Lost in Translation

Hola mi querida familia!!!

Hey! How is everybody doing up in the Northern Hemisphere? Down here in Ecuador it is finally cooling off at night...cool and windy enough up in our 4th floor apartment to use my blue swim/dive blanket ;) I'm thankful for that! Except the part that the water in the shower in the morning is even COLDER than before (I didn't think that could be possible, but it is :P). But I'll be able to take steaming hot showers soon! ;) haha Yesterday was my 22-month-CLICK! in the mission! I seriously can't believe how fast time is flying. It seems like just yesterday was my 21-month-CLICK! Everybody time would go faster after 1 year..but I didn't think it would go THIS fast. I hope time is flying quickly for all of you back home, too :)

Well, the big news for this last week is all of the translating I was doing (hence the Subject line lol). But I'm pretty sure I didn't lose anyone in the translation proccess ;) I was in the town of Montecristi on Tuesday and Thursday with the other 3 gringos from Portoviejo. Elders Hansen (Texas), Hancock (Utah), and Juliana (Oregon). It was like a big gringo field trip! lol The Navy had a big clinic set up at a school called Eloy Alfaro with dentists, eye doctors, pediatricians, women's doctors, and general medicine. They weren't operating anybody at the school, only on the ship in Manta, but they sent some people that needed operations from Montecristi to the ship. There were also a lot of LDS volunteers from foundations called LDS Charities and Continuing Promise. Also, some of the soldiers/doctors were members.

On Tuesday I mostly helped with crowd control and getting peoples' papers fillled out with all of their info and why they wanted to see a doctor. It was pretty fun, but not as fun as Thursday. On Thursday, I was with Dr. John Podraza (from Brooklyn) in Pediatrics all day. We saw about 50 patients that day with all sorts of complaints. I learned a lot about URIs (Upper Respiratory Infections) and that most kids get those 6-12 times a year and they can be sick for up to 2-4 weeks. So there are some really unlucky kids that get URIs 12 times a year that last 4 weeks each....in other words they are basically ALWAYS sick. Poor kids! lol But pretty much the only thing you can do is try to prevent it by practicing good hygiene. Once you get a URI pretty much you just have to wait to get better. And that's how we build up our immune system so we don't get sick so much as adults. We also saw some other pretty random cases that I'll have to tell you about when I'm home....I'm guessing some of the kids won't want to hear about them. Or more likely, the parents won't want the kids to hear lol. But yeah, I was translating everything the parents said to me about their kids into English, and everything Dr. Podraza said into Spanish. It was awesome. I've always wondered if I'd like translating or if I'd even be good at it...and now I know that I like it and I was pretty good at it :) All of the docs and navy people said that they wouldn't have been able to do it without the Elders. Elder Hooker was there too..I think he's a 70 or area 70, I'm not sure. But I've got a pic with him haha.

Elder Hooker is going to be there for the conference this week in Guayaquil, too. The one where I mentioned that Elder Scott was coming. But Elder Hooker told us that Elder Scott had a last-minute assignment and that Elder Walter F. Gonzalez would be there. He's not Elder Scott, but I know it will still be a great meeting!!!!

Well, I think that's all the news for this week. We are still working hard, investigators keep coming to Church, some of them just need help to have the desire to get baptized :) I know we can help them there. There's very little time left in the mission and I'm going to work hard until I'm home! And I'll keep working when I'm home too ;) haha That's basically what we have to do in life to be successful and happy...work, work, work, and work some more, especially in the Gospel! I love each and every one of you so much. I can never say that enough, so I just keep saying it :) You are the best family a missionary or anybody could have! I'm thankful for all of you. I LOVE YOU SOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love, Elder Beck