district convention

hi everyone! long time no write.... it's been super busy here, trying to get out in service as much as possible, all the meetings, working in the afternoon, really all the same stuff all of you are doing! the month of july was pretty boring, nothing to report, but the last weekend of july we were in guayaquil for the district convention in english. it was phenomenal. it's held at the assembly hall at the branch and it is, of course, so beautiful. we stayed in the city center at one of the branch approved hotels and took a bus all 3 days to the convention, which is coordinated by the brothers. it's really great because guayaquil can be a bit dangerous, and they even announced on friday at the convention that they do not recommend to take taxis unless your hotel arranges it, or to take the local bus systems. from what i'm told, the convention in ecuador is only one of two in south america, the second being in brazil. full disclosure: i am repeating what a sister from chile told me, so maybe it's not 100% right, but nonetheless there were quite a few people from other countries there because there is not an english convention in their country. we met a great family from chile and a mother/daughter who are in costa rica, plus people from all over ecuador. it was great to meet a lot of friends, and really encouraging to have the convention in english. we are now thoroughly looking forward to our convention in spanish at the end of this month - we'll have our notes to help us through it!

photos below are in no particular order (it's late! i'm happy i'm posting anything right now!)

picture of the assembly hall from the back - it's open air and we were very happy to have unusually cool weather in guayaquil. guayaquil is on the coast, sea level, and VERY hot and humid. but the whole weekend was really not bad at all! we sat in the middle the first day and quickly learned it's better to sit on the sides, which we did on saturday and sunday and things were breezy and cool. OH - and bonus - they serve COFFEE during lunch! yup. pretty sweet.

another view of the assembly hall.

view from when you walk in from the parking lot - very pretty grounds.

AMAZING - we ran into this couple, frank and stacy, on the first day. we know stacy from when we were in CT, we were on electrical at RBC together. turns out in the 2 years (ish) since we last saw her she went and got married (to frank, who josh knows from bethel! weird small world!) and the two of them JUST moved to ecuador a few days before the district convention! they are also here on the 2 year missionary visa and were trying to figure out where to settle. so we told them "if you want to check out the otavalo / cotacachi area just let us know." so they did! they actually came up by bus on tuesday after the convention and spent the last few days with us. they absolutely loved the area and found an apartment in cotacachi and will be going to the local quiroga spanish congregation. we're super excited to have them nearby!

another lovely surprise. we ran into vilma and mia campozano at the convention - little mia was a doll (above) of course and vilma and her mom and brother took us around on monday and showed us guayaquil (later post on that coming soon). they were AMAZING and it was so nice to see familiar faces.

view from when you walk in from the parking lot, view from where we ate lunch every day.

gorgeous bougainvillea above - such pretty flowers here!

entrance to the assembly hall - they have the one english convention here and then nearly every other weekend in the summer is booked with spanish.

all of us on the bus to/from the convention!

awesome family we met at our hotel from chile - vivian, her son ernesto, and his wife amparo. we love them! they are serving in an english congregation in chile and they came to ecuador for the convention. after the convention they were going to visit the jungle! sounded amazing.... and a little scary. i dont know if i am ready for that just yet.