St Matthew (Wednesday)

Flying overnight is not my favorite thing, but we're home safely, and I'm very grateful to be at a reasonable altitude and to be able to breathe normally. They say one is supposed to adapt to high altitude after a couple of days. I did not.

Both Quito and the House of Bishops meeting were interesting. I learned something interesting about myself: My spoken Spanish is better than my heard Spanish. I was pleasantly surprised by my ability to effectively interact with hotel staff, restaurant servers, taxi drivers, and retail vendors. But I couldn't always finish what I started! And listening to addresses and sermons in Spanish without an interpreter is not yet in the cards for me.

This was my second House of Bishops meeting. I'm already on record as to my opinion of the substantive content. So the value of these encounters is not what happens on the official agenda, but in the hallway and elevator and break time and mealtime conversations with colleagues. The relationships that are forged in these off-the-schedule moments sow important seeds that will yield fruit we cannot yet know of.