P-Day in Mindo

Since the Wards will be coming home in early September, we've decided, as a group of senior missionaries, to visit the places the Wards have wanted to visit before they go home. One of those places is a rain forest 2-1/2 hours away from Quito called Mindo.

We took the office elders with us just in case one of the more mature missionaries broke a hip and needed to be carried out. Fortunately that didn't happen. But Elder Padilla, the senior assistant, did get transferred the next week, so it turned out to be his office farewell activity.

Here we are taking a break after our ride to Mindo.


First, we took a cable car across a gorge so we could hike down a mountain to see a waterfall.






Here's some kind of a centipede thing that Elder Ward convinced to climb over his shoe.

For those of you who have an appreciation for how things work, here's a photo of the power source behind the cable car that carried us across the gorge. No, I don't mean to call attention to the guy--it's the full-on engine thingy that caught my attention.


Then we went to the zipline. This amazing activity has 13 ziplines that you can ride on. Unfortunately, we had spent so much time at the waterfall that we could only ride two of them--the longest and highest two. Thanks to Hermana Ward for the great pictures! And YES, CHILDREN, IT'S TRUE! YOUR MOTHER RODE THE ZIPLINE!

Elder Padilla's last hurrah.







What a day of high adventure. The younger missionaries are such good sports to "hang" with us for a day.