take care of.

This little guy came in under our door the first night we were in Zamora. I suppose he is some kind of a moth. I left him there and he was gone in the morning. Lots of insects in Zamora but we never got more than one or two bites each. We had to learn to shut the window in the bedroom before nightfall. We learned the hard way that hundreds of small bugs with big transparent wings would fly in and settle on the floor. I swept them all out the door and remembered to close the window before we turned on the lights in the evening. We also had to turn out the bedroom light after we used the iPad to read the scriptures or all the stray flying bugs would come and sit on the screen. They wanted to participate too.Window screens do not exist in my missionary experiences. There is a lot more connection to the great outdoors when you live in a country that never freezes. Some homes do not have glass in the windows. And because there is no heating or cooling here, free flow of outside air is generally thought of as a good thing. It gets very hot here but we have not suffered because it is winter and the temperature is comfortable.

Buses are important in Ecuador. We have the option of taking taxis because we can afford it. Most places in Zamora require only $1 in taxi fare.  It costs 25 cents to ride the bus. Because there are two of us the difference between a bus and a taxi in town is only 50 cents. But taxis are way too expensive for most people who commute every day to work. Below Lewis is getting on the local bus to go into the city center. I am taking the photo from our kitchen window.

This is the bus terminal downtown. We go here when we need to travel to another city. I suspect it looked very modern when it was built.

This type of transportation is called the "chiva" in Galapagos. Not sure what they call it here in Zamora but this one is certainly colorful. No trouble opening the windows in this truck...there aren't any. It is also bit of a trick getting in and out when you are wearing a dress.

This is the main shopping center near the bus terminal. The open doors are small stores. The entire building contains small shops selling everything from meat to vegetables to grains to clothing and home wares. There is one larger grocery store in town that has a few imported goods. (There are no canned tomato products. Spaghetti sauce here starts with fresh tomatoes. It was good.) All of the rest are small mom and pop stores. It takes quite a while to learn where to find things. There is nothing like "one stop shopping" in Zamora.

See Grandpa below? He is trying to find a Big Bar. It is vanilla ice cream with a little layer of caramel and nuts covered with chocolate. Whenever he sees a Topsy freezer like that blue one he likes to check it out. An ice cream sandwich will do if they do not have a Big Bar. 

The World Cup in Brazil was going on and everyone in Ecuador is very preoccupied with soccer. 

Here are a few houses/apartment buildings in Zamora. One is an old wooden one. Most of built of cement blocks.

 

 

This is the Lopez Martinez family we visited with the Elders. This is the mother with her daughter and granddaughter. The boy is her youngest child. Both the mother and the daughter need to get married before they can be baptized.

We went by bus to Yantzaza which is one hour further south than Zamora. A sizable group of our members live there. They did have a separate group meeting in Yantzaza but it was not approved by the Area and had to be closed. The people who continue to attend church deserve extra blessings. Every meeting they attend takes at least two extra hours of their time in order to participate as well as the cost of transportation. On the bus we chatted with these two cute kids who were in the seat ahead of us. They thought Grandpa was very tall!

We crossed the Zamora River a couple of times on the way to Yantzaza. It was raining so hard I didn't take any photos there. We met the wife of the Branch President. We have not met him. His work has had serious problems. He hadn't been paid in so long he needed to go to another city to find new employment. We recovered the key to the place where the group had been meeting and the elders arranged to get the furniture returned to the chapel in Zamora.  The former president had to be released and now we have President Gonzales who is a returned missionary and an experienced member who will be able to fulfill his responsibilities.

When we got back we took Elder Herrera and Elder Carmona to lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Zamora. We all enjoyed both our lunches and sharing more about our lives. We love to brag about our family.

Elder Herrera is from Columbia. He speaks very rapidly (just like our boss in Quito who was also from Columbia). He is an excellent teacher and was previously the Zone Leader in Loja East. He is almost finished with his 2 years and it has been only 3 years since he joined the Church. Wow! He is so capable and is serving as the first counselor in the Zamora Branch Presidency. 

This is Elder Carmona. He was born in the Dominican Republic but his family moved to New York when he was six years old. They live in Salt Lake City now. I was able to show him a few photos I had taken in the DR. He was pleased to see it is beautiful as he has very few memories of his native country.

This is the Zamora River as it runs through the town. We cross this bridge to get from our home to the central part of the city. Avenida del Ejercito (Army Avenue) is the name of the street we live on and also where the chapel is located. It runs along the right side of the river below. The chapel is about a half mile away in this direction. The church is renting and remodeling a new space that is very near the bridge on the same street.

The tree below is growing on the left bank of the river right next to the bridge. Can you see that several varieties of other plants are growing on the branches of this tree? Very neighborly - climb aboard and we will all live together. I have seen this often in the mountains of Ecuador.  I guess the birds help these relationships get started.

This is looking across the same bridge at the river heading toward where we live. Avenida del Ejercito is on the left looking this direction. We live about a mile away.

At the end of the bridge, this lady is cooking "cuy". I have not eaten cuy (it is more expensive) but I'm told that it is very delicious. Don't tell the kids, but Luna is related to these easily raised meat animals that are popular in Ecuador.

 

This is a very distinctive building in Zamora. It apparently offers engineering degrees in environmental sciences. It is on Avenida del Ejercito very near the bridge. Zamora Chinchipe is the complete name of the province and the city that we live in.

 

 

Some details and plants that I found interesting during a walk from home to the new chapel. Grandpa was very patient while I took photos.

 

 

 

 This is moss growing on an old cement and plaster wall.

I first saw this plant in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. It looks like  a cactus plant with tiny leaves. That strikes me as very funny. Tiny leaves don't seem to go with sharp spikes. This one is very tall and large.

I'll end with a card I made for the Young Women. It is a photo of the Guayaquil Temple and says: "If this is not your castle, you are not my prince". I hope all of our grandchildren will feel that the temple is the only place that they will ever consider being married. And we pray that they will choose to put the temple and all that it represents at the center of their lives. It has made a very happy life for us.

Lots of love, Grandma and Grandpa Pettingill