Catching Up

This will be a rapid-fire post with pictures I've been meaning to post and a little bit of commentary.

I just flipped on my kitchen light and killed six cockroaches with my can of Baygon. EWWWWW! I swear, I'm not a messy housekeeper! But it would be so much more pleasant to wait until daylight, when they crawl back to wherever they came from, and pretend they don't live in my apartment. As I often say, I am quite comfortable with my illusions, and work hard to maintain them.

Sorry to beat you to it, Mandy. This is my granddaughter, Tabitha. Now I ask you, can you imagine a better picture than this? You can see the light of Christ in her eyes. She is the absolute definition of innocence and joy. I love you, Tabitha! And thanks Mandy and Brandon, for being such great parents.


This is a picture of our new zone leaders with President and Hermana Sloan.
They have been given enormous responsibility--as are all zone leaders--and it has been exciting to watch them rise to the occasion. Elder Tabi, in shirtsleeves on the left, is a native Otavalan. They have special permission from the First Presidency to keep their braids while they serve missions. He is a quiet young man, but you can feel the Spirit emanating from him.

The Wards and I have been traveling to all the zone conferences this cycle, at President Sloan's request. That means we leave the office on Tuesday afternoon, stay overnight, and attend zone conference the next morning. This week, we went to Ambato. I had envisioned a small town with spare accommodations. Imagine my surprise when we decamped into a REAL LIVE HOTEL ROOM!!!! It had room service, shampoo, conditioner, soap, a king size bed, clean CARPET on the floor, and a shower with full-force hot water. Seriously, I wanted to cry it was so wonderful. I told Hermana Ward if I ever ran away from the mission, she should check the Marriott first, and then the El Emperador in Ambato.

I mentioned before that President Sloan plays with the missionaries in zone conference. Here's a couple of pictures of President and Hermana Sloan playing.



The missionaries form two lines. Each person in the line is connected to the next person by means of a rag they both hold onto. President Sloan tosses a coin. The people at the head of each line tug on their rag if the coin comes up heads--and the tug travels down the line. The first team to hit Elder Wanlass's hand wins--unless their captain started the chain reaction in error. Then they lose. Sometimes a team's captain doesn't start the chain reaction, but they see the other team moving so they move too without the signal. It's a fascinating study in communication, peer pressure, not being able to call something back once you've started, integrity and reliance on your team members and captain. I guess yesterday the play got so rough, Elder Wanlass refused to be the whipping boy anymore. And by the way, they aren't praying in the picture with their eyes closed and their heads bowed--they're trying not to be distracted by the other team's actions. In the last picture, everyone is looking at Elder Wanlass to see who won.

We were assaulted by video yesterday on the bus on the way home from Ambato. For three hours, they played Jean Claude Van Damme movies, one after the other. (Who knew he made so many movies, meaning more than one?) We tried to watch the scenery outside the bus, but couldn't block out the noise of various types of mayhem which I will not describe here. There were women and children on that bus! If I have to do that one more time, I'm going to ask for special permission for my ipod and earphones!

Just in case you forgot, here's a view out of my apartment window--to the west.


Our new favorite restaurant is Crepes and Waffles. The food is fabulous (meaning American) and they have unbelievable ice cream (meaning it's ice cream). We celebrated Elder Ward's birthday there recently. Happy Birthday, Elder Ward. Is it time to celebrate your birthday again?


And here's a picture of our bishop, his wife and their four-month-old baby. This picture is two weeks old. Last Sunday, the baby's hair was long enough to start braiding. I'd be worried that she's putting all her food energy into hair if she weren't so pudgy. Mandy says Tabitha isn't jealous--apparently some bald-headed grandpa taught her before she came here that Bald is Beautiful!


I miss you all.