Finishing Up Ecuador Part I

Hello friends!

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while - getting back to "real life" can take some time!

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, we were scheduled to fly home Saturday night/Sunday morning.  That all went well and we arrived safely at our destinations (the majority of us flying back into Utah).  Let me tell you this, though: traveling overnight is NO FUN.  My older brother often makes red-eye flights from California to New York so that he doesn't miss a day of work.  I don't know how he does it.  I hardly slept at all on the plane and by the time Alec picked me up at the airport, I was running off of about 6 hours of sleep for the past 48 hours.  Anyway, props to my older brother for being a master red-eye flyer.

So you may be wondering about our last few days in Ecuador!  In the last blog post, we were still in Guayaquil.  I believe I posted on Thursday, May 19.  On Friday, we flew to Quito and stayed at a hotel there.  That evening, we didn't have much time to go places, so we went to a nearby market and then got something to eat.

Are you wondering where we ate?  Well, you are in luck because I will tell you because it was SO GOOD.  It was a place called Crepes & Waffles.  And guess what?  They serve Crepes and Waffles!  But besides that, they also serve other delicious food.  I got the vegetarian pita, which was so good that I bought another one the next day.  If you are ever in Ecuador, hit up that place!  I think it is mainly based in Quito, so you will have to go there.  Here's the link: http://crepesywaffles.com.ec

The next day was adventure day!  We got up in the morning and hit up an adventure place called Xtreme Sports or something like that.  I can't find a link for it and I am sad because that place was amazing!  Here's a picture:

What you can't see here is that I am actually on the edge of a cliff.  The zip-line took us across a canyon - I was hundreds of feet up in the air, just gliding on a cable!  For someone who dislikes heights, I think I did a pretty good job of it.  In fact, it wasn't scary at all!  I honestly felt like I was a bird, soaring across the sky.  I thought I would be too afraid to look down, but once I started looking at how beautiful the canyon/view was, I wasn't scared at all.  Seriously, it was so amazing!  This was my first time zip-lining too!

Another adventure that we went on at this place was the "Tarzan Swing".  What they did was strap you to a rope, and then you hang over the edge of a 50-foot drop until they let you go.  Once they let you go, you are free-falling straight towards the ground until the ropes hits its length and you go soaring up.  I was so terrified!  As I mentioned before, I am not a huge fan of heights, and free-falling downwards went against everything my body has done so far to keep me alive.  I was hanging over the edge, so scared I couldn't move, and then I was falling.  What a rush!  Once you start swinging, you feel really cool, but I was yelling uncontrollably until then.  So scary.  So fun!

So that's part one of the day of adventures.  I just realized that I don't have my camera on me, so I can't talk about the other parts of the day until I upload those pictures, so this post will have to do for now.

Toodles!

Earthquakes

I apologize for what may seem to be a "boring" blog post.  This one is more informational than anything.

Many of you have probably heard that there were a couple of other earthquakes here in Ecuador.  They happened at 3:00 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. yesterday.  Being the heavy sleeper that I am, I did not wake up for the one at 3:00 a.m. and subsequently found out about it the following morning.  We are all ok and there has been no apparent damage here in Guayaquil.

We are in Guayaquil, and the epicenter of the earthquakes is about 150 miles from where we are.  The earthquakes measured at a strength of 6.8 and 6.7.

I was fully awake for the second earthquake.  Katrina, Emily and I had gone to get something to eat at a pan de yucca/smoothie place.  I had just handed my money over to the cashier when the earthquake hit.  At first, I did not realize what was happening.  Because I was standing at the counter where they were making the smoothies, my first thought was "What is that guy using to make the smoothie??" when the earth started shaking.  It was the strangest feeling - I felt as if my feet were going one way and my top half was going another.  A glance outside told me that the city was doing the same - a strange sort of zig zag.  I began feeling nauseous and my head started hurting.

I would like to note here again that the earthquake did not do any damage that I am aware of here in Guayaquil.  The only danger we might have been in was right after the earthquake.  The people here are truly traumatized from the Ecuador earthquake a month ago.  The workers at the food place we were at were terrified - I could see it in their faces.  They ran out the door and shoved us along with them.  Once outside, we could see the pandemonium.  People were fleeing from buildings, running in the streets, crying and making phone calls.  It was insane - we were being pushed around and there was complete confusion.

We decided to go back to the hotel and met with everyone else there. It took about a half hour for everything to calm down.

The buildings here are primarily made of cement, and that's one of the reasons that people are so scared.  When the earthquake hit a month ago, hundreds of people died from cement buildings collapsing.  That is why the death count remained low until work crews began digging through the rubble and hundreds of others were discovered dead. 

Because of the earthquakes and the ensuing panic, our professors and BYU no longer feel safe about us staying here.  The original plan was for us to come back to the states this upcoming Wednesday, but now we will all be home on Sunday as that is the earliest we can get in.

Some of you may want to feel sorry or sad for us because our trip was cut short.  Yes, there are many of us that are disappointed.  The last few days of the trip were supposed to be our "fun" days where we go on many adventures and now we can't.  I will just put out there that I am ok with leaving early.  The truth is that I really miss Alec and I am happy for any chance to see him sooner.  I have been a lot of places in my life so far and I have seen a lot of things thanks to the amazing family trips planned by my parents and my wonderful mission.  For that reason, I am ok with missing out on some things.  So don't feel bad for my sake.  On the other hand, please pray for the people here.  They are truly terrified.

On a different note, some of you may be saying - "She said that she had handed her money over to the cashier when the earthquake hit.  Did she get her money back?  Did she get her food?"  To all of you who are wondering, fear not!  I am too much of a tightwad to just walk away without getting my money's worth, even in the face of danger.  After everything had calmed down a bit, we went back to get our food.  The workers were still standing outside the store and seemed surprised that we had come back.  They were not aware when we first stepped into the store that they were dealing with Jalyn Parkinson - the girl who will overcome earthquakes or any other natural disaster to get her money back!  Haha

Well, I'll see you all in the states in a few days!

Also, Alyssa just read me this story, and I was quite entertained:
http://kutv.com/news/local/hawk-swoops-down-attacks-byu-students-from-elm-tree

Sick Day

Hello everyone!

Today I woke up and my cold/cough thing was pretty bad, so I got permission to stay home and sleep.  After sleeping 2 extra hours and going to breakfast, I wanted to leave my room so that the maids could come and do their job in peace.  That's why you are all getting another post so soon after the one yesterday!  "Let's think of something to do while we're waiting...."

Last night we went to this great shawarma place for dinner.  It was along the "malecon", which is a boardwalk along the massive river here, and was about a 15-20 minute walk.  The time was 6:00, and it was getting dark and the sky was overcast.  Exactly my kind of idea of a trip out - no sun to aggravate what is already burned!  (Speaking of which, my burns hurt a lot less today)

There's a lot of things to see along the Malecon, many of which are statues.  There is a statue of a pig/warthog thing.  From what we could tell, there was no real purpose for having the pig there, but it made a nice photo op.

 



 

At the shawarma place, I got some shawarma with rice and beans.  Many people on this trip know that I am a "rice and beans kind of girl."  Ever since serving in the DR, I love rice and beans.  The meal was amazing and very filling, and I even had some to take home with me.  This is my delicious shawarma.

 

 

There were some that were thankful that I had extras!  We ran into a mama cat with her two babies.

They were so cute!  I fed them some of my chicken shawarma because they looked like they were really hungry.  The mama cat ate some and gave some to her kittens.  I think I can already hear my dad groaning and saying that we should let them starve.  He tells me that all the time about my cats.  Hahaha

 

A week ago, we went for a walk up to the lighthouse.  What a view!  It was 444 steps to the top (of the hill, not the lighthouse).

This picture doesn't do the view justice.  After climbing those stairs in the heat and humidity, being up at the top of that lighthouse was beautiful.  There was even this breeze that cooled us down and everything.  If you ever visit Guayaquil, you should visit this lighthouse.  You can see in the picture right above the river that I was telling you about that goes along the Malecon.

There's an ice cream place near the hotel we're staying at. It's called "Nice Cream."  I love that place.  The ice cream is so creamy! (Not the mashed potatoes...a reference to "While You Were Sleeping").

When I was 7 years old, my parents took us (minus Tom and Jake who were too young at the time) to Italy.  We had gelato every day, which was a 7-year-old's dream!  Wait, who am I kidding?  It's still my dream to have ice cream or gelato every day.  Anyway, I always got the flavor "stracciatella", which is "chocolate chip" in Italian.  As you can see, the Spanish version of chocolate chip is spelled similar!  I have moved on to other flavors, but stracciatella will always hold a special place in my heart and I couldn't help but take a picture of this for old times' sake.
Lately we have been teaching a lot in the hospitals.  I have been helping Alyssa teach CPR the last couple of times.  Alyssa is our CPR queen - she has taught CPR about 10-15 times already since we've been hear.  She's taught it so many times that I'm pretty sure she could save herself if she went into cardiac arrest.  I'm kidding - you can't do that, but she still is an amazing teacher.  It also makes us think about this scene from the Office:

The Office - Stress Relief Part I (CPR Scene)

Watch it if you want to laugh your head off. But you might need to watch this scene first to get some background:

The Office - Stress Reliefe Part I (Fire Drill)

Well, I think that's it for now.  I'm just trying to get over being sick.  It's crazy to think that in one week, I will be getting on a plane to come back to the States.  Dang!

 





Ma, Butterbutton, and Aunt Jalina

I would like to thank Ma for the inspiration that she has given me for the title of this post.  #sharehoodness

Meet Alyssa (Ma), Hannah (Butterbutton) and me (Aunt Jalina).  We're roommates.  And we are rocking room 201.

Yesterday was a pretty laid-back day, so we spent some of the time looking through old Instagram photos.  We found one of Hannah's where she is about to kiss a fish, and she put in the caption "#sharegoodness."  #sharegoodness is a hashtag done by the LDS Church to encourage us to share inspiring messages.  Hannah is really good at doing that....maybe too good.  She had no idea why she put #sharegoodness on that particular picture, but we thought it was hilarious.  Alyssa wanted to make fun of Hannah and put #sharegoodness on something random, but put made a typo that said #sharehoodness.  It describes pretty well what we're all about here in room 201.

So, I guess I should start with an apology.  We have been way super busy since we arrived here in Guayaquil.  Last Monday and Tuesday were filled with tours of the hospitals where we have been working.

 

 

This is all of us at the Luis Vernanza hospital.  At this hospital, we do mainly Med-Surg things.  I have been in the Burn Unit and the Operating Room here.  I got to see an Open Heart Surgery!!  This may sound weird to you, but that has always been a dream of mine.  I thought about President Russell M. Nelson the whole time.

 

I have also been to the Labor and Delivery hospital.  There are tons of babies being born all the time!  Here's a small portion of them:

Photo credit for this one goes to my good friend Jessica McCulloch. 

All the women labor without meds.  Props to them!

 

Last Tuesday, we went to tour a place where we were going to work called Hogar de Cristo.  When we got there, the director turned around and asked us to instead go help at the site of the earthquake.  Plans have been changed, and this week we are going to help at the earthquake site.  The site is about 4 hours away.  We divided into 2 groups.  One group works there today and tomorrow.  The other group will work there on Wednesday and Thursday.  I was supposed to go with the first group, but I came down with a nasty cold.  We'll see if I get to go with the second group.

 

Last Saturday, we took the day off from working and went to a beach resort.  It was amazing to run around on the sand, play in the waves, and sit back and relax.  I put on a ton of sunscreen to go play in the waves.  You know.  Since I'm really white.

 

I spent the rest of the day hiding from the sun.  And still got fried to a crisp.  LeCheminant problems.

 

That's it for now.  At least, that I can remember right now.

 

Love you all!

 





Sunday Blogday

 

First off, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! I bet my mom is having (or had, considering the time difference) the best mother's day in Europe.  Not only does she get to be with 3 of her kids (Danny, Tom and Jake), but she also gets to celebrate it with her mom!  They are having a blast in Europe, from what I can tell from the 400 Snapchats I get daily from my brothers.

 

Here's my chance to say that I have an amazing, wonderful mother.  She has taught me so much, and I miss being able to talk to her (since she's in Europe and I'm in Ecuador and phone calls would be way too expensive).  My husband can thank you a million times over for teaching me how to make, in his words, the "best apple pie in the whole world," and for teaching me how to smile, work hard and love unconditionally.  Thank you mom for the life you've given me!

 

Here are some more pictures for all you picture lovers.  I forgot to mention that the day before we left for Guayaquil, we went to a cocoa plantation!  The owner of the hotel we were staying at owns it.  He's the one in the colorful striped shirt in the picture.  He taught us about growing the cocoa beans and we got to taste the fruit inside that surround the cocoa part.  It was really good!  This guy also used a machete like a champ and was hacking away at the cocoa bean to open it up without any fear.  You could tell that he was super proud of his plantation and it was cool to see how invested he was in his work.  It reminded me a lot of my dad and his trees.



Our first day in Guayaquil we went to Parque Historico.  There were all sorts of animals there, and they ranged from cute, to scary, to weird.  This one is for Ali Waxman.  SLOTH.  This was a cute one.

These parrots were so beautiful!  It is sad to see that their feathers are cut and they can't fly.  But I guess I wouldn't see them if they flew away.

Flamingo!  This counts as a cool one. 

I found this sign funny.  As you can see, it's for the two-toed sloth.  But if you read the name of the sloth in Spanish, it translates to "Lazy Bear."  I thought that was an interesting way to name a sloth!

These are little pig things.  The baby one in the middle is cute.  The rest....not so much.

I wish I could have gotten a better picture of this guy.  Seriously, BIGGEST bird I have ever seen.  I wish I could remember his name, and my dad could probably tell it to me in a heartbeat.  He just looked so majestic!

This was a bench we saw surrounded by beautiful Ecuadorian flowers.  Shelly commented that it would be the perfect place to take engagement photos.  So, to all of you out there looking for engagement photo sites, this is the place!  It only costs a ton of money to get down here, but it will be worth it, right??

This was the biggest pig I have ever seen.  Seriously, massive.  Side note: when we first got to Guayaquil, I noticed an advertisement for a burger place (I think it was Carl's Junior).  There was this woman on there wearing a string bikini, with tanned skin, defined abs and perfect hair holding a large bacon cheeseburger.  It was as if the sign was saying, "If you eat here, you will look like this!"  I personally think that they should put this pig on that billboard to represent what you will really look like if you make bacon cheese hamburgers a daily part of your diet.

Saturday evening, we went to a festival.  It wasn't a cultural festival like I thought it would be, but it was fun to be out with friends experiencing a small part of the night life here.  Here's a picture from a pier we were standing on.  Guayaquil is so hot and humid and I much prefer it in the evening.  On the pier, a warm breeze was blowing and we got to watch the city light up as the sun set.  It was so lovely!

 

This is an edit into my post: I forgot to mention one of my favorite parts of last night!  In order to get to the festival, we had to order 3 taxis to fit all 12 of us.  The hotel called the hotel drivers (because we aren't allowed to take any other taxis) and they drove us over.  When we got to the park, the taxi drivers told us to give the hotel a call when we wanted a ride home.  After we were done with the festival, we called up the hotel and they said they would send the taxi drivers.  We were waiting around for them when one of them pulled up.  We walked toward him.  When he saw us, he started talking into his walkie talkie saying, "Code: I found the 12.  Repeat, I found the 12!"  It seriously made me think of secret service or something ("The Eagle is flying!").  We were quite entertained by our "royal" status!

 

Today was Church!  We went to the ward close to the hotel.  I love going to church!  There is still so much to learn about the gospel, no matter where you are from.  I even got to participate a couple of times.

Like I mentioned before, Guayaquil is very hot/humid.  I have a hard time with that, but thanks to the best purchase I have made on the trip, it's a little more bearable!  I bought an handmade fan.  It's not super pretty or anything, but MAN, it is effective.  I was fanning myself off during all of church, and even lent it to some friends to use.  I think this fan and I will become great friends by the end of the trip.

Because it is mother's day in the United States, many people in our group have mothers and missionaries to Skype today.  It made me realize that this is the first Mother's Day in (I believe) 3 years that my parents haven't had a missionary out in the field to talk to.  But then Mom went off to Europe, so it is kind of like she is the missionary far away.

This evening, we hiked up to the lighthouse.  I didn't get a good picture of it, but I wanted you guys to see it nonetheless, so this is a picture from the internet.  You can see the lighthouse at the very top of the hill.  It's striped blue and white.  When you reach the bottom of the stairs, it is exactly 444 steps to the top of the hill.  Isn't this view amazing?  I love all the colors of the houses.  The view from the top was fabulous too, overlooking the river and everything.  I'm glad we went for a hike in the evening because it was much cooler, and have I mentioned that it is HOT HERE?

 

Well, I believe this is the end of my Sunday Blogday.  I'm having a wonderful time here, and I am learning so much.  Tomorrow we'll tour the hospital, and then I think on Tuesday we'll start work there!  See you all!

Guayaquil and Internet



We're in Guayaquil now in a very nice hotel.  With internet!!  This will make it a lot easier to do my blog.

Alright, everyone, it’s the time you have all been waiting for: PICTURES!!

First off, look at all this luggage.  Everyone had to bring medical supplies on top of their own luggage, which totaled in many people having two or more suitcases.  Seriously, so much luggage.  It drives me crazy, and if you’ve read my previous posts, you know why.  Less luggage = more freedom!  But it was very needed.  We brought a lot of extra supplies as well because of the earthquake.  I, for instance, brought a ton of bug spray, thanks to the generous donations of other people.  The LDS missionaries here are fighting with mosquitos all the time, but don’t have access to good insect repellant, so we bring some for them.



 

While in the Amazon, it rained so much!  It became pretty normal to have rain in the morning, sun in the afternoon, and rain again at night.  Even though that was normal, I kept forgetting and wouldn’t put on sunscreen to protect me in the afternoon.  I was reminded the hard way that doxycycline (an anti-malaria med that I am taking) makes you more susceptible to being burned.  As I already burn easily, this made things much worse.  Like, not a joke, I was in the shade all day except for maybe 5 minutes, and I burned like I had fallen asleep in the dessert.  It was not comfortable, and I haven’t forgotten sunscreen since.



 

This is one of our monkey friends.  He actually looked when I took the picture!

The monkeys were very used to humans, as proved by the fact that this monkey walked up to Kim and tried to pick her pocket.

 
Every morning we have to travel in the bus for a while to get to the schools where we were teaching/doing health stuff.  It can get boring on the bus, but we discovered a microphone on the bus.  What do you do when you find a microphone when bored? Karaoke, of course!  We’re not he most talented, but we had plenty of fun!  This is Kim and Alyssa. 

This is a typical scene for us working at the schools.

 
We visited this cool little village.  I wish I could remember the name of it.  It is a cool little community where it is basically run by women.  They work together to support the community.  The reason that they started this community was to get away from the current thought process of men being the boss all the time.  There is a problem in many countries where women are treated poorly, and this community is fighting it.  It was a pleasure to meet them.  This is a picture of the village.

This is the view from the top of a sacred rock (which, apparently, we are allowed to climb and then slide down).  I slid down it, and then was informed that the legend is that if you slide down the rock you are more fertile!

The kids there really wanted to do facepainting, so I let them.

This is me conquering a fear of mine.  I held a large snake.  I honestly loathe how snakes move.  Having this snake on me was freaky.  They put tape around the snake’s mouth to keep it from doing anyrhing crazy, but you could still tell when it was hissing. The hissing made it so much more freaky, but I am proud to say that I held that snake for about 2 minutes.  I’m not dying to do it again, but I can say that I did it!

This is a river that we visited!  One of my regrets for this trip was that I didn’t wear my swimsuit when we came.  It looked so nice to swim in!

YOLO Nation

In case you are unaware, "YOLO" means "You Only Live Once."  This is the life we are living now, in YOLO nation.  We have been pulled out of our comfort zones, we are sweating, we smell bad, the bathrooms hardly ever have toilet paper, we're lucky if we get enough sleep and we are riding in a bus more than anything else.  So when we sometimes do something a little crazy, it's because we are living in YOLO nation.  I have Alyssa to thank for the title of this post.

We've been working hard.  Today (I believe) is our last day of going to schools and doing teaching/seeing local adults for their medical problems.  Here is how a typical day goes in this leg of the trip:

6:30 AM - we wake up and get ready
7:00 - we climb into the bus
7:30 - we stop at the breakfast place.  We are going around with a group called "Charity Everywhere" and they made a deal with a small restaurant place to always make up breakfast and dinner. 
8:30 - we're back in the bus and travelling to the school
9-10ish - we arrive at the school and start working
4:00 - we stop working and start traveling
7:30 - dinner time
9-11ish - we get ready for the next day and try to get into bed as soon as possible

Yesterday, we went for a swim in a river.  It was so beautiful!  Alyssa took my picture because I forgot my camera (sounds familiar, eh?), but she hasn't been able to send it to me yet.  Internet problems, you know.  So you'll have to wait for that picture.

To make up for that, here is a picture of when I learned how to dance the bachata!

It's sometimes hard working, and not because we are sweating away in the Amazon.  A lot of people come because they want to take advantage of the only opportunity they may have for years to see a dentist or doctor.  Most of the kids have terrible teeth.  They are black and with so many holes that there my be nerve damage because they don't complain of any pain.  The problem is that there is a lot of demand, but not enough supplies.  Yesterday, the doctor could only take 15 patients, but there were over 40 people there waiting to be seen. We had to send many of them away.  It always makes you feel bad to do so, but there's nothing else you can do.

I was going to post more pictures, but the internet is starting to get really bad and won't let me upload them.  I hope you're ok with only one picture.  On Friday, we'll be in the city again and should have good internet again....hopefully.....

Peace out, y'all!

Working and Monkeys

Internet here is very limited, and it seems like when we have a down moment everyone else is using the internet which makes it nearly impossible to get anything done as everyone kicks off everyone else.  I have about 15 minutes right now when the internet is relatively clear, so I am going to blast out this blog post.

I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that I took a lot of pictures yesterday!  The bad news is that I am still trying to figure out the best way to upload them.  So, due to lack of time this will be a short blog post with no pictures.  I'll try to make up for it tonight if I can catch a bit of internet.

Yesterday we started work!  We went to a middle school/high school and taught classes and did triage and such.  I was part of the group that helped with fluoride.  Basically, we walked into each classroom with a dentist and after she gave her little spiel about fluoride, we shoved fluoride in everyone's mouth.  The funny thing is that all the kids seemed to get a huge kick out of watching their friends have those fluoride mouth pieces in their mouths and were happy to tell on anyone who tried to run away with getting treatment.

It was a long day, actually.  The day started out very cloudy and rainy so I didn't think to put on sunscreen.  The majority of us ended up getting burned at least a little bit.

There was a line of adults waiting to see the doctor, so we went over to them and taught them about how to alleviate stress.  I had a wonderful time doing that because it was a fun group and they all participated.  One lady even talked about how dancing helps relieve stress, and then taught me how to do the bachata!  I'm still not much of a dancer, but the good news is that I just have to move my hips a lot and the steps are easy.

After working, we toured around a bit.  There's a park nearby that has little monkeys running around.  We were all excited to see the monkeys, but had to be careful because they were known to grab things right out of your pockets or hands.  I befriended a monkey!  I'm pretty sure he was partially retarded, but my professor got a cute picture anyway.  Meet my new best friend:

 

Well, I really need to go, but at least you got one picture, right???

 

We're off for more working!

Se van por paraíso.... (They're going through Paradise)

Hey, I'm getting pretty good at this blogging thing, eh?  We'll see if it lasts because this week we are in the Amazon (not the internet site) and there is only one hot spot and 20 people that want to use it.  Today I am a bit lucky because everyone went to dinner, but I wasn't hungry and decided to take advantage of the free Wi-Fi.

Today is our wedding anniversary!!!  It's been such a wonderful year being married to my handsome love, Alec.  We're both sad that we can't be together today, but we know that we will have many years after this to celebrate, even eternity!  So, Happy Anniversary to the love of my life.



Photo credit: Lindsey Orton

I also got to Skype Alec during this free Wi-Fi time.  I am quite grateful that Skype cameras can be a little iffy sometimes because I know I did not look pretty during our conversation.  It is 75% humidity here in the Amazon and I called Alec shortly after climbing a couple flights of stairs in the humid jungle with my large suitcase.  Yep, I was a sweaty, red-faced mess.  It was bad.  I'm pretty sure that all Alec saw of my face was a pink pixilated blur, which would be preferable to my savage-looking face.   Just kidding....not really....

This morning we started out in Otavalo.  We walked to church with the impression that church started at 9:00 AM.  Turns out that information was false.  Church actually started at 8:00, but we didn't figure that out until all 20 of us walked in the Sacrament meeting room in the middle of a woman's testimony.  The only open seats were at the front of the chapel, so we did our walk of shame to the front.  The lady bearing her testimony even stopped and waited until we were all seated to continue talking.  The good news is that Ecuadorians are some of the nicest people I have ever met and they all greeted us with smiles and handshakes at the end of the meeting, even though we totally disrupted the meeting by showing up an hour late.

The other good news is that another ward was meeting in an hour, so we went to the first ward's Sunday School and then to the second ward's Sacrament meeting.  I'm so glad we didn't miss out on the Sacrament!

Being in that ward reminded me so much of my mission that I wanted to go back!  Part of me was ready to pull out a missionary planner and start talking with members to see when they could go out with the missionaries.  I even had my mission bag, Spanish hymnal and mission scriptures to add to the feeling that I was a missionary again.  Good times.

Immediately after church, we got on a bus and drove many hours to Tena, which is in the Amazon.  Here's a map in case you were interested:


The roads here remind me of what Sally said in the movie "Cars".  She said that the roads used to move with the land instead of cutting through them like I'm used to in the United States.  The roads are so windy because they move around the mountains, rivers and waterfalls.  It was a beautiful ride.  I wasn't able to get a good picture, so here's one that I pulled from the internet of how the ride looked.  So beautiful!!:

You can see the road up on the side of the mountain.  Seriously, is this not a type of paradise?  Every time I saw a river, I thought about how much fun it would be to raft it.  I could almost hear my grandpa's voice in my head as he scouts a rapid.  I miss that man.

There was another special treat on the ride, one of my new favorite signs.  Once again, I couldn't get a good picture of it, but it basically said, "Warning, Bear Crossing."  Who knew?  I was really hoping that we would see a bear crossing the street, but we had no such luck.

We arrived at the place where we're staying.  It's so hot here!  When we got in our room, I looked all over for a fan but could not find one.  I was really put out because the rooms were so hot and mentioned that I wished there was a fan to another nursing student.  She looked at me funny and said, "Didn't you know there is air conditioning?"  Haha, I guess if you are looking so hard for one thing, you totally miss something better!  All I had to do was flip a switch and glorious cool air started filling the room.

I'm still not sure what we are going to be doing this week, or if I will have another opportunity to blog in the next few days.  I will make sure to take notes of things to write about.  Thanks for all your support!