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.