Quito, Ecuador Temple

Quito, Ecuador Temple
Here is where we will be working until Feb. 2023

Welcome

Dear Readers,

We hope as you read this blog of our mission to the Quito, Ecuador temple you will feel the joy and happiness we are experiencing by being in the service of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We hope you can experience some of what we feel. Christine and I met in Quito, Ecuador 51 years ago while serving as missionaries. We are going home.


John and Christine

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Saturday, September 12, 2009


In the distance you can see the building we will be teaching in. It is very new and we have access to media in the classroom. We don't start teaching until Sept.21st, so we still feel like we are on vacation. We go out every day to explore the city and to buy something we think we need. Mostly it is just fun to wander around. Tianjin is not a tourist destination, so we are often the only foreigners when we go places. There are a lot of Koreans in the city though. There is a lot of building going on, but the city is clean and has a great energy. I can see why Ginny likes living in New York.

There are beautiful lotus ponds on the campus. They aren't in bloom yet, but still pretty. It's fun to see the students arrive on campus with their parents, suitcases, and sometimes bedding. It's just like campuses everywhere. There are very nice dining rooms close to our apartment for the foreign teachers and students. We haven't found the student dining halls.

This is the entrance into Nan Kai University. The flags are to welcome the new students. I am a little wobbly on my bike, but I haven't caused any accidents yet. Cars and bicycles seem to have equal rights to the road with pedestrians mixed in. You just move forward and try not to stop unexpectedly. We love to ride to the open air market to buy vegetables and fruit.

Friday, September 4, 2009


We last left you with the breakdown of our car as we were driving to Mt. Pleasant. When I (Chris) picked up the car after getting the air conditioning fixed FOR THE SECOND TIME, the mechanic mentioned that the harmonic balancer was well, out of balance. I had never heard of a harmonic balancer, so I made the call that it couldn't be too serious. Uh, wrong call. The result was rather expensive, but we have driven the ever faithful xterra back and forth to Salt Lake all summer. Now we will share with you what we have been doing all summer. This is farmer John, trying to dig up all the weeds in what we affectionately call the "east forty". ( Please notice the chicken coop on the far left.) We realized last year that the weeds would always get the better of us, so we decided to lay sod and have square foot gardens instead.

This is the result, and on July 4th we had several rousing games of volleyball, a super-soaker slide and a perfect spot to watch the fireworks. We also decided to lay pavers all around the storage shed and by the play yard. (See before and after).
I can't find the before.








We are sitting in LAX waiting for our flight to China. My battery is dying, so I will post this and charge my battery and add more pictures of the other projects we tackled in Mt. Pleasant.



















Monday, June 1, 2009

The Adventure Begins





















The last 5 weeks have been very busy. It all started with our farewell talks in our ward in SLC on April 25th. When we got home from church our real estate agent called us and told us she had a full price offer. By Thursday we had hammered out an agreement and that started the ball rolling towards the mouth of the cave with us in the cave. (see Indiana Jones the first one) We then had to get everything moved that we wanted to keep to Mt Pleasant because we only had the 8th and the 9th available to us for an estate sale. The McAdams decided that they wanted to buy most of the furniture we were going to sell, so we only had household items and stuff that you wind up owning but not needing after 18 years in the same place. Even our kids did not want most of the things. Well the sale went on and surprisingly most things sold. I only had to take about 2 trailer loads to DI. Elle's picture got uploaded by accident but she is so pretty she gets to stay. Next we had to get the house cleaned. That took about a week for Tracy the gal that has cleaned our house for 10 years and 2 other people she brought with her. We closed on the 19th. We took a load in the Xterra to Mt. Pleasant on the 20th. We then drove back to SLC and we slept in the house for the last time the night of the 20th they bought our bed. The 21st we tended Kimball and then drove to Mt. Peasant with another load in the Xterra. We went by way of Nephi because they are resurfacing the road between Fairview and Thistle Junction. A couple of miles outside of Nephi the care starts really running poorly. Chris has to finish the story in the next post.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Sunday in Otavalo







Sunday found us at church at 8:00 am and on the front row of the chaple. We were all asked to bear our testimonies in Spanish and of course the Norman curse affected the four of us. The Spirit was really strong as we met with a large groupe of Otavalanian Indians.

Ecuador and More











It's Wednesday night and we leave Otavalo in the morning. We are sad to be leaving such a wonderful place. We arrived late Friday and got up and went to the market. See pictures. It's a wonderful, wild and interesting market. Lots of textiles. Mom bought a funky sweater.




Then we went up the mountain to the school that Wally is here to help with some expansion plans. That is the picture at the top of the blog.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

As I explained in the video, Shortly after Thanksgiving I caught a bad case of beadboarditist. The only known cure is to put up beadboard until the symptoms stop. So for the last month I have been putting up beadboard at our house in Mt. Pleasant and of course painting. I think things turned out real cute. Friday morning we leave for Ecuador and Machupichu, Peru. Wish us un buien vijaje. I can't spell in Spanish or English.