MISSION TRIP TO GUAYAQUIL AND QUITO, ECUADOR!

We traveled with the Cardons to Guayaquil, Ecuador to meet with Sterling and Jan Piepgrass, the assistant AMA, who over sees the missionaries in Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela.  We met them for training and to give them some materials.  We were all invited to participate in a zone conference in the Guayaquil South Mission by President and Sister Torres.  It was wonderful to see some of our missionaries from the CCM, as well as the other great missionaries from all over the world.

 We checked into the Oro Verde, which was a lovely hotel in central Guayaquil

 I loved this sculpture that reminded me of our climb back to Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ!

We enjoyed the bakery just off of the lobby.

While we waited for Sterling and Jan to arrive, we took a walk around the city!

The streets of Guayaquil were clean and wide and the weather reminded us of Kapalua!

There were many parks and beautiful trees.

This was Sunday afternoon and not many people around.

Fire station door and engine entrance!

This was a lovely cathedral that had an Iguana Park across the street.

This is the Iguana Park that had lots of iguanas and turtles everywhere!

Can you see all the iguanas?

This was a cute family looking at the iguanas and the gold fish.

They are 2 to 3 feet long!

This was a big one!

The pond was full of fish!

This darling girl wanted to talk to me and followed me around the park until we found her family.  We visited with them for awhile.  She wanted to know how to say words in English!

Meeting this family was the best part of the day!

 We headed out to the boardwalk along the river!

 We found kids rolling around inside these huge plastic balls!

There was face painting, too!

 She has a beautiful butterfly painted on her face!

 This boardwalk had lots of restaurants and shops, but we just looked!  

 There were lots of fountains and statues, too!

 We returned to our hotel to meet Sterling and Jan, who had just arrived from Bogota, Colombia.  There has been civil unrest there for some time and they have armed guards on most street corners.  So, coming to Guayaquil was a real treat for them. 

Monday morning we arrived at this Stake Center for the zone conference.

 We were greeted by Sister Tanner on the left, who just arrived to be the nurse, as well as be a missionary.  She is joined by her companion and 2 other sisters that we saw in the CCM.

 We love seeing our CCM missionaries and meeting news ones!

 Aren't they awesome?

The Cardons knew this office couple, who are the in-laws of the Garners daughter.  Small world!

The next day was our P-day and we found a tagua wall at a local market!

We then drove out to the Guayaquil Temple which was closed for cleaning.  We wanted to see the outside and the grounds and gardens.  This is a large three story temple and is very beautiful.

The temple doors!

 The grounds and gardens were impressive.

The albergue is to the right and houses temple missionaries and visitors.

The albergue doors and inside pictures!

The Guayaquil Temple is beautiful and sits high on a hill over looking the city!

We then went back towards the boardwalk and climbed 444 stairs to fortress high above the city!

 Beautiful flowers along the way!

About 100 more stairs!

Near the top was a museum created where the Spanish set up canons for protection from the pirates.

The final climb to the top!

An amazing view from the top!

 We made it to the last stair!!!

 This lovely lighthouse has been well preserved, as well as the first church built in Guayaquil!

Chapel Doors!

A panoramic view of the city!

A pirate stands ready to see the Spanish troops!

Light house door!

Now, to climb down the stairs!

This class was resting, before the final climb to the top!

The bottom of the stairs is in sight and it was well worth the climb!

 We then stopped by a market and met two sweet young women that are church members from the Otalavo tribe near Quito, Ecuador.  We found out their parents were deceased and they lived with an aunt and uncle, who owned this leather booth.  They had to work every day to pay for their room and board.  Otalavons always dress in their native costume and all the men have long hair pulled back in a ponytail.  Missionaries from there are allowed to keep their same traditions.

We left the boardwalk and returned to our hotel passing a great old banyan tree.

The next morning we flew to Quito, the capital of Ecuador!

We checked in to our hotel in Quito, which was on the same block as the Church building, housing the Quito Mission office, the Institute, and church travel office.

These darling kids had just arrived with their family.

Another nice hotel that the church uses.   The church books our flights and hotels whenever we travel through out the five countries.  We have been very blessed to be able to see so much of the South America Northwest area and to meet so many faithful saints working hard to build the kingdom!

The Cardons stayed for half the day and then returned to Lima and the CCM.  They were so happy to make this trip with us!  President Cardon and Steve looked great in these awesome straw hats.

 

Just around the corner was a lovely, very old cathedral.

I especially loved the door!

We then met President and Sister Ghent and their two missionary nurses at the mission office!  

We also met this Senior Missionary serving in the mission office.  She was a widow and fulfilling her dream and desire to serve a mission!  Three of her daughters had just arrived from the states for a visit!  

We had a conference with the nurses and area coordinator to discuss the health care of the missionaries and the condition of the hospitals and clinics.   That evening, we had a wonderful Chinese Dinner with the Ghents and Sterling and Jan.

The following day we were able to spend time talking with Sterling and Jan, about the responsibilities of an AMA and answer any questions they had.  We had the rest of the afternoon to tour around beautiful Quito!  The Spanish influence is everywhere and the city is nestled in the mountains!  It reminds us of the hills in Seattle!  We had visited here last year for the Mission President's Conference, so were familiar with the area.

We took them to the lovely Plaza de Armas and took our time to enjoy this area!

The Presidential Palace is to the right!

This was their first time to Quito!  He was in general practice and is the assistant Area Medical Advisor and oversees Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.  Colombia and Venezuela have a lot of civil unrest and it is not always safe to travel.  There are armed guards at most corners and they loved visiting Ecuador that felt so safe to them.

Enjoy the lovely city of Quito!

If you look at the top of the hill you will see a huge angel that watches over the city! 

 

This is one of the famous cathedral squares and enjoy the birds, as they scatter!

 We couldn't help buying some scarfs from this hermana!

 This man had no legs, but played beautiful flute music

We passed some great doors as we walked up to the most beautiful cathedral in Quito.

 

On the way to

We walked into this amazing cathedral!

 

 

Hope you all can appreciate the fabulous architecture!

The choir seats!

We returned to check out from our hotel and walked around the block to get a picture of the Quito Mission office and building.  This small and seemingly simple building is a great example of "out of small things proceeds that which is great" found in (D&C 64:33).

   

Farewell to Quito, Ecuador and to our missionaries who labor here!