Hi everyone! The count down has begun. In 34 days from now I will be home! Yay! I am looking forward to many things. The only thing that I am not lookign forward to is leaving my 9 studies for 3 whole months. I just started a new one too that I was hoping to get to meetings right away, but I will have to trust the other sisters to do that. It has been a strange couple of months in service. 2 months ago, I had 5 studies of my own, then I inherited 3 from Hannah, then 2 more from a friend, but somehow ended up with 14 last month. I guess I added a few new ones in there. Then my friend came back to Ecuador and took her 2 back, and I am left with 9. The math doesn't really add up, but you lose some, you gain some and it's always changing. I am happy with the 9 that I have now, although lately they have been making me do A LOT of research. I really need to teach them to do their own research! Ha Ha...

Well anyway, I wantd to post a few pics of some friends that came to visit a couple weeks ago. They originally were coming just for the day, but ended up staying the whole weekend. (Apparently, I am like super fun...)

Anyway, here they are... after the pics I am going to write a quick experience that really encouraged me today. K, see you all soon! Take care.



Here we are doing what everyone wants to do when they visit Quito... Go to Mindo and do the Zipline Canopy Tour. It's about 2 hours outside of Quito in the Mindo Jungle. I have plethera of other blogs with picutres pretty much the exact same. (Just different faces).

From left to right: Aaron, from Florida, doing temp work at Bethel in Guayaquil; Marianella, a crazy, cool Guayaquilenian (well they are all crazy); Christian, also from Guayaquil; and Danny from my hall.

Ecuadorians are crazy about their group photos. We took millions...

Even little ones can do the zipline. See Aunt Cheryl, no big deal. If he can do it, you can do it next year, when you come...

I wish we had zoomed out on this one. These rocks are in the middle of the river. It was tricky getting out there, but made a good photo.

The visitors hamming it up in the backseat of a taxi

This was taken at a cool restaurant/bakery that sells insanely delicious pastries, even apple pie. It has a great view of the city just behind the shot.

We went to a party in Quito for a sister who'd been serving here that had to go home. We were all given these roses to hold up high and make a long tunnel of roses for her to walk through when she entered. It was kind of weird...

In Quito in front of the President's Palace

A couple people went on this old squeeky roller coaster. I would have but I'm so close to making it home in one piece, I figured why risk it now?

Well that's all the pics I got from Marianella. I didn't actually take any myself, which is probably why I am actually in the pictures for once!

OK, so quick story about how Jehovah takes care of us need greaters in big and small ways.

There is a family who moved here from Florida (Everyone is from Florida) Sylas and Justine with their maybe 8 year old son Skyler. They are a very "eccentric" family. They moved here without speaking any Spanish, without any money, without any idea of what living abroad is like. They really struggled for the first few months, constantly planning on moving back home, then sticking it out a little longer. Long story short, they were not doing well, but before giving up, decided to give the English group in Quito a try and it was just what they needed. They are a big help to the congregation and they are able to feel useful in service. Of course they had to move without any money which is always tough, as there are costs. Evidentally one of the things they had to give up was buying new clothes, which the dad desperately needed. He didn't have a single T-shirt left that wasn't stained with grease from cooking. He was unabe to find anything he could wear anyway because he is a pretty big guy and there are no clothes his size here.

Anyway, I didn't know any of this last week when I visited the English Group. Last year, we had brought some Nike clothes to give/sell to people here in Ecuador, but I had accidentally brought all the XXL shirts too, even though I knew no one here would be able to use them. So I thought of this Brother who had been our neighbor before but had left to the English group, so I brought a bag full of brand new Nike T-shirts size XXL with the intention of giving them to him if I saw him. Well he wasn't at the meetings, so I left them with another Brother to give to him later.

So this morning I got a call from Sylas, thanking me so much for the shirts and that he was so excited to find something that fit him and that looked presentable. He said they've been saving up to try to buy a T-shirt or two for him, and that he could afford to purchase a couple. When I told him that he had misunderstood and that I was actually giving all 9 of them to him, there was silence. He said he'd been praying for shirts, nothing else materially, just shirts, and that where ever he found them, that they wouldn't be too expensive. Anyway, so he's yelling at his wife, screaming that their prayers were answered. (I told you, they are very "eccentric".)

He says that the mom and son had been wanting to do a little present day for the dad but hadn't been able to yet since they don't have any money. He told me that they are going to use the T-shirts for his gifts.

I don't know, it's nothing special but it's weird how we can all help each other without it being a huge thing. I mean, I usually think I can't really help other people serving here, even though I want to, because my resources are just as scarce. But here I had T-shirts that no one else wanted, and this brother had been praying for. It worked out so perfect. I was very happy to have been able ot help.

I reminds me of when I was out of grocery money for the month in October and was going to have to take it from my November savings and be short the next month. That night, my next door neighbor came over, said they were leaving town and didn't want their food to go bad, so did I want everything in their fridge? Yes, I did! It was perfect timing.

I can just imagine all those shirts wrapped individually... 9 gifts ain't bad.