Cuenca and Guayaquil

(This letter is from last week October 21, 2013)

hey mom,

Well this week happened. Wednesday was good because we got three baptismal dates HOWEVER we haven't met with either of them since then and none of them went to church so we have to push their dates back. We only have to have people go to church 2 times before they can get baptized. Yesterday, we had a meeting with a family and they are Jehovahs witnesses and Catholics. The brother that was a jehovahs witness was making this huge deal about how god is Jehovah and Jesus Christ isn't a god but he believes that he is the savior and it was all very confusing especially because i don't understand this language and i felt even worse because my companion was having to do all the work.

So about the culture.... well it's super cold. That's not really a cultural thing but its a Cuenca thing. We eat different forms of rice, beans and chicken everyday for lunch. But lunch is huge so they give us soup, which is always really good and then a giant mountain of rice and beans and some kind of meat, usually chicken. One day they gave me cow heart... that was an adventure. They didn't give it to my companion because she said she didn't like it and and i was all i don't know because i'd never tried it before! so yeah that goes on top 3 weirdest things eaten list. i haven't eaten guinea pig yet so that's super fortunate!

i dont really know what else to say....

I love you all!

Hermana whitmore

CUENCA

Hermana Whitmore & Hermana Ureta

Noche de hogar in Cuenca (Home Evening)

(This is the current week's letter!  October 28, 2013)

Dearest Familia,

This week was actually so much better then last week. I got transferred Monday night. They called at like 10 pm and said hey you are getting transferred, be ready to go at 8 in the morning. In the morning, we found out our that we (me and my comp) were going to Guayaquil. We got here and i got a new companion, she got new companions and we went on our way. My companion is Hermana Viloria of Columbia. She has 7 months in the mission and has been in this area for 3 months. So its really awesome, everyone knows her and she knows were everything is, super chevere :) [that's cool in Ecuadorian]. So real fast, everything here is different then Cuenca,  prices, weather, traffic, people. i already have a tan line from my shoes! awesome :)
 So we just got right to work. Our three big investigators right now are three guys. One is 15, his name is Kevin. His story is really sad because both of his parents died and his aunt didn't want him so he lives in a garage and doesn't go to school and he works with his cousin. His cousin is another one of our investigators. Jeremy he is 18 and he is super into it! He is so prepared!! They came to church!! ah! and he was paying attention in sacrament meeting and answering questions during sunday school, talking to all the members!!! Both Kevin and Jeremy have baptismal dates for 2 Saturdays from now. Then, there is their friend that actually lives with Kevin. He is 26 and is super into drugs and tattoos, the whole deal. He doesn't have a baptismal date yet because we need to commit him to the WOW(word of wisdom) first.

on Saturday, we had a baptism of a girl whose brother got baptized like 3 weeks ago. It was amazing! Her name is Jaira and she was sooo ready! Now we get to work with their other sister! one family member at a time :)

Yeah, i decided this week that i would just start new. If i think about the 16 months i have left, i start freaking out, so i just want to take this one day at a time. live it to the fullest. Everyday i ask Heavenly Father to help me learn as much as i can in that day, not to make me fluent or anything but that i can learn! i just want to be able to understand people. My biggest problem has been understanding what's going on because i'm not really afraid of talking its just i don't know when to say it! But my companion has been working with me so much. She wants to learn english so we take turns teaching the other language and it helps a lot. Also she pushes me to talk with everyone, even if its just the hi we are missionaries and then she does the rest! She is amazing :)

Yeah pues.... i think that's pretty much it! i love you all :)

Hermana Whitmore