Sunday September 14, 2008
The hermanas came by for us at 8:30 as promised. We walked to the bus stop and then hopped on for a short ride to the chapel. It costs 25 cents to board the bus. From a distance last night the buses looked like any other bus I've seen. Up close though, I saw that they have got to be at least 20 years old, they are very old looking with lots of metal. Everything you sit on is metal, no plastic seats here. Once again I prayed that I would arrive safely to my destination. In all honesty though, I wasn't that worried at all. It was part of the South American experience. Any time I notice significant differences here, I just smile and figure it's part of the South American experience.
It's kind of ironic that I was looking so forward to church in Spanish because Sacrament was actually mostly in English today. We had visitors. Their chapel is the stake center and is absolutely beautiful, the most beautiful chapel I've ever been in. And they had an amazing tropical flower arrangement up at the podium. The chapel has some strong air conditioning which I thought felt normal but everyone else afterwards said they were so cold and in the succeeding classes everyone opened the windows to let the warm air in. It was kind of humorous. Also, the chapel has a drinking fountain with filtered and treated water. Yay for the church providing good drinking water! Oh, so the visitors were Sister Mary Cook who is in the Young Women General Presidency, Sister Vicki Matzamuki from the Primary General Presidency, and Elder Cook of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy. Also, Benjamin de Oro of the Seventy for the South American region was there. Apparently that have been in the area, traveling around South America for the past 9 days doing training. So, they spoke in Sacrament with a translator repeating everything they said in Spanish. So those of us who could understand both languages heard each talk twice. :) It was pretty crazy to have so many leaders ending up in the same ward as us. Hermao Oro spoke last, since he is a native he gave his talk in Spanish and I enjoyed it the most actually. He spoke on the Sacrament and the covenants we make with God and how we can best show our devotion to our Heavenly Father through service.
Well anyway, the rest of church was very good as well. I think I've come to the nicest ward in the entire world. I have never received so many kind words, hugs, kisses, and welcomes in my life. I met so many people I can hardly keep them straight. One hermano came up to us after church and welcomed us and gave us his card saying he's a doctor and if we ever need anything to give him a call. This is actually rather convenient because Becky and I both have broken bones and she needs to get x-rays while she's here. We also met his son Andres, 26 years old, who offered to drive us over to the centro de empleo to show us where it is. So, we crammed into his little car with our 2 mother missionaries and he showed us the centro and then drove us home. People keep asking us where we live and we have to say we don't know because we arrived at 10 last night and haven't seen any of the city yet. When Andres found out we don't have a map of the city, he promised to bring us one first thing in the morning. Upon arriving in front of our house we got out at the same time as an hermana from the barrio. We have member neighbors! I don't remember her name but her daughter is in young women's and is named either Melissa or Michelle. I don't remember. Her son, we had met earlier and is name Humberto and is 25. She was quick to inform us that Humberto is going on a mission when he welcomed Becky with besos, back at church. She was very nice, and told us to feel free to come over any time and call if we ever need anything. Everyone was so willing to show us around and be there if we need anything that I feel very overwhelmed with all of their friendliness. We have 4 names and numbers of friends that we made at church, one of which actually served his mission with Becky in Chile.
At home we discovered a bug problem had appeared while we were at church. They are tiny little things that slightly resemble ants except much smaller and faster. I suppose that's better than being bigger. But they were crawling all over our kitchen counters and all over the packages of our food. Becky proceeded to bang each container on the counter to knock them off and I went behind her with a paper towel, squishing them all. We then put every piece of food in the fridge, including our box of cereal. We're going to go to the supermarket tomorrow and search for some type of bug spray because the problem is pretty bad. It's weird that there was nothing there this morning when we ate breakfast.
But, that's the only negative thing that has happened thus far. And it's not even that big of a deal and would certainly be much less of a big deal if I didn't have this phobia of ants being inside my house.
Well anyway, Guayaquil in the daylight is awesome. We really do live in the nice part of town. It's weird ho some people drive brand new SUV's and cars and others drive really stinkin' old tiny cars that you typically see on TV when South America is depicted. There's a huge gap between people's economic wellbeing apparently. Oh, that reminds me, in Gospel Doctrine, we were talking about the Gadianton Robbers and about the situation of the Lamanites and Nephites in Helaman 6 and 7. Gabriela, the teacher, asked for examples of Gadianton Robbers of our day, here in Guayaquil. The answers of drugs, alcohol, and lots and lots of robbers was given. And then someone said the Government, and everyone agreed as if this was nothing new. Becky and I looked at each other and found that comment to be very interesting. The U.S. government has it's corruptions and annoying politicians, but I would never in my life compare it as an equal to the Gadianton Robbers. Interesting how different that is here.
So, Guayaquil looks like a really fun place, I'm excited to see more of it and travel. I absolutely
love the trees around here, there are lots of palm trees and all the other trees have flowers on them! The ones right outside our windows have large orange tropical flowers and I love it. It's warm and humid here but I think it feels wonderful. We'll see if I still feel that way in December when we're in the middle of Summer.
Becky y yo caminamos por las calles después de una siesta. Johnny nos dijo anoche que vivimos 5 cuadras del templo entonces queríamos caminar hasta el templo para verlo. Habíamos caminado por unos minutos cuando vimos la aguja con Moroni. Entonces caminamos en ese dirección hasta vimos el templo encima la colina. Esta en una buena parte de la ciudad. Pero es un poco extraño, porque hay personas muy ricas cerca del templo pero en la misma calle hay personas muy pobres, viviendo en edificios que no están completamente construidos. Había una familia que vive en un edificio sin ventanas, solo tiene grandes espacios en vez de ventanas y algunas partes no tienen paredes ni techos. Hay una mezcla de pobres entre los ricos. También, es diferente que hay guardias para las casas en esta parte. Se sientan en sillas en cada esquina, algunas son profesionales con armas, y otros no.
Hay muchas flores aquí, y saque muchas fotos, quiero tener una colección de fotos de las flores de Ecuador. A mi me encanta Ecuador, estoy emocionada para aprender y observar mucho mas durante los 3 meses próximos.
Translation of last paragraph for reader convenience: After a nap, Becky and I went for awalk. Johnny had told us last night that we live about 5 blocks from the temple so we wanted to walk to it. We had only walked a few minutes when we saw the steeple with Moroni. We walked in that dirrection, following the steeple until we saw the temple sitting on top of a hill. It's in a good part of the city but it's kind of strange because there are really rich people near the temploe, but on the same street there are very poor people, 
living in unfinished buildings. There was one family living in a partly constructed building without windows, it just had large spaces where the windows should have been. (Pictured on the left)Some parts didn't have a wall or a roof. There's a huge mixture of the poor among the rich. It's also interesting to see guards in front of certain houses. They sit in seats or guard shacks at each corner, some are professional with guns, and others seem to just sit there just to have a presence of a guard being there.
There are lots of flowers here, I took a lot of pictures of them, I want to have a collection of pictures of the flora of Ecuador. I love Ecuador so far, I'm excited for the next 3 months to observe and learn more.
The hermanas came by for us at 8:30 as promised. We walked to the bus stop and then hopped on for a short ride to the chapel. It costs 25 cents to board the bus. From a distance last night the buses looked like any other bus I've seen. Up close though, I saw that they have got to be at least 20 years old, they are very old looking with lots of metal. Everything you sit on is metal, no plastic seats here. Once again I prayed that I would arrive safely to my destination. In all honesty though, I wasn't that worried at all. It was part of the South American experience. Any time I notice significant differences here, I just smile and figure it's part of the South American experience.
It's kind of ironic that I was looking so forward to church in Spanish because Sacrament was actually mostly in English today. We had visitors. Their chapel is the stake center and is absolutely beautiful, the most beautiful chapel I've ever been in. And they had an amazing tropical flower arrangement up at the podium. The chapel has some strong air conditioning which I thought felt normal but everyone else afterwards said they were so cold and in the succeeding classes everyone opened the windows to let the warm air in. It was kind of humorous. Also, the chapel has a drinking fountain with filtered and treated water. Yay for the church providing good drinking water! Oh, so the visitors were Sister Mary Cook who is in the Young Women General Presidency, Sister Vicki Matzamuki from the Primary General Presidency, and Elder Cook of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy. Also, Benjamin de Oro of the Seventy for the South American region was there. Apparently that have been in the area, traveling around South America for the past 9 days doing training. So, they spoke in Sacrament with a translator repeating everything they said in Spanish. So those of us who could understand both languages heard each talk twice. :) It was pretty crazy to have so many leaders ending up in the same ward as us. Hermao Oro spoke last, since he is a native he gave his talk in Spanish and I enjoyed it the most actually. He spoke on the Sacrament and the covenants we make with God and how we can best show our devotion to our Heavenly Father through service.
Well anyway, the rest of church was very good as well. I think I've come to the nicest ward in the entire world. I have never received so many kind words, hugs, kisses, and welcomes in my life. I met so many people I can hardly keep them straight. One hermano came up to us after church and welcomed us and gave us his card saying he's a doctor and if we ever need anything to give him a call. This is actually rather convenient because Becky and I both have broken bones and she needs to get x-rays while she's here. We also met his son Andres, 26 years old, who offered to drive us over to the centro de empleo to show us where it is. So, we crammed into his little car with our 2 mother missionaries and he showed us the centro and then drove us home. People keep asking us where we live and we have to say we don't know because we arrived at 10 last night and haven't seen any of the city yet. When Andres found out we don't have a map of the city, he promised to bring us one first thing in the morning. Upon arriving in front of our house we got out at the same time as an hermana from the barrio. We have member neighbors! I don't remember her name but her daughter is in young women's and is named either Melissa or Michelle. I don't remember. Her son, we had met earlier and is name Humberto and is 25. She was quick to inform us that Humberto is going on a mission when he welcomed Becky with besos, back at church. She was very nice, and told us to feel free to come over any time and call if we ever need anything. Everyone was so willing to show us around and be there if we need anything that I feel very overwhelmed with all of their friendliness. We have 4 names and numbers of friends that we made at church, one of which actually served his mission with Becky in Chile.
At home we discovered a bug problem had appeared while we were at church. They are tiny little things that slightly resemble ants except much smaller and faster. I suppose that's better than being bigger. But they were crawling all over our kitchen counters and all over the packages of our food. Becky proceeded to bang each container on the counter to knock them off and I went behind her with a paper towel, squishing them all. We then put every piece of food in the fridge, including our box of cereal. We're going to go to the supermarket tomorrow and search for some type of bug spray because the problem is pretty bad. It's weird that there was nothing there this morning when we ate breakfast.
But, that's the only negative thing that has happened thus far. And it's not even that big of a deal and would certainly be much less of a big deal if I didn't have this phobia of ants being inside my house.
Well anyway, Guayaquil in the daylight is awesome. We really do live in the nice part of town. It's weird ho some people drive brand new SUV's and cars and others drive really stinkin' old tiny cars that you typically see on TV when South America is depicted. There's a huge gap between people's economic wellbeing apparently. Oh, that reminds me, in Gospel Doctrine, we were talking about the Gadianton Robbers and about the situation of the Lamanites and Nephites in Helaman 6 and 7. Gabriela, the teacher, asked for examples of Gadianton Robbers of our day, here in Guayaquil. The answers of drugs, alcohol, and lots and lots of robbers was given. And then someone said the Government, and everyone agreed as if this was nothing new. Becky and I looked at each other and found that comment to be very interesting. The U.S. government has it's corruptions and annoying politicians, but I would never in my life compare it as an equal to the Gadianton Robbers. Interesting how different that is here.
So, Guayaquil looks like a really fun place, I'm excited to see more of it and travel. I absolutely
love the trees around here, there are lots of palm trees and all the other trees have flowers on them! The ones right outside our windows have large orange tropical flowers and I love it. It's warm and humid here but I think it feels wonderful. We'll see if I still feel that way in December when we're in the middle of Summer.Becky y yo caminamos por las calles después de una siesta. Johnny nos dijo anoche que vivimos 5 cuadras del templo entonces queríamos caminar hasta el templo para verlo. Habíamos caminado por unos minutos cuando vimos la aguja con Moroni. Entonces caminamos en ese dirección hasta vimos el templo encima la colina. Esta en una buena parte de la ciudad. Pero es un poco extraño, porque hay personas muy ricas cerca del templo pero en la misma calle hay personas muy pobres, viviendo en edificios que no están completamente construidos. Había una familia que vive en un edificio sin ventanas, solo tiene grandes espacios en vez de ventanas y algunas partes no tienen paredes ni techos. Hay una mezcla de pobres entre los ricos. También, es diferente que hay guardias para las casas en esta parte. Se sientan en sillas en cada esquina, algunas son profesionales con armas, y otros no.
Hay muchas flores aquí, y saque muchas fotos, quiero tener una colección de fotos de las flores de Ecuador. A mi me encanta Ecuador, estoy emocionada para aprender y observar mucho mas durante los 3 meses próximos.
Translation of last paragraph for reader convenience: After a nap, Becky and I went for awalk. Johnny had told us last night that we live about 5 blocks from the temple so we wanted to walk to it. We had only walked a few minutes when we saw the steeple with Moroni. We walked in that dirrection, following the steeple until we saw the temple sitting on top of a hill. It's in a good part of the city but it's kind of strange because there are really rich people near the temploe, but on the same street there are very poor people, 
living in unfinished buildings. There was one family living in a partly constructed building without windows, it just had large spaces where the windows should have been. (Pictured on the left)Some parts didn't have a wall or a roof. There's a huge mixture of the poor among the rich. It's also interesting to see guards in front of certain houses. They sit in seats or guard shacks at each corner, some are professional with guns, and others seem to just sit there just to have a presence of a guard being there.There are lots of flowers here, I took a lot of pictures of them, I want to have a collection of pictures of the flora of Ecuador. I love Ecuador so far, I'm excited for the next 3 months to observe and learn more.
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