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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Monday, January 21, 2013

Jan. 15th 2013



Tuesday, Jan. 15th through Friday, Jan. 18th:  The temple has been busy this week with a large group, mostly youth, from Bermejo, way south by the border with Argentina.  On Wednesday, we were on shift in the morning and I was giving the welcome to the youth and I was told by their leader that one young man, 12 years old was an orphan and wanted to do the work for his parents, who were not members of the church, because he wanted to be sealed to them.  After the welcome I explained to him that he could be baptized and confirmed for his father, but he would have to ask one of the girls in his group to be proxy for his mother.  He had spent Tuesday in the family history center getting the names of his parents ready.  He was a little disappointed that he could not be baptized for them both but agreed.  I then explained that someone else would have to do the other ordinances for his parents and after those were complete, he could be sealed to his parents.  Friday comes along and we are supposed to be off.  We get a call at 6:00am from Pres. Crayk.  He explains that he had received a call from one of the missionaries at 12:30am the night before, who thought he was having a heart attack.  Pres. Crayk spent the night at the hospital with this Elder and his wife.  Everything turned out ok and the missionary probably had a problem with the muscles in his back.  But Pres. Crayk asked us to go up to the temple and get things going and he and his wife would be up later.  I have never seen the temple so busy.  We had to set up chairs for the first session.  We had 5 new brothers and 5 new sisters and 5 marriages.  Some of these couples had come from a small district up by Lake Titicaca, the men understood Spanish, but the some of the wives only spoke Amayra. The baptistery was overflowing and the assigned sealer did not show up.  When Pres. Crayk arrived it was evident that they needed us to stay.  I ended up being the sealer for the last 2 hours.  Pres. Crayk also had his share of sealings to do.  One of which was the 12 year old from Vermejo.  Pres. Crayk said that everyone in the sealing was crying and that the Spirit was powerful.  I sealed a young couple and then sealed 2 of their 3 boys, a 5 year old with sever handicaps and a 2 year old.  It was sweet, but they also had their 8 year old son with them.  But he had not been baptized yet and so according to the rules he could not be sealed.  Sometimes we cry for joy and sometimes because we are sad.  Many of the Bishops and Branch Presidents just don’t understand the rules.  We also had a family come and one of their kids was twelve but had not been ordained a deacon and so he could not be sealed.  It might be years till they can afford to come back to the temple.  I sealed one 17 year old boy to his parents.  He had been left home 2 years earlier when the family had come to be sealed to take care of the animals on their farm.  But now everyone in the family is sealed.  We win some we lose some, but there is order in the kingdom.  We got a call in the evening from Pres. Crayk asking us to go and speak to a Youth Conference in the morning at 10:00am for the wards Cala Cala and Temporal and that we would need to speak for about 30 minutes.

Saturday, Jan. 19th: We went up for the early session and things had slowed down a bit, so we were able to leave and we came home and worked on what we were going to say to the youth conference.  We got to take President’s car and we arrived about 9:50am.  President Garcia, one of the counselors in the Mission Presidency was speaking.  He finished and we asked Bishop Delgado how much time he wanted us to speak, he said you have 1 hour and then we want you to answer questions from the youth.  Mom spoke for 15 to 20 minutes and then I spoke for 40 minutes on the need to have the Holy Ghost in our lives.  The questions were fun and one of them was why do sister missionaries serve for only 18 months, when the boys have to serve for 2 years.  We were only 2 of a panel of 6 that were answering the questions, so after a couple of answers I said, “I have the real answer.  The reason that sisters only serve 18 months is that they can accomplish in 18 months what it takes an Elder 24 months to do.”   I got a pretty good laugh and we had a lot of fun answering their questions.  At noon they stopped and we were invited to stay for lunch, but we declined saying we had to go back to the temple, which was true, we did have the afternoon shift.  We had switched with Pres. Crayk because he had to fly to La Paz for another stake conference after the morning shift.  After our shift we went to the Cardon’s apartment to watch the first episode in the third season of Downtown Abby.  Chris’s brother, Scott, sent her the DVD’s for the first two seasons for her birthday and we have passed them around to all the other missionary couples.  We were anxious to see what happens in season three.  It is great fun that Cardons can download the new episodes and we are meeting Monday night for the second one.

Sunday, Jan. 20th:  We had choir practice this morning at 7:00am.  Then I drove a group to the Temporal ward.  I made a quick trip back for the rest of the group.  Brother Rojas had taken a carload in the truck and a few had taken a taxi.  We were 30 in all and we sounded pretty good. 

The temple choir.






You be the judge. I have posted a video of us practicing before the meeting started.   

 Temple Choir Practicing.

This is the Kennedy’s ward and they are leaving in 2 weeks, so they spoke and then it was my turn to represent the Temple Presidency.  Mom said I did a pretty good job.  I apologized to the youth who had listened to me the day before.  We had dinner at the Johnson’s place as a goodbye dinner for the Kennedys.  See Picture.

Sunday Dinner, the Kennedys are to the left of mom then the Cardons and then the Johnsons.



1 comment:

Genevieve said...

Sounds busy! Love you guys