Oct 7: A country in chaos

As some of you may know, Ecuador is a little insane right now. The government of Ecuador has always paid half the price of the gas the people buy, but the president now decided that the people need to buy all the gas. With reason, it seems smart but also dumb because the people here are super poor and can not afford gas at $2.20 a gallon. So the whole country teamed up to overthrow the president and to get rid of this law. The first wave started on Thursday when every intersection was blocked off by taxis and buses making it impossible to leave or enter the cities. The people also made big marches chanting and causing a ton of crimes and damage to buildings. They were throwing explosives, bombs, and creating all kinds of fires. Hundreds of different businesses are left with nothing after they got robbed and the people took everything. The president shut down the airport, so pretty much everybody here is stuck and it's impossible to leave. The president also shut down all the schools here, so all the kids are stuck at home without schooling. The president also shut down all types of transportation, buses, trains, planes so if you're here, you're stuck here. On Friday half of the country's water, light, and electricity were cut off making the problem even worse. The president eventually took off to Europe, but the people here stand furious and are causing lots of problems with the police and military, beating them with clubs and killing a few with rocks. With every city being impossible to leave with the number of people and cars blocking the way.

We stayed in our house almost every day and prepared for the things to come. Although it was pretty boring, it was safer than being on the streets. We were able to snag a copy of the keys to our church and we watched general conference all alone in our stake center. The stake decided it was safer for people to watch conference in their homes, and therefore didn't broadcast it in the local church meetinghouses. But even though all this chaos was passing by, there was such a rich spirit that we felt by listening to God's prophet and apostles. The church is true.

As of this week, we are still expected to stay in all day, as well today we are not allowed to leave. We have enough food and bought a lot of water to get us through the week.

Oh, and I hit 1 year on Thursday, cool!!

Elder Rich

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49955695

City of Ambato

celebrated with some "Bang"

bought some emergency water

your average intersection

a big mob comin

conference all alone