Random things to share

The most recent Young Single Adult to move into our ward is Carolina. She is from Guayaquil which is the other big city in Ecuador. It is where the temple is located and is on the coast way down south. She is a returned missionary and wonderful. She had lots of friends come up to Quito to visit her and five of them came to church with her. We had a great class with lots of students and lots of great participation. They wanted a photo after church and I am so glad they brought it up. I wasn't bright enough to think of it. Here we all are with Carolina on the right next to me:



I read a quote that made me laugh. You guys are way too young to remember George Burns. He was a stand up comedy guy back in the days of when I was young and so was TV. He had a wife named Gracie who was the original (for me anyway) less bright blonde. At the end of their performance he would say, "Say good night Gracie" and she would say, "Good night Gracie".

Anyway here is his quote: "Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city."

You can quote me as saying: "Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family even if they are in another country - which is not my preference."



Here is a photo of the senior sisters in Quito. We are in the kitchen of the Mission home at the Hermana Conference. Sister Sloan on the far right is the wife of the Mission President. The rest of us all live in the same building.


We got a call from the senior missionaries last night and they said, "Where are you? Are you going?" We forgot that we were all taking the four office missionaries out to eat at Rusty's because Elder Hakes is getting a transfer back out to the field. He has been an Assistant to the President for longer than we have been here. Rusty's is a hamburger place that was started by an American who married an Ecuadorian. It has a very nice building and they even have root beer! The missionaries love it and we enjoyed it too. You can get a simple (SEEM-ple), doble (DOHB-le) or a triple (TREEP-le) - one, two or three meat patties. I had a simple and couldn't eat it all. You can choose from four types of fries, the usual kind, the thicker potato wedges, a mita, mita (mitad = half you get 1/2 onion rings and 1/2 french fries...and I've forgotten the fourth choice. We all got mita, mita. The onion rings are great. They were not all rings but they use fresh onions and fry them right in front of you. They say the owner is often there. He is a very old man now. He opened his first hamburger restaurant here in 1979. Mayonnaise a big deal here. It seems they put it on most everything (along with aji). (Did you know that they do not sell mayonnaise in jars here but in a bag with a small round opening with a screw cap. Seemed strange to me but it is much easier than trying to scrape out the last of it in a big jar.) So when you get a little cup of mayo and ketchup too you can make fry sauce. The slice of cheese they put on our burgers was orange the color of Kraft macaroni. That worried me but the bun was like the big ones you get in the states, the meat tasted good and it had fresh lettuce and onion and tomato and it was all good. Not as good as In-and-Out but good.

The Hermana's Conference

The Mission provided a wonderful day for the Hermanas. We all met at the Mission Home with President and Sister Sloan and the wife of the first counselor and the wife of the secretary of the Mission Presidency on February 8th 2011. Sister Sloan is at the far right below. You will be able to tell President Sloan. He is the only male.

We started with bread and cream cheese and jam and hot chocolate. The young missionaries were so thrilled to have time to be together. They talked and talked and took hundreds of photos. There is no more than one companionship of sisters in a zone so they rarely get to see one another.

These two sweet women below each taught us. The one on the left talked about the importance of future goals but emphasized that a mission is a special time that requires all of our focus and attention. Serving the Lord on a mission is a unique way of preparing ourselves for whatever the future will bring and also allows the Lord to bless us always if we learn to depend on Him. Putting all of our energy into a mission now will allow us to reap benefits throughout our lives. The one on the right spoke about the importance of small daily acts of service given freely whenever we have the opportunity. It is good to plan ahead and allot time and energy for service but even better is to be aware of when the Spirit prompts us to do something right now for whoever is in our path at the moment. They shared inspiration and concrete examples of how to apply the principles they taught us.
Lunch was enchiladas. We all made them a bit differently. We had chicken and beef, flour or corn tortillas and red or while sauce. We North Americans loved it. It looked like the South Americans ate plenty also. There was also lots of cut up fruit and taco soup and garlic bread. We all enjoyed it. Afterward Sister Sloan and President spoke to us.
Sister Sloan talked about how much they appreciated the Hermanas and how every stake president always requests to have Hermanas sent to their stake. They are not enough to go around! She gave all of us scarves as a gift and said that whenever you have a bad day, wrap the scarp around you and feel the love of your Heavenly Father. It was very sweet and the scarves are brightly colored and beautiful. Mine is blue and yellow. The girl on the right below is wearing her new scarf.

We didn't go home until after we had cake and took a few more photos.

And here are the more mature Hermanas:

Our One Day Vacation

We enjoyed a fun Saturday with the visitors who came to teach neo-natal resuscitation to doctors and midwives in Ecuador with the Yosts. Lots of us went to the Teleferico and also to La Mitad del Mundo. Both are in the city of Quito. First the Teleferico:





We headed up the mountain. The trip took about 20 minutes and since the day was clear (rare for this time of year - we are usually in the clouds) the view was amazing. Quito is at 10,000 ft and we went up to 14,000 feet. We were still in the city when we got into our gondolas and this is the view from above:



We watched this guy head down the mountain on his bike. Wow! I thought he was brave. It looked very steep to me. We did see him almost an hour later as we were coming down the mountain in the gondola and he was still descending on his bike. It is a long way down.

From the top of the mountain, Grandpa got a photo of the building where we live on my camera. Look here:

The arrow points to our window except we live on the opposite side of the building. We face away from the teleferico.

This is most of the group that enjoyed our Saturday outing:
Our next stop was El Mitad del Mundo. This is the center of the earth! If you look at the globe we are on the equator - the middle of the ball. My seventh grade teacher told us to remember that latitude rhymes with slat - the horizontal slats in your mini blinds. (Trivia - When I was in junior high we didn't have mini blinds. There were only venetian blinds which are wider.) Here in Quito we live right on the middle horizontal line of the globe. We are closer to the sun but so high in altitude that our climate in Quito is not as hot as other places near the equator.

This is a very fun place with lots of displays and interesting things to see and ways to learn about the early cultures in addition to explanations about the geographic location. Our time was very limited so we will definitely return. Here is our brief overview:

This man is weaving wall hangings on a hand made loom.

This big dish reflects the rays of the sun on the water in the bowl which is steaming.


This is a sundial and at noon on the Summer Solstice (which is Susan's birthday) there is no shadow because the sun is directly overhead.

The equator is the widest part of the globe and divides the northern hemisphere from the southern hemisphere.


We are standing on the equator and a GPS at this point has this reading:

Next we learned about the Coriolis effect -

On the equator (see the painted red line) water pours directly out of the open drain.

Then we moved (with this portable sink and bucket) about 10 feet to the south and did it again. The water swirled clockwise as it flowed out of the drain in the bottom.



Then we moved the same distance to the north of the equator and tried it again. The water really did swirl counterclockwise. I was impressed!


There was an explanation about how only on the equator can you balance a fresh egg on the head of a nail. The young doctor in our group did it.


Also our guide had several try to walk the equator with their eyes closed. They couldn't do it for more than two steps or so. I did not understand why you can balance an egg but you can't walk straight. Extra credit for anyone who comes up with a good...or at least a plausible explanation!



A fun day and now I know more about the Coriolis effect and why there is no need for daylight savings time in Ecuador. The sun comes up about 6:00 AM and goes down about 6:00 PM every day of the year. Early morning seminary students can't complain about going to class in the dark or trudging through the snow but they do have to climb a lot of hills.

Building the Quito Service Center

The following week we focused on creating a viable service center in Quito. Henry had his man in Lima calling our participants to find youth willing to serve. He managed to find quite a list to start with. Henry held an introduction and training meeting. Our new service missionary couple came as well as the couple we already had working in the Institute building every Monday and Thursday mornings. Above are the people who attended our meeting. Most of them are working with us now.

This is a photo of the two computer set up in the Institute building. The Rocero's have a much more efficient way to use their time and efforts now. And we hope to keep those two computers busy during the rest of the week as well. We really appreciate the help and the cooperation of the Institute. PEF would not function without S&I.

With the two computers and four stations in the office building and two computers in the Institute building we have the chance to put a lot of man hours towards contacting our participants. We hope to be able to eventually get the job done. Grandpa was able to buy an older CPU for $200 and the church came up with the screen and keyboard and mouse. So now we have three computers and phones and one additional station with only a phone. If we can keep this equipment busy with trained and caring people we will be able to reach out to help our participants succeed in reaching their goals and having the opportunity to build strong and happy families.

Here are some of our first volunteers:

Erika and Hermana Pettingill

Our Visitors from Lima, Peru

Henry and Samuel came to train us and help us understand all that we need to do during our mission. Henry (one the left) is in charge of the Centro de Servicios in Lima and also supervises those in the other four countries in the Area. Samuel (on the right) is the Area PEF Coordinator for the South American NorthWest Area. This area has the largest number of participants in the world except for Brazil. It is also one of the first areas that PEF began working in back in 2001. We have a lot of success stories accomplished and, unfortunately, many old loans that have been neglected because the location of the participants has been lost. These men are great and they both speak English so that made things easier.

Samuel is young and dynamic and a whiz with Excel and the computer. He operates without paper. I enjoyed watching him with the stake presidents because he was able to interact with older and more "distinguished" men with a respectful ease that was comfortable but he took every opportunity to train and enlist their help in our cause. He was able to stay for five days. Henry is ebullient, always positive and passes out candy frequently. He stayed till the end of the second week and helped us create and set up our service center before he left.

We had a busy schedule. We met with the Country PEF Committee. Lewis is the executive secretary of that committee and it meets once a month. Our chairman is an Area Seventy and he lives in Guayaquil at the other end of the country. Here is a photo of us after the meeting:

The first man is responsible for Welfare and is in charge of the Employment Center. The second is Elder Maldonaldo, the chairman; next is Samuel and the man responsible for our finances, then Henry and Grandpa and I. The man who is responsible for all the temporal affairs in Ecuador had to leave before we took the photo. He is in his office behind us.

We also had the opportunity to have dinner with the stake presidents of Quito in the Institute building. Elder Maldonaldo invited them to come and Samuel explained that we needed some mature service missionaries to contact and provide active help to the participants of PEF. They were so very supportive and one stake president told his story of when he was starting his family and trying to finish school; he received a bit of help that made all the difference. He is now an important boss in a multinational German company that makes fertilizers. They all promised to talk with their Bishops. We are still hoping for more but received one miracle the very next week. Brother Morales came to our office and said that his Bishop had asked him and his wife to be PEF service missionaries and what does that mean? Brother Morales is retired now but previously worked for the church in finances as well as in several Ecuadorian companies. We are thrilled that they are willing and able to help us. They also work in the temple and are getting some training there so they will not begin working with us until the middle of February. He told us that he was baptized 36 years ago -perhaps about the time that my brother David was serving in the Quito mission. Here are some photos taken that evening with the nearby stake presidents: