______________________________________
This past week, we were reminded that blessings follow disruption. Monday was routine, but on Tuesday, 3 sister missionaries came up missing for 5+ hours. There was an online zone conference for the their zone and 2 of the 3 sisters, who are sister training leaders, had a teaching assignment at the conference.
When they didn’t join the Zoom meeting, Elder Fueres (Assistant to the President) called and asked me if I would go up to their apartment on the 10th floor of our apartment complex and see if they were home. I went up and knocked on the door, but there was no answer.
That was the first indication of concern. We continued to look for the sisters all afternoon. I called their phone several times, I checked back at their apartment, and I talked to the guard and custodian downstairs, but all to no avail.
Before long, President and Sister Barlow became concerned and drove to our apartment complex to meet the apartment owner. He had a key and let us in to search the apartment. We didn’t find anything, but a mess! The sisters are not too tidy. We also discovered that wherever they went, they failed to take a phone with them. We found both the smartphone and the old phone on their desk.
Missionaries are not to take their smartphones when they go out. They are to remove their SIM card from the smartphone and put it in their dumb phone so they have some means of communication. The sisters didn’t do that.
Around 6 PM, the Assistants asked to review the video tape at the guards station. It showed the sisters leaving around 1 PM. They were casually dressed and it looked as if they were going out for a preparation day excursion. (Preparation days on are Monday, not Tuesday.)
After multiple calls to other missionaries, and church leaders in the sector that the sisters serve, we still had no idea where they were. We also checked with some of the neighborhood store owners to see if they had seen the sisters.
President finally concluded that we would wait a little longer until he called the police, the Area Authorities, and the missionaries’ families. The guard was asked to contact me if the sisters arrived back at the apartment building.
Around 7 PM, I received a call from the guard saying that the sisters were just entering the building. I quickly took the elevator downstairs and met the sisters as they walked in. They looked relaxed and happy, perfectly fine. They had multiple shopping bags with them that were filled with groceries and clothing items.
When I asked them where they had been, they said that they had been shopping. I explained that we had been VERY worried about them! I also explained to them why we had been so concerned and I had them call President immediately.
After Sister Vargas talked on the phone with President, she was in tears. I’m sure he reprimanded her kindly, but sternly. I can understand why President was frustrated. The sisters should never have left their apartment to have a shopping spree. AND, they should have never left their apartment without their dumb phone!
On the other hand, I can also understand why the sisters needed to get out. The missionaries have been in quarantine for over 90 days. The mission was even having groceries delivered to their apartments so they wouldn't have to be out. I know I'd be feeling confined and would welcome a shopping excursion! We’re all glad that they are safe!
On Tuesday, the operations and maintenance manager of the Church’s facilities came into the office and told us that we needed to pack up the office, because they were going to move the office equipment to the new mission office in the Colon Stake Center.
We’ve been hearing about this move since we arrived in Quito on August 5th. Originally, the new office was going to be finished in late September, early October. That day came and went without any work being done in the Colon building. Then we were told - late November. Now’s it’s mid-June and we get less than a 24-hour notice to pack up and move. It was interesting! Elder Lewis didn’t respond very well and basically said, “NO!” However, President Barlow called on Tuesday evening and discussed the move with Elder Lewis. Obedient as always, Elder Lewis said that we’d get the job done.
So, Wednesday morning we started packing all of the office files and supplies. By 4 PM we had all the file cabinets, desks, and the supply closet cleared out so that they could start moving the furniture at 5 PM.
Our computers were moved to the 6th floor of the current office building where we will work temporarily until they get the furniture arranged in the new office. Then they will move the boxes and our computers. Last week, we were told that we should be working out of the new offices by the middle of this coming week. We're not so sure that will happen. Apparently, they've just started painting.
Speaking of painting. We’re finally getting our apartment painted. Rueben, the painter started prepping last week. He will probably be in and out of the apartment throughout this next week. There was quite a bit of prepping to do. Everywhere, but the bathrooms, where the walls meet the ceiling, needed the cracked caulking scraped away and the seam re-taped. It’s a tedious process - scraping, taping, mudding, sanding, touch-up, etc. It will be nice when it’s done.
Two other interesting things happened this week. First, the card to the apartment complex and the elevator stopped working. We were told it was a technical issue, but part of the reason it didn't function was because the apartment owner had not paid the HOA fees. The apartment administrator was kind enough to turn it back on.
In the process of trying to figure out why the keycard wasn't working, I asked the administrator if our apartment had a storage unit with it. I was told that it did. Unit B-19 on parking Floor S1. Max and I went down to look and sure enough we found our "bodega." I’m surprised that we weren’t informed about the bodega before. When we got there, we found the padlock was exactly the same as one I’d found in the mission office while packing.
The next day at the office, I went through the loose keys I’d ran across. I brought some of them back, along with the extra padlock and matching keys, to try on the bodega lock. None of the keys worked.
We informed the guard and the HOA president that the keys to the bodega were lost and that we were going to cut the lock with a hack saw. The HOA president said that we could use his saw. We tried it, but it didn’t work on the harden steel lock, so we took it back to the front desk and told the guard we were going to get a bigger saw.
The 4'10" custodian of the building happened to be at the front desk and he told us, or motioned to us, that he had a solution. He went around the corner and brought back a 5 foot metal bar that was 1.5 inches in diameter, flat on one end, and pointed on the other. With heavy metal bar in hand, he motioned for us to follow him.
We went down the elevator to the bodega and the custodian put the sharp end of the metal bar into the horseshoe part of the lock. He push and twisted for about 5 seconds and the lock broke apart. We were in! It was obvious that this wasn't the first time the custodian had broken a padlock. We were grateful he was working on our behalf!
We thanked the custodian, he left, and we opened the bodega. In the bodega, there were a few mattresses, 2 night stands, a twin headboard and frame, two boxes of bedding, a box of dishes, and a few other items. The bodega was about 5 feet wide, 7 feet deep, and 16 feet high. We were confident that it would hold some additional unwanted items from our apartment.
We did some rearranging of the bodega and then hauled a queen-sized mattress, 2 wooden bed slats, 2 padded deacon benches, 2 chairs, 3 stools, two plastic trash cans, and some brooms and mops from our 3rd floor apartment down the elevator to the bodega. We didn’t fill the height of the bodega, but we packed it pretty full from the ground to a height of 10+ feet. It was nice to clear out some of the unneeded furnishings that we had in the apartment.
The second interesting thing that happened was that our new sofa was delivered on schedule. (We still haven't got the lamps and area rug purchased before quarantine, but we're working on it.) The sofa looks nice, fits well into our apartment, and is so much more comfortable to sit and lay down on than those padded deacon benches that we've had for the past 10 months. New paint, new sofa.....we're making progress and getting way too comfortable.
Since all the missionaries in the mission are now Latino, Elder Lewis and I requested more language tutoring from the Mission Training Center in Provo, UT. Last year, before we left the states, we had tutors for a very short time. But now, we're needing and wanting a bigger boost to our language skills. We both started our online tutoring sessions today. We're excited!
Love and blessings to all!
Elder & Sister Lewis
