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| An Ecuadorian Presidential candidate, Guillermo Lasso, visited Tulcan today |
To all of the people I love and care for, hello! Another
week has passed us by, and a good one it was. It all started with an event that
was easily the coolest thing I’ve gotten to do thus far in Ecuador. For
everyone who isn’t familiar with the missionary lifestyle, I should first take
a sentence or two to explain that Mondays are more or less our day off. It’s
not a day of complete freedom – we still have rules to follow and a long list
of things to do to prepare us for the week, but it is a day where we can take a
short break from our normal responsibilities. We cut our hair, do our laundry,
buy our groceries and do fun things like tour around the city and play sports.
It’s preparation day, the maravilloso dia de P.
This past Monday we woke up early and got dressed in our
warmest possible clothing. We ate a quick breakfast and left the house to meet
Hermano Alexis in the part of town where all of the green transport trucks
gather. The trucks are basically taxis but take people or cargo to places the
little yellow Kia and Chevy taxis can’t go. And we were definitely headed to
somewhere the normal taxis couldn’t go…el Volcan Chiles.
Volcan Chiles is an active volcano that sits right on the
border of Ecuador and Colombia, about an hour away from the city I’m living in.
Driving there in itself was spectacular, traversing the rolling hills and
pueblos that cover the countryside. If you want to see a really authentic
Ecuadorian village, look up Tufino on Google. That was just one of the places
we had to drive through to get to Chiles. Scattered en route to the volcano
were thermal “spas” or “baths”, heated from the earth, and reeking of Sulphur.
The minerals just beneath the surface that are bubbling up from beneath the
rock give the water a delicious green tint that shines like emeralds and
inspires thoughts of storybook, fantasy adventures. We also saw many real,
live, wild and free llamas, roaming the fields and grazing on the grasses, their
mouths chewing sideways. I couldn’t help but think of my sister, Natalie, each
time they came into view out the window because I know she would’ve loved
seeing them in the wild doing their llama things.
We drove past the pools and the llamas and arrived at the
base of the mountain around 8am. We begged the green truck driver to give us 2
hours, as we were very far away from any other ride back to town and started
hiking up…and up…and up. The whole hiking adventure turned into a science
experiment as I noticed the shrubbery and grasses getting thinner and sparser
as we ascended. You can definitely see the change in the photos. (Now might be
a good moment to plug the blog – my dad does an AMAZING job updating the blog
each week so if you ever want to see photos, check it out!) We passed a little
house that was empty, a tall TV tower and then continued up and up until we
reached big slabs of cooled lava. At this point the formerly blue sky was
hidden by a thick shroud of mist that completely enveloped us. And the noise. I’m
not sure how many of you are familiar with the Matterhorn ride at Disneyland?
Anyway, the ride includes a fairly loud sound of whistling wind that includes,
at times, the growls and roars of the yeti as you’re going up inside the
mountain. To me, that whipping, whistling-wind sound seemed pretty
unbelievable, it’s just too pronounced and loud. I can now say however, from
personal experience, that that noise exists and really is that loud. It was
incredibly impressive.
We hiked up as far as we possibly could, sat down on some jagged
rocks, shared a mate and a few stories and then started our decent. You’d think
it would be easier to hike down a mountain than it was to hike up but that wasn’t
the case. When the shrubbery disappeared behind us on the way up, so did the
trail we were following so we ended up taking a completely different path back
to the truck. We were very happy to see that our driver had waited for us!
It would be easy to make a cheesy metaphor connecting the
challenge of climbing a mountain to the challenges we experience in life. But I’m
not going to do that. I’m going to try to make a connection a little deeper by
saying that I’m realizing that my mission is a metaphor for the rest of my
life. Everyday definitely is not sunshine, rainbows, and lollipops (or, in my
case, great friends, family and Taco Bell) but every day is necessary. For that
reason I’m just as thankful to learn and grow from the hard days as I am to
thoroughly enjoy myself on the days like last Monday when we get to climb an
active volcano. That said, I really am so unbelievably grateful for this
awesome country I call home for the next 18 months. It’s really beautiful here
and will forever hold a place in my mind, heart and memory. I hope you all have
had a good week – like I have had – and I hope that the one to come is just as
good. Until next time, with much affection,
Elder Ericksen
Other tidbits:
- We were out teaching a guy, Richard Corliz, and his family who live right up on the Colombian border this week when all of a sudden 2 guys rode by on horses really fast, LIKE REALLY FAST, all loaded up with these big tanks of gas. It was a train of horses, 3 roped together, with a guy riding the one up front and another guy on the back and each horse 4-5 couple gallon tanks of gas. Apparently there were smuggling the gas into Colombia where gas is 4-5 times more expensive than here in Ecuador. How crazy is that? All said, its infinitely more safe and tranquil here than it was in Esmeraldas which I hear is still being rocked by big earthquakes.
- It was a really good week. Something funny that happened is that our awesome investigator family, Familia Caliz, came to church for the first time yesterday! But the funny part is that they were so excited to run out the door to come that they forgot one of their kids who was still getting ready. He's a 9-year old boy hahaha.
- Today one of the candidates for Ecuador President came to Tulcan for a speech. You can find him in the white scarf in one of the pictures of the people with flags.
- Transfers were today. Elder Loveland is moving on - and received a cake last night from one of the families. Adam is very happy to be remaining with his companion (“we are clicking really well”) and staying in Tulcan for at least the next 6 weeks. Two new missionaries are coming to the area and there will now be 6 in Tulcan.
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| You can read more about Guillermo Lasso here |
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