For missionaries, aside from preaching the Gospel, it’s pretty much all about the food. When Elder and Hermana Curtis go to Riobamba, they treat the zone leaders to lunch. This is Elder Olaveson and Elder Montufar (oh, yes, and Elder Curtis too) getting ready to devour some little hamburgers. And yes, they really did eat the whole thing. Quickly.
I got to go back to El Coca with the Curtises in October to find an apartment for the missionaries that had been sent there. (I guess they had heretofore been living at the chapel—like I said, a mission is camping out for two years.) Coca is in the Amazon, and it’s hot and humid. Have I mentioned that Elder Curtis is the Energizer Bunny in disguise? After walking here and there and back again throughout the town, shopping for everything necessary to furnish an apartment, I guess my body rebelled and took over. I sat down on a curb and thought I was going to faint. Elder Curtis ran and bought me some cold water, but I still couldn’t recover. I bailed out of the rest of the afternoon and returned to the hotel to lay down, rehydrate and cool off. Later, I asked him, “Did I really hear you look down at me on the curb and say, ‘Look, Hermana Curtis, I think we busted her.’?”
Because we were there for several days this time, we had a chance to put on our P-day clothes and walk down to the river that flows behind our hotel. We took pictures. I told the Curtises to tell their children that they were filmed with the “mighty Amazon” as the background. It’s not really true, but it looks like it. I’m including pictures of the hotel as well. It’s gorgeous, and WAY beyond something you would expect to see out in the Amazon jungle. All this for less than $100 a night.
The Gran Hotel del Coca and the flowers on its grounds.
One more funny story about the hotel. When I returned one last time to train, I noticed the owner of the hotel (actually he's the son of the owners) out plowing under these beautiful flowers using a small Bobcat backhoe. I asked his wife, Karin, what he was doing. She said that the flowers were old and needed to be dug up so younger ones could rejuvenate the flowerbeds. It was obvious that other menial laborers were standing around watching him run the Bobcat, so I asked, "Well, can't the workers do it?" She smiled and said, "Oh, yes. He has many more important things to do, but he would rather run the machine than anything else." I smiled back. How well I know that feeling, having been married to Dan for so many years.
Sometimes people are just waiting for you to ask them if they want to join the church.
By assignment from President Sloan, the Curtises and I traveled to Riobamba to work with the leadership and missionaries in the LaJoya branch to reactivate some of their members. The second weekend we went, we were introduced to Patricia Asqui and her darling little girls, Jazmin and Josselyn. They live about 30 minutes outside of Riobamba. Our assignment was to invite Sister Asqui to attend the LaJoya branch instead of the more conveniently-timed Bellavista branch.
She easily agreed to our request. We then asked about her husband. Astonishingly she said that he liked the teachings of the church and she believed he knew it was true. We invited the missionaries who were with us to begin teaching him, which they did. Several weeks later, Darwin was baptized. Hopefully he and his family will be sealed in the Guayaquil temple soon.
Although I had nothing to do with his teaching and conversion, it is satisfying to know that the Curtises and I were there at the very beginning. If we hadn’t made that visit, would Darwin have joined the church? Probably, but sooner is better than later.
Darwin Coelho with daughter and Elder Valdes
Darwin with Elder Valdes and Elder Baltazar
Darwin with extended family
Darwin with wife, Patricia and daughters, Josselyn and Jazmin
Hyatt Cole Rohner was born at 11:46 p.m. on Saturday, 19 September. He weighed 6 pounds 12 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. Once he was cleaned up, he was quite curious about his new world, and spent a good deal of time alertly checking everything out.
He interrupted a Diamondbacks game that Dad and brothers were attending. His mom describes him as looking alternately like a little old man with a recessed chin like his Grandpa Griesemer, and a gnome in his hospital hat.
Aunt Jessie is on her way to take care of the other kidlets while Mandy's recuperating in the hospital.
All is well with Mom and babe.
You did good, Mandy.
Love,
Grandma
Joseph Smith said, “We believe in the literal gathering of Israel. . . .” (Articles of Faith 10) While we, with our limited understanding, may associate gathering with a hoped-for spectacularly obvious return of the Lost Ten Tribes en masse, Joseph’s revelatory vision encompassed not only a global gathering that spanned temporality, but also the intimately personal gathering of individuals through the ordinance of baptism.
During the weekend of September 5 and 6, 2009, global and personal gathering merged in El Coca, Ecuador as the Orellana Branch of the church was organized in the Amazon, and Brother Felix Rodriguez and Sister Flor de Rodriguez were baptized by President Sloan and Elder Wortley of the Quito Ecuador Mission.
El Coca is a city of 80,000 people located in the Amazon. In 2008, the mission office began receiving phone calls from a few members of the church living in El Coca, asking for permission to meet together. In December, President Sloan sent his assistants, Elder Matthew Katzenbach and Elder Helaman Padilla on a nine-hour bus ride to assess the situation in El Coca and make recommendations. They returned after having met with the members and strongly recommended that steps be taken to organize a branch in El Coca. The first step was to organize a group that could hold a weekly sacrament meeting.
Missionaries from a smaller town about 4 hours away were asked to include El Coca in their proselytizing schedule, responding to the admonition “And ye are called to bring to pass the gathering of mine elect. . .” (D&C 29:7) As Elder Wortley and Elder Tirado enthusiastically filled their assignment, their white shirts, ties and nametags identified them as LDS missionaries to members embedded in the population, and the members in turn identified themselves to the missionaries. Sister Reyes, a member that was baptized in Santo Domingo then later moved to El Coca, tells that twice her children told her that they had seen the missionaries in town. She didn’t believe them. It wasn’t until her husband told her that he had met the missionaries getting off the bus that she began to hope that she and her family could once again actively participate in the ordinances and meetings of the church.
Elder Tirado and Elder Wortley also prepared investigators for baptism, including Brother and Sister Rodriguez. Thus, as members of the mission presidency and their families and local members met each other for the first time on Saturday, the first order of business was a baptismal service for Brother and Sister Rodriguez. As Brother Miles rose to offer his thoughts, tears filled his eyes as he touched on both the historical importance of the weekend’s planned events, and the gratitude members felt. They were experiencing the reality of the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, “he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom. . ." (Isaiah 40:11)
The baptism took place in one of the nearby rivers and included a balance beam act across a log spanning the river. The very kind lady IN the river is Hermana Reyes, who waded in and helped the gringas across. (Sadly, I don't have a picture of me tripping across the log, but Hermana Sloan does.)
The very kind owner of the property, who is not a member, allowed all participants to change into their white clothing in his home. Then Elder Wortley and Hermana de Rodriguez entered the water and Hermana Rodriguez was baptized. President Sloan and Hermano Rodriguez followed.
The baptismal service concluded with testimonies given in a lovely gazebo near the river and photos to commemorate the historic event. 
Mission leaders then went visiting local members in their homes. I got to go too. This is Hermana Reyes' home. Her husband was called to the branch presidency the next day. 
It was murderously HOT in her home, but there was a sweet and tender spirit there as well. She told us the story of not believing the missionaries were in town until her husband verified it. When it came time to take pictures, she resolutely refused to smile--except for the one we got with President and Hermana Sloan.
The next day, Sunday, another gathering took place as the Mission Presidency organized a new branch of the church, the Orellana Branch. The branch building is quite remarkable. Apparently it was donated to the church by a man who is well-known in El Coca. I heard that his wife is a member but I didn't meet her. He is not a member. Whatever the relationship, he gave this home to the church. The Facilities people did a marvelous job turning it into a chapel.
In reality, the members in Coca were so anxious to have a branch that they had already built the benches, podium and sacrament table before the Assistants arrived in December!
President Villavicencio was called as the branch president. He's a young man with a wife and small child who works for a cell phone company. His counselors and his secretary were called, as well as the Primary president and the Elder's Quorum President. I believe the final count of attendees for Sacrament meeting was 71, including visitors. I wondered how long it would be before El Coca needed and qualified for a standard chapel. My guess is not long.
Following Sacrament meeting, we were all dismissed to our various classes for what I think was the first three-hour block ever held in El Coca. Hermana Sloan and I went to the Primary with Hermana Montoya, wife of the First Counselor in the Mission Presidency. We quickly decided that the small, stifling upper room would not hold the 20 Primary children, so we moved them outside.
With Hermanas Sloan and Montoya in charge, and the new Primary President as well, there was no Stoning of the Prophet on this day. (Keep reading these blog entries--you'll get there.) The children of El Coca are charming.
When the block meetings were concluded, members gathered outside for a photo. Unfortunately, the priesthood leadership was missing from this photo.
This is a photo of the priesthood leadership and the missionaries.
And finally, a photo of the priesthood and mission leadership along with lingering members who just didn't want to go home.
I remember sitting in the living room of a member of the area presidency in Hong Kong a few years back. Some faithful Mongolian priesthood leaders were there, having just returned from a visit to Salt Lake City. We had had a lovely dinner and then we were asked to bear our testimonies. I will never forget listening to the Mongolian leaders describe their vision for the growth of the church in their country, even though the church was less than a decade old in their country. It was as if I was there in the room with Joseph Smith as he organized the church on April 6, 1830. I believe Joseph's vision of what the church would become eclipsed that of any other mortal. Interestingly, my parents recently alerted me that there is now a stake in Mongolia, and that some of the men that bore those testimonies are in the stake presidency.
I could not help but feel the same way about these new leaders. As I rode around El Coca for two days and watched the excitement and devotion of the members, I could easily envision a stake in El Coca. Why not?
As I've said before, there are two seasons in Quito, summer, meaning Dry, and winter, meaning Wet. Dry is about three months long. Wet is everything else. We are well into September and Wet is supposed to be here, but it's not. As we've traveled into the Quito valley from other outlying areas, I've noticed an increase in the number of fires on the mountainside. Living in Utah as I do, I know that fires on the mountains in Dry is not a good thing. And yet they seem common. This is mighty Chimborazo close to Riobamba. Somebody had set a fire near it.
When I returned home from work one night, I looked out my living room window and saw what looked like lava coming down Pichincha--the mountain outside my window. Hmmmm, "That's not good," I said to myself. Then I realized that some idiot had set Pichincha on fire! I took some pictures thinking I could maybe convince Daxton, my seven-year-old grandchild who is obsessed with seeing lava, that Pichincha had finally erupted.
While traveling with President and Hermana Sloan's daughters, the subject of the burning mountains came up. Stephanie Sloan said they had been told in school that the indigenous people believe that setting the mountains on fire will bring the rain. It seems kind of counterintuitive to me, but what do you know, we had some rain last week for the first time in months. Hopefully it was enough to get them to stop for now.
President Sloan says he's aware that some of the missionaries mimic him from time to time. I happened to catch one on video.
This is Elder Montgomery imitating President Sloan playing Electricity. The missionaries line up in two rows or teams, holding cloths in between them. President Sloan stands at the head of the two teams and flips a coin. The two leaders of the teams pull on their cloths if they see heads. Each member of the team successively pulls on their cloth as well. Whichever team has the quickest reaction time AND can recite a scripture from a list of memorized scriptures, gets to send two or three people to the head of the line. When the team leaders return to the head of the line, they win.
Here's Elder Montgomery doing a really great imitation of President Sloan tossing the coin.
