Ecua-cosas

Greetings from Guayaquil! We somehow made it back safely from zone conferences in Cuenca and Loja. The roads were amazingly bad, but the scenery made up for it. I was scared, yes people, I, Becca was scared, when Dad drove on the worst roads in slidey mud and fog and didn´t even slow down! Mom and Dad did a great job on their talks/presentations in the zone conferences. The missionaries all seem very nice.

Cuenca is probably the coolest city I´ve been to down here. Ecuador overall is a lot better than I thought it would be. It doesn´t seem that dirty or dangerous. The mercados were just like the ones in J-town. The food is mostly good, but I think if I were here long term, I´d lose weight. It kind of reminds me of the galley in that it tastes pretty good, but it all tastes a little different than normal food and all tastes like Ecua-food. They've (yea, I found the apostrophy) got ecua-cheese, ecua-milk, ecua-meat, etc. Even dad's eggs this morning tasted a little off.

I thought you would enjoy a video of Mom giving an inservice on how to clean toilets and some pictures of her doing her powerpoint presentation at zone conference. (Too bad after 5 hours of uploading it, it had an error and wouldn't work. I'll upload it once I get home.) The missionaries thought the presentation was pretty funny, mostly because it was pictures of their own filthy apartments! I inspected several of the missionaries apartments, and I've got to say that mom's standard of cleanliness has drastically decreased. An apartment I thought was fairly dirty, she gave a 9/10. Ejole! The hermanas apartments were nice, but one of the apartments had a rain gutter inside... not a good sign. There were like six inch holes between the walls and the roof, and the roof drained into their stairs. It wasn't all bad though; you could always feel a nice breeze.

Random thoughts: I remain proudly bicho free. I've attached a picture of my triumphant return from peeing on the side of the road. Dad can hear now thanks to my mad ear wax cleaning skills. Mom has diarrhea, but her hair looks cute. We watched an episode of monk last night. Latin Elders have no idea how to give directions. Dad still measures his cereal. The hotels we stayed at were gorgeous (especially the Loja one). Passion fruit juice is wonderful. I love ecua-piña. In city driving is more like walking: you just go where there is space. Any traffic rules are more like loose suggestions. Ecua-beds are hard. The last picture is one place in the mountain where the road we drive dropped off the side of the mountain. Enlarge it so you can see it better. The piano in Loja was locked with 4 seperate combination locks. Opening it was not worth it as it was horribly out of tune. I love and miss you all!