Dearest friends and family,
Hello everyone! I’d really like to spend a bit of this
letter to lead you all through a description of something that has become part
of my normal.
Imagine yourselves siting in a decently-sized tour bus that
has cloth seats and smells like sweaty people and Cheetos. Imagine sitting next
to the window, but not being able to see outside of it because of the
condensation the thick blanket of fog you’re driving through has created on the
inside of the glass. The bus doesn’t have air conditioning that works. You
reach out your hand and use the end of your sleeve to draw back a portion of
the cold, wet condensation like a curtain. What’s revealed is nothing short of
the scene from a story-book adventure movie. You try to take in the entirety of
the view, but there’s so much going on and it’s so overpowering for your senses
you decide to dissect it with your eyes one layer at a time.
Immediately beside the bus you pick out a few individual
plants that are zooming by but the density of the thicket makes it hard to
distinguish anything among blurs of every shade of green. You can, however, get
a sense that there exists an extremely wide variety of leaf shapes: some of
them are huge and circular, others are long, skinny, pokey, and tear-drop
shaped - a caterpillar’s paradise.
Beyond the foreground you see trees, bushes, and vines galore and the longer you watch, you notice not a single repeated species. They’re all different. Every 10 kilometers or so, a house comes and goes from the picture. All of them are thatched, placed, and leaned together, rather than nailed, and all of them come with chickens and maybe a cow or pig. Their sheet metal roofs and cinderblock walls combine with banana trees and craftily-laid wooden fences combining to write vivid pictures into your memory that will never be forgotten.
Looking back even farther is the Andean mountain terrain
with its taller trees and greener greens. The mountains steep high above the
bus. Since the road is curved, winding in and out of the jungle below, you
physically can’t look up far enough to see the peaks of the mountains and, even
if you could, it wouldn’t matter because the summits are well-shrouded in an
opaque mist. The quilt work of the tree canopy makes it plain to see why the
experts label this country as mega-diverse. Everything seems to be connected,
trees overlapping, vines running from branch to branch, like every organism is
all at once, desperately trying to protect and conceal it's soft soil
underneath. There’s a certain indescribable feeling here, in this place, like
all of the jungle is moving and breathing together, working in unison to bring
about as much life as possible. It’s spectacular and the longer you gaze, the
more excited your soul becomes at the authenticity and the adventure of
it all. It’s remarkable.
This is sort of what it’s like to travel into Quito through
the jungle from the coast. Truly no amount of text could do it justice but I
figured I would try. This past week I got to spend another day and night in the
big city for some meetings and a lunch with an area leader of the Church. It’s
always fun travelling into Quito, but this trip was especially enjoyable for me
because I was with my entire zone. The 7-hour bus ride evaporated away into
conversation and Christmas carols brought about in a bus full of Mormon missionaries.
Since I’ve become accustomed to living only the essentials out in Esmeraldas,
the city feels super big and super nice. They even have warm water! It was an
excellent trip, complete with ceviche provided for lunch.
More than anything else, I’ve realized this week the
importance of a mental connection. At times I feel a little out on my own when
I spend days and weeks in the Aire Libre wilderness. My companion (Elder
Fernandez) and I are great friends, but there are subtle cultural differences
that makes it a tiny bit hard to have a more profound, supportive-type
friendship that I’ve had with friends and family in the states. During this
trip to Quito I got to feel that again for a moment with a couple other
missionary friends I’ve made and it was incredibly rejuvenating. I guess, for
an instant, I got to feel how the jungle must feel. All of us were there,
connected, with the same purpose of bringing about as much life and happiness as
possible. Everyone all united, moving, breathing, laughing, together as we sped
along the mountain pass to enjoy a delightful 2-days of training and uplifting
messages from our leaders.
Friends and family, treasure the mental connections you have
in your life this beautiful season of Christmas. Make memories filled with the
love of Christ. Find ways to be a connection for someone new and weave them
into your own personal jungle. To everyone that has been a connection to me,
and to those that still are a connection to me through your letters, I express
my most sincere gratitude. Have an amazing week and happy December!
Much sincerity,
Elder Ericksen
Additional notes:
- Adam absolutely loves going into Quito where he can find Ritz crackers and take a normal shower. This trip’s score – the Ecuadorian version of a hostess Ding Dong.
- Adam passed his 100th day in the mission and remarked that also means he’s had 60 days of “bucket showers”
- The conference in Quito with Elder Montoya was a huge boost – not only for the inspiring messages of a general authority but also because he got to catch up with many of the missionaries he trained with in the Mexico City MTC.
- The distance between Esmeraldas and Quito is only about 200 miles but takes 7-hours to complete…gives you a sense for the speed of the bus and likely twisty back and forth mountain passes. Adam reports the bus gets pretty hot and swampy – he uses the time to read and write letters home – when he’s not taking a break to quell his stomach.
- Adam has a really slow internet connection in a café near his apartment. He loves pictures in emails and asks that you please choose “Small Size” when hitting “send”. Doing so compresses the photo and allows him to receive and respond to your email.
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