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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Thursday, July 26, 2012

July 20th through the 24th


 Check out the 3 videos posted right before this post.

 July 20th:  I’m starting to feel better but mom is still under the weather.  We finished our shift today and were asked to speak to a group of young adults from La Paz.  There were about 50 of them.  Mom did a good job with voice that sounds like she should sing bass.  I felt good about my talk also.

July 22nd:  Pres. Crayk had to go to Santa Cruz again today.  So went with his wife and the Johnsons to the Esmeralda Ward.  I drove for the first time.  It’s only about a 15 to 20 minute drive east of the temple.  The Johnsons spoke and then I spoke.  I changed my talk on sacrifice to fit the situation and added the story about Samuel the Lamanite.  I think it was a good talk.  I am trying to translate it because Sister Crayk said she would like to read it in English.  I will finish it in the next few days and post it for the kids.  We also had to teach a combined RS and Priesthood class for the 3rd hour.  Mom had worked on an outline on “we are a covenant people and what are our responsibilities as a covenant people.”  We then traded off taking turns talking and teaching.  It turned out really good and mom is going to make this into a talk she can have on hand for one of our upcoming speaking assignments.  We came home and cooked dinner for the Johnsons and Sister Crayk.  We had pork chops, cabbage and augratin potatoes.  It was fun to have people over.
This is Brother Ramos' new son about 6 weeks old.  He works in the temple and lives in the Esmeraldas' Ward Where we spoke July 22nd..
July 23rd:  I decided to cook Chinese today.  But first we cleaned the apartment, which entails moving all the furniture and sweeping and then mopping the floors.  We then went shopping for things I needed.  I made Kung pao chicken, Crispy honey chicken, sweet and sour fried egg plant and a spicy cucumber salad.  We had invited the Kennedys, the Winkfields, the Cardons and the Crayks.  Sister Kennedy also made sweet and sour chicken.  We decided to have the dinner at the Crayks because they have the biggest table.  We ate about 4:30pm and then all of us went to a party to raise money for Claudia the woman who is in charge of the laundry at the temple who has cancer.  She is not going to make it. The cancer has spread from her ovaries to her stomach and is everywhere. She will have some chemotherapy treatment but that will only give her a little time.  She has 3 small children.  The party was incredible over 1000 people.  They had musical acts and other performers.  It had started at 2:00pm, we didn’t get there until 6:00pm and we stayed till about 9:00pm. They had a raffle we bought 6 tickets and 3 of them won 3 big baskets of food.  The first one had a fifth of whiskey in it so I took it back to the stage, everyone was laughing.  The next basket I won I gave back so someone else could win.  The next one I was too embarrassed that we had won again that I didn’t even want to go up.  Sister Diaz grabbed the ticket and ran up there and got the basket.  So I let her take that one home.  I will post some pictures and video of the party on the blog.  I’m sure they raised a lot of money for her family.
Some of our group at the party for Claudia July 23rd
This is Claudia with one of the singers.  Claudia is the one the party was for.
Sister Diaz with you basket of Groceries which she won with our ticket.  She is the wife of the other counselor in the Temple Presidency.
July 24th:  Pioneer Day.  I thought a lot about all of you at home today, climbing Ensign Peak and Lagoon.  Then when we started getting pictures of the kids at Lagoon, we got even more homesick.  We went to lunch with the Kennedys and the Crayks.  It is 2 for 1 at Tuesdays on Tuesdays.  So Pres. Crayk and I had ribs and Connie and mom had BBQ Chicken.  It was a nice meal and with tip and drinks and everything was only $10.  We decided at lunch that we would play cards in the evening.  Crayks had the morning shift and we were off.  So we played cards for a couple of hours.  The women won again.
July 25th:  We had the morning shift and the temple was busy, 2 sealings and 6 new endowments.  Pres Crayk at cards the night before had said that the group from Argentina wanted to have an early session at 8:00am and then all the men in the group would go to the Baptistery and their youth would come up and they would do baptisms then they would leave for a 19 hour trip back to Argentina.  He said that we needed to get some people to help us, since we were on in the morning we would be in charge of making everything happen.  So the Kennedys got enlisted there at cards to officiate and I called the Perezs to help in the clothing and new name booth.  It went well, they had 20 people show up.  It made for a busy morning.  We didn’t do much in the afternoon and evening.  I worked on translating my talk and mom studied and went and did iniciatory.
The group from Argentina leaving.
 
The Red Socks sing at the party for Claudia July 24th


 
The group of young adults from La Paz July 20th

Our outing on the double decker bus.  July 16th

Thursday, July 19, 2012

July 9th through16th



I have just posted a couple of my journal entries. Hope you can get an idea of how busy we are by the July 12th entry.

July 9th:  Today is P-day but I don’t feel like doing much of anything.  Still have a bad cold, runny nose, sore throat and cough.  But mom wants to get out so Pres. Dyer and his wife and mom and I took off about 9:30am to go and visit Tarata about an hour and a half from Cochabamba.  I wasn’t a lot of fun, the convent was interesting and the town was quaint.  We got home about 3:00pm.  Mom went to a FHE and I stayed home sick.
Street in Tarata

Church in Tarata main square Pres. Dyer

Courtyard of convent in Tarata

Mom and I in Tarata
Wine press and wine jugs at convent



Mom and the wine jugs careful dear no tasting!

July 12th:  We had the morning shift today and the temple is still very busy.  It is winter break and the kids are out of school so we have many groups here at the temple.  The guest house is overflowing.  We were very busy today in the temple.  On the way up to the temple a Stake Pres. from Santa Cruz stopped me and asked if someone could talk to their youth in the afternoon.  I said yes of course and made it a point to talk to Pres. Crayk about who could speak to this group.  Well after talking to Pres. Crayk he assigned mom and I to talk to them.  After our shift we hurried home and got a quick bite to eat and as we were waiting to go to the auditorium here in the guest house, Pres. Crayk called and said there was a stake primary at the temple and they had arraigned for someone to speak to them.  He said he had forgotten all about their coming and could I go and talk to them.  He was sending them down to the guest house and I could use the cafeteria to seat them all.  So I grabbed a ceramic piggy bank that mom had bought on our outing on Monday and we hurried down to the cafeteria stopping at the auditorium to tell them we would be a little late.  There were about 50 primary kids and 20 adults (moms and leaders).  Mom gave a shot talk and then I talked to them about Samuel the Lamanite (see story on Blog).  It was a quick little meeting but the kids really liked the story.  We then hurried back to the auditorium and we spoke to a group of Aaronic Priesthood boys from Santa Cruz.  Mom gave a cute talk, taken from the back of a Zucaritas box, frosted flakes, on winning with passion.  I gave a talk about how we are all (Priesthood holders) obligated to serve missions.  We were the only speakers it lasted about an hour.  We got home about 5:30 and mom had agreed to go to the Family History Center and help teach people how to do family history.  There were about 4 deacon age boys with little scraps of paper with names and dates on them.  Mom was helping one of them set up an account on the web site so he could get the family cards printed for the name he had brought.  Mom thinks that their leader said you can’t come on this trip if you don’t have someone you can do the work for.  Well mom got all the info in the computer and it would not let him have an account.  This took about an hour.  The guy in charge come over and said oh I’m sorry he is only 12 and you have to be 13 to be able to have an account on the church web site.  So mom starts over using her account and logging on as helping a guest.  They get all the info in again, another hour, and it won’t let them print the cards.  The man comes over again to see what the problem is, and looks at the information and says oh I’m sorry this person has only been dead for 9 months they have to have been dead for at least a year.  At this point mom looks at this boy and says “you are not old enough and he is not dead enough”  2 hours of helping in the family history center,  Good Times! 
Brother Cusiconquis youth group from Santa Curz
Some of the young women we spoke to from Santa Cruz
Group arriving from Chile
Group from Santa Cruz
July 16th:  We went on our monthly outing with all the temple missionaries today.  We had a double-decker tourist bus come and pick us up and take us on a tour of Cochabamba.  It lasted for 2 hours and everyone seemed to like it.  Mom officially has my cold and I’m about 80%.
Our outing on the bus

Seeing Cochabamba
Main Plaza
Many women still carry everything on their back

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Samuel the Lamanite

Samuel, a friend of the family and Diana
 Samuel the Lamanite

This is a story that happened to President Crayk Friday the 29th of June 2012:
Pres. Caryk was in his office and Elder Cabrera came into his office and said that there was a couple that would like to speak to him.  That he has known the wife for many years and that he was her seminary teacher when she was young, and that they were here at the temple from La Paz.  Pres. Crayk asked why they wanted to talk to him.  Elder Cabrera said he did not know.  So Pres. Crayk invited them into his office.  They started to explain their financial problems and were treating him like a Bishop.  Many people think there is a sign over Pres. Crakys’ door that says “Bishop”.  Pres. Crayk gave them some advice and thought they were done.  The wife said that they had come to the temple because of their children.  Pres. Crayk is thinking, well yes the temple makes all of us think about eternal families.  They then explained that they had been planning to come to the temple for a while but that last week after looking over their finances they realized that they did not have enough money.  They have 2 children Samuel who is 6 and Diana who is 4.  They explained to their children that they would not be able to go to the temple.  Samuel took Diana by the hand and without saying anything left the room.  They come back with their piggy banks.  They broke them open on the floor in front of their parents and Samuel said take our money we need to go to the temple.  They had just enough money to buy their bus tickets with the money from their children’s piggy banks.  They explained that their 2 children were downstairs and that Samuel wanted to meet the Pres. of the Temple.  They asked if Pres. Crayk could take the time to meet their children.  Pres. Crayk said he about ran downstairs.  Samuel came up to him and said with all the confidence of someone much older.  Pres. I wanted to meet you. Pres. Crayk said Samuel the pleasure is all mine and I want to meet you.  After talking to them for a few minutes, he said Samuel will you do me a favor.  Samuel said yes.  Pres. Crayk then said with tears in his eyes, “Will you go home and continue to teach your parents about faith and sacrifice. “ He said he would.  Thanks Samuel the Lamanite for you example of faith and sacrifice.

Samuel's Mom and Dad, Samuel, Diana and a friend of the family