The Best 18 Months: Playing catch up! Three weeks, three letters!

November 18, 2013
Ok so this week the president gave us permission to go to the temple!!! WHAT?! It was amazing. Only me and my companion got to go and it was so weird to only have 12 people in the whole session. The celestial room was giant and the whole temple was gorgeous, Im so thankful for the opportunity i had to go experience that.

So the big thing this week is that i finally got the transfer that everyone has been talking about. We are in an area in Guayaquil that is right on the coast. So we live in a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment with 4 girls and its a little tight. also we have no door knobs. which is interesting. I'm the only gringa... and we are living out of our suitcases because the other hermanas took up all the room for putting stuff. Its good though because the ward is seriously soooo great. We always have a member with us and everyone is always giving us references. we contacted this woman in a rickshaw thing (its crazy how similar this place is to china) her life is so sad. she has 5 kids and one month ago her husband left her. she has been really receptive to the couple of lessons that we have done. The first lesson was more of a lifeguard emergency because her son cut his foot open (2 inches long). so god was looking out for her in that moment because apparently she hates blood... But i think thats about it. This area is much more ... ghetto.. then the other areas I've been in, but its fun because it seems like everyone knows everyone!

Not a lot this week. I love you greatly

November 25, 2013

I don't have much time today because we are supposed to practice for this Christmas program thing. Apparently the plan is to practice 4 hours a day for the next 3 weeks... yikes! and because i'll be spending so much time practicing, i might have to have cambios AGAIN! because my comp needs to be working, not sitting around while we try to figure out how to sing! anywho.. mas next week! i love you all. Im sending some snail mail. and i got yours last week... literally i think a snail carried it here! well i love you all again.

December 2, 2013

Dearest familia,

So much has happened and yet nothing at the same time. everyday i practice music from 11 to 6 and then we return to our sector to work with our investigators! even though we only have 2 hours in our sector everyday, somehow we still have 2 baptisms this week. how cool is that??? one is a girl, Samari, and she is friends with some recent converts but she isn't that excited about the whole thing, so that is our main focus this week. and then the other is this joven named Joel. he's 16 and super stoked about everything. he even goes to seminary. i didn't even do that! haha! he's also friends with kids in the ward. seriously guys, work with the missionaries! share the gospel with your non member friends because they make the best converts. AND when we have members come work with us it makes such a difference because then investigators feel like they will be welcome at church! so great! also, a side note, feed the missionaries :) be their friends and play nice music (like church music) because everyone here plays american music and its very distracting! and feed them good things... like hamburgers and chicken wings :) rant over!

so fun story. on the buses here, people try to sell things and make money. so there was this comedian that came on the bus and he told me to move back more because i was standing in the isle and he needed room for his skit thing, BUT i couldn't move back and he thought i didn't understand spanish. So he started speaking in cave man english and he thought he was all funny. BUT I whipped out some english and he didn't understand what i said so he was all awkward and then all the people that understood English thought it was really funny :) ha ha, little victory because he was a cross dresser and he swore at me in spanish as he was getting off the bus! what up? approp humor pride!

That's really all.... this week, we have performances in the estacas in guayaquil and next week we are traveling around the mission. so that's fun for me! i think we have practice all this week too... if you want to hear the music, its the guy that wrote "His Hands" and there are 8 songs all in spanish!

Love you all! have a fantastical week!

Hermana Whitmore