That evening we were able to visit the Guayaquil Temple, which is spectacularly beautiful. I participated in a session completely in Spanish and actually understood everything!



But afterward everyone was just fine and seemed quite proud of their bandaids.

Not so happy to be here.
Dressed in long sleeves not because it's chilly, but because i got fried the day before. The sun is STRONG here!


The second day we pricked their fingers and checked their blood for hemoglobin levels (testing for iron deficiency anemia). They did not like us so much this day. At one point the whole classroom was basically in tears waiting to be screened.

My wonderful roommate Shea and I worked together to do vision the vision screening.



The first day we measured height and weight and performed vision screening, and checked hair, teeth and hearing for abnormalities. The kids loved us and were adorable.




On Wed/Thurs May 5-6, we visited this community school. We drove 45 minutes to the Hogar de Cristo post out in the community, and from there took two buses, then walked a ways and finally made it to the school. The trip is about 2 hrs one was and 2 hours home.

After visiting the community, we visited the University of Guayaquil, which under President Rafael Correa has become free for the last two years. Interesting idea. I wonder how well it will work in the long run. But the students at the present are grateful for this great opportunity. This is their college of nursing - these students are in their last year of nursing school, like us. Kirsten and I were asked to speak - addressing our program and how it works in the U.S. Overall, what we found out is that we have much more in common than we all thought. Same classes, same huge time commitment, same stress, same desire to help others that keeps you going even through all that.While we were standing around waiting for our bus, we attracted the attention of the middle school students who had just been released for the day. We got them singing this kids song called Los Elefantes, about Elefants balancing on a spiderweb. Yes, that's me pretending to be the elefant. I actually got them to dance with me too, but then after a while they just stopped and stared and laughed at me. Oh well :)

On Tuesday May 4th we were oriented to the Community. In the Community around Guayaquil we work with an organization called Hogar de Cristo (Home of Christ) who does a lot of wonderful work. They work with the very poorest of the poor in Ecuador by building homes for families (who basically just have to pay the price of materials), supplement poor nutrition in school children, empower women through micro-loans, and many other things. Here is the soymilk that is produced by Hogar de Cristo - it wasn't my favorite, but it apparently helps schoolkids and members of the community get some of the nutrients they need. BYU is working towards a grant that will help us supplement soymilk and other foods with calcium and iron, which are greatly needed. The research we have done in the community will work toward that goal.


Same story in the Pediatric Hospital. One liscenced nurse to 25 patients was the estimate, varying from place to place, such as one nurse to 7 NICU babies. In the U.S. one nurse will have three or four pediatric patients at the most and usually only 2 NICU babies at a time.
Tuesday May 4th, we were oriented to the hospitals. This is Luis Vernaza General Hospital. This is the beautiful courtyard of the hospital interior. The actual hospital is quite different from any hospital experience I've had in the U.S. The nursing shortage is extreme here and there are far fewer resources. Large rooms with about 30 patients will have 1-3 licensed nurses.

These are some of the many children that run around the Park or sit in front of the cathedral selling gum or asking people for their to go boxes of food.

This is the huge cathedral that borders Iguana Park.


After church on our first Sunday, we visited Iguana Park in the middle of Guayaquil. Just so you know I did actually touch the iguana.

And this is the part where I thought our tour guide was going to machete my fingers - turns out he was just kidding. We got to suck on the nuts from this fruit that i don't remember the name of after he cut it open.And scary animals...
We saw beautiful animals...
Saturday, May 1st - we visited Parque Historico, a historic park and nature reserve.
Off to Ecuador - Salt Lake City Airport to Chicago to Miami to Guayaquil, Ecuador. Almost had to stay the night in Miami but luckily we barely caught our flight to Ecuador.

Detour to Technodrome

We were returning from our trip to Pagosa and we saw this very large and strange rock formation off to the side of the road. We said, "I wonder what that is." Last minute decision - we pulled over and decided to check it out.



It turned out to be very very large - and a little bit farther away than we anticipated. Does this not resemble Crain's technodrome from the Saturday morning hit cartoon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
You can see here that there is a tiny cave entrance at the bottom - now we were really intrigued (keep in mind that this whole area is just off the side of the freeway and it's sort of gated off -sort of)
To our disappointment, the cave entrance only went in like 8 feet. It was still pretty cool though. Any one know there geology well enough to explain how this huge bizarre looking rock formation got out in the middle of nowhere...

Sweet climbing action!


Another successful adventure with Breth.

World Wide Day of Service

Dad is famous!

The Retturn to Y-Mountain and another farewell at the MTC

So, if you've been keeping yourself abreast of the happenings of the ward family, you may recall a trip that Lissa, Beth, and I took to Y-mount. We made it to the top and constructed a very life-like snowman, complete with a chin, nose and a mustache. Anyway, as we scaled the mountain, there was tons of snow and we regretted that we had not brought a sled. Sooooo, Beth and I returned with a sled and sled down a few portions of the trail. (We unfortunately were unable to sled the whole mountain because we went at the end of a warmer day.) Anyhow, here are some pictures of our latest adventure on Y-mount.

As you can see, perhaps we did not pick the best day for this excursion. Nonetheless, here we are about to embark.



Here's just at the parking spot before you head up the trail.


Here's Beth on the trail. What an adorable pose.


And here's me on the trail. Not quite so adorable, mainly just awesome.

It was a pretty hike/sled on the way down.


Another awesome pose from Beth.


I know there's more pictures of Beth, but as you can see, she's definately more photogenic.

Her's a snowman we found on the way up. We think our snowman found a snow-woman.


This picture was just too classic to not put in.

Behold Provo and all its majesty.

Ok, so in other news, I said goodbye to my 8th district this Saturday. This district was particularly strong. A few of the missionaries had some kinks to straighten out (as all missionaries do to some degree), but by the end, every single one of them was so awesome and ready to hit the field.

From top left to right and then the 2nd row: Elder Alms, Lau, Farnsworth, Belnap, Pennock, Nicholes, Sisters Donakey, Anderson, Brunson, me, Elder Villareal, and Davies. I really enjoyed working with this district, not that I don't with all of them, but this one in particular I feel was such a solid group of missionaries. It makes me really excited for Jake, because I look at how much each of these missionaries changed, and I know the same thing will happen with Jake - his testimony will grow in leaps and bounds, he'll learn to love and serve with all his might, and he'll learn to work and be obedient. Missionary work is the best.