An Uneventful Week, At Last

As I begin this blog, I have to say this week has been very uneventful. For us, at least me, that is a good thing. We work in our office; each day brings some new challenges, thankfully, they are getting fewer and fewer. I am so happy to report that our participants are paying on a more regular basis. Some have truely begun to catch the vision. Keeping their promises and covenents is the most important and worthwhile thing they can do. Elder W. is teaching "Priesthood Correlation." That is what is going to be the real answer. The leaders here (many of them) do not understand what "correlation" means. Home teaching is lacking and because of distance and transportation their meetings are few and short. A member of our Bishopric works in the office building with us, actually on our floor.

The most exciting part of the week, for Elder W., was a very animated discussion again with a brother in Bogota. He and his supervisor do not think we have the "right" to give the Bishops information about the particpants payments being late; although Bogota sends a monthly report (which I put together each month). It has all the same information, we just call directly and discuss it with the Bishop instead of assuming they will read the report from Bogota.

I added the picture of me in my new glasses (I hope you like them) I sure do. It is interesting, I had to come to Ecuador to get a frame right off the shelf, no adjustments needed. I am so happy.

The picture of the food court is just to let you all know we have a great mall to which we walk each Saturday. It is a good walk for the exercize and has a large choice of edible food too. My favorite, of course is pizza, Domino's or Pizza Hut.

Our weather during the last few days has been wonderful, no rain during the day, just in the night. We hope that means spring/summer is on the way. I'm tired of the cold!!

The picture of Elder W. speaking with Sister Liggett is a teaching moment. She loves to hear some of the experiences he has had during his time in the Mission Presidency. She is one of the "Bienestar or Welfare" Sisters. Many of the young men and women called to serve missions from Ecuador, leave home without enough clothing and personal care items. Families who come to bring their missionary home to the U.S, are generous to bring pants, tootpaste, toothbrushes, ties, white shirts and luggage. These items are stored and given to these less fortunate missionaries leaving for their MTC experience in Bogota. The Welfare Sisters are in charge of this as well as other duties.

The photo of the sister in the office is Sister Griesemer, she will be the Secretary to the President. She lost her husband three years ago and decided a mission would be the best way to spend the next few years. She has four children who had a hard time so soon after losing their father, then "losing" their mother. She lives in our building as do other mission couples. She is a very sweet "type A" personality, very organized and ready to work hard.

It is going to be fun, the mission office is going to be redesigned and they will have to move the mission somewhere else in the building, we don't know where yet. We are also very excited to get our new Mission President in July. That is why they want the office finished before he gets here. He will be a great President, we know him from our last Mission here, he works for the Church in the Employment/Welfare Department.

We love and miss you all and pray for your well being wherever in the world you are at this time.

Our testimonies are solid, we love our Savior and love serving His children. We are grateful for the restoration of the Gospel on the earth at this time. We see lives being changed each day, it is wonderful and we are grateful to be a small part of the work.

Until I write again,

Hermana W.

Screws, Bolts, and Nuts in All

We are so glad our testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is solid. There are many occasions when the "Church" seems to go astray. The right and left hands not in sync. It has been an interesting few days. I added this picture of the "Wheelchair brigade." I'm sorry it is small it would not download larger. There were eight men in these wheelchairs with advertising signs for a cellphone company above them. It was pretty ingenious. That was actually the end of last week.
We have had several days of "too much" going on all around us. On our way to the office Monday morning a woman approached us asking what language we spoke. When I answered English, she told us to call 911 because she needed help. She said all the people around her were out to get her and we were probably part of it all. She started screaming at us in German, and Elder W. told her he used to be the police she went "NUTS." The guard on the corner laughs with us new each time we see him. He knows she was crazy, that's the way our week started.
The mission just received a new couple, the Sister is the "Mission" nurse, the Elder will be the financial manager for the mission. We also got a single Sister who will be the Mission Secretary. They are all fantastic people from Utah. We are also getting a new Mission President in July, interesting thing, Elder W. and I worked under him in the Employment Center in our last mission. He worked in the Welfare Dept. in Salt Lake, so, we already know the new President. We are really excited, the mission needs a real kick in the behind.
Today was pandamonium in the office. I started getting phone calls from our students. They usually do not call us, we call or text them. They all had the same story, they received a text message to phone the PEF office urgently. I had no idea what was going on. Come to find out; Bogota sent out 2000 text messages to all the participants in the AREA. Needless to say we had to do some backtracking, called Bogota and discussed with them to leave our people alone. At the end of the afternoon, we found it was Salt Lake who had a conference call to all Areas in the Church who have Perpetual Education. It was to see if the mass text system would work. Well, it workd. It is very confusing to our students to get conflicting messages. The thing I do the most in the office is TEXT every participant to congratulate or tell them to "pay up." Of course, I do it in love and respect, that means I text probably 300 people each month, sometimes several times each month.
We are both very tired lately, I think six years between missions is adding to the being tired. We also work very hard, at home and at the office. Life in a foreign country is difficult. I have shared stories and incidences to illustrate. It all continues to be amazing and wonderful. Change is alsways good, sometimes hard but good. So we will continue to experience change for the rest of our lives and learn from the changes and experiances that come from the change.
As long as I can communicate with our children, grandchildren and friends I am a happy person and I can do anything. Thank heavens for technology!!!! I am trying to keep up with this blog. I hope it is allowing some of you to see inside Mission Life. There are many opportunities for couples or single sisters "out here."
We love being here and serving our Savior, although we are really not with the missionaries, the Mission is growing with baptisms in many areas of Quito.
I need to take some more pictures for you all to see. We have a Holiday this Friday, so maybe as we go around the city, I'll take the camera.
Until I write again, Love to all.

Not only is it hard work, it is dangerous too!

I have added some pictures to illustrate a part of our mission.

Last week, I reported that I fell, the photo is an example of some of the conditions of the streets and sidewalks. This is not where I fell, but an example, it looks like this corner everywhere. I have not used the same corner where I fell, since my fall.

Monday was a very stressful day in the office. Elder W. is compiling his month-end report. He sends out a comprehensive report to all our five stakes locally. It is very detailed. It usually takes him about two weeks to put all the statistics together. Salt Lake has implemented a new program for students who are very behind in their paymens. It is called "New Hope." When a student makes four consecutive payments the balance is put to the end of the loan, and they are given two months grace period. Their payments begin again at a lower amount for a short period of time. This give them a chance to catch up. Work is very hard to find, and some students are unemployed for a time, even after they have graduated from their studies. We called Bogota to have them apply this "New Hope" to one of our students and they gave Elder W. "a song and dance" about other things the student needed to do before they would help him. He then called Salt Lake and got a different story. He was not very happy at that point. I just put my head down and worked very hard and tried not to listen. No one could help but hear. Hard day!
Yesterday, what a difference. A wonderful calm day until the finance department brought me the report which they send out each month. There are six parts to this report. I have to put all six parts in order by Stake or District. The best part of the day was when we realized that they had taken a suggestion from Elder W. about more information for the Stake Presidents to be able to read about the students payments history.
I know this all sounds mundane, we were very excited to think they found the suggestions worthy of printing out more material to give more information to the leaders.
A mission is not an easy process. I don't want to discourage anyone from applying to go, but know it is HARD WORK, but very, very worth it!
We love what we are doing! The Lord is helping us each and every day. Prayers are answered and our friend and Service Missionary, Patricio, is learning so much Preishood leadership from
Elder W. It is wonderful to hear My husband teach. Sometimes the missionaries come to the office to talk to Elder W. about a problem. Nothing about the Mission, usually how they can apply for the Perpetual Education Fund after their mission. He always tells them they must be obedient above all else, and ambitious.
We pray there is a couple being prepared to take our place, it is already in our thoughts. We do not want to leave and have made this progress, and have no one to follow our work. It is to important to these people and their future.
We love and miss you all. Until I write again.

Interesting Happenings

The pictures I have added to this post are from earlier this year. The "stiltwalker" is from New Years eve day on one of the busiest streets here in Quito. It is the street we walk to get to our office each day. It was a very festive day and grew even more so as the day went on. The police closed off the street to traffic and with each hour it continued to fill with more and more people.
The second picture is Elder W. and I singing at a luncheon at the end of last year for the staff working at the Church Office Building. They had asked him, because they KNOW he plays and sings "rock-n-roll", and they love it. Somehow he dragged me into it. It was kind of fun. The President of the MTC in Bogota and his wife were in attendance. Although he was not impressed, our time here is not all work, we do have some fun too.
On a most recent note; at the urging of Jamie and Elder W., I will share an experience of falling yesterday flat on the street! It's OK to laugh, after a few hours, I even laughed. I have really no idea how it happened, but we began to cross the street at a corner. A bus was stopped in front of us, we began to walk in front of the bus (because they had a red light) and somehow I just fell . It all happened so fast, I can't remember falling, just hitting the ground. I was scared because I fell on my right knee, hip and hand. I felt my cheek hit the asphalt and that really frightened me. Elder W. tried to help me up, but I just needed to lay there a minute. As I layed there, I looked up at the bus and saw all the people looking down at me. When I did get up we just stood against a wall for a few minutes while I gathered myself. My face just had a little dirt, my knee just skinned some, and some gravel in my hand and that was all. I was very blessed, I really should have been hurt much worse. As the day went on, I did begin to have some sore muscles and aches, but that's all. Angels do attend!
The funny thing is, by this time our last mission I had fallen four or five times. The streets here are so very bad. So, in reality this is a record for me.
You will be hearing in the news about Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama all posturing against one another. There have been many demonstrations, but we are fine. No worries.
Until I write again, we send our love, and testimony of the restored Gospel. We love serving!

Frustrations Of Mission Work

It is only Wednesday, but we have already had some frustrations.
Monday morning we are excited for a new week and month, and we have so much to do. It was not possible. Apparently, they were installing a new generator in the area below the office building. Elder W. had quite a large amount of information to format for our phone contacts to make during the month. Each time he would begin to arrange his data the electricity would go out, and the computer would also shut down. All the data GONE. He would start again, and once again the electricity off. After three times, too much frustration, we went home.
I have been trying to get him to rest more anyway; so, he would get to feeling better. Thus he did some more resting that day and IS in fact feeling better.
Not feeling well and having to slow down is not an easy thing while we are serving "full time." You feel the need to push forward, but sometimes we need to slow down just a little bit. We are NOT 19 year olds.
The Lord is opening doors and helping us accomplish a tremendous amount. We have been given three more areas of students to contact. It seems undaunting, but we know we will have success. Many Priesthood leaders are "catching the vision" and giving better support for the program.
Many of our participants are coming in and meeting us, and calling us to "update" their statistics, that is quite an accomplishment. Before we came they needed to call Bogota, thus they never called. So all their information was wrong, it took us a little while to get them to call us, and we are thrilled they are doing so.

Our friends in the Mission

These are pictures of the Sisters in the Mission Office who will be leaving in March.

The Sisters are the Mission Nurse, Sis. Wallace, with Sis. Nickerson on her lap. I am standing with Sis. Lovenger who with her husband are the couple who work in the Mission Office.

This is Elder W. standing with Patricio Alverez.

The one thing that happens often in a Mission is change. Every six weeks Missionionaries leave and they are replaced by new (greenies). The interesting thing about Sis. Nickerson, this was her 7th mission, her eyesight is failing so she had to return to the States. Sis. Wallace her 3rd. She goes home to Canada. I have grown to love these sisters. The Lovengers are going to a small branch to the South to help with Priesthood training. We will get replacements in March.
Elder W. is still sick, he says he is not, but he is.
We are excited too, to be able to read the blog of our dear friends who are serving in Ghanna. There are many similarities, different cultures yes, but both countries need the Gospel and to learn Priesthood Principles. Our Priesthood leaders here in Quito are beginning to be of great help to us in our calling. They are beginning to help teach their students learn to be accountable.
We love serving the Lord. We are so blessed.
We are grateful our children love and support us, we feel their prayers and of course they are in our prayers daily. We pray for their Testimonies to grow in their service. They are beginning to spread the country more. Our family will soon occupy five states. I know many of our friends have lived with this before, but it will be new for us.