I LOVE THE SCRIPTURES!

March 24, 2014

Dearest Familia  mio!

My week wasn't that exciting but not every moment of the mission has to be exciting right?  So this week we didn't have any baptisms BUT the siblings of one of my conversos got baptized so we got to watch that! It's amazing how the gospel changes people! This family was sooo shy before and now they are all happy and excited about life and say hi to people in the ward and TALK! its soo awesome to see people change like that. 

This week we had 10 people in church and we only brought 1. the other nine came on their own! how awesome is that. 6 of the 9 are a family... ish, mom, her dad, kids and cousins but they are soo awesome and I'm soo excited to see them get baptized como una familia! 

Cambios were a little crazy this week because one of the ZL´s had cambios Monday but our new ZL was coming from the Galapagos SO he didn't get here until Saturday! (that's how cambios work when part of the mission is in the middle of the ocean). It didn't effect us (the hermanas) that much, it was just strange to have one ZL. 

Yesterday I sang in church... I feel like it's my calling to sing at all the baptisms and in church.. oh well! haha but we sang "as sisters in Zion" and changed the words to be for everyone. pretty cool! 

So I've hit the point where I can read the scriptures in Spanish and I understand all of it! and I love it! and I learn soo much! and I don't understand how I didn't feel this way before about the scriptures! They are sooo cool and all the stories literally can help everyone in one way or another! I sooo much took for granted the book of Mormon before and now I just want to read it all the time! I can't wait to get home and show you guys my scriptures because they are sooooo cool! haha 

Just know: I know that the BOM is another testament of Jesus Christ. Every word in that book was inspired of God. Through the book of Mormon we can find every answer we ever needed. all the inspiration that we ever needed. The Book of Mormon changes lives and its changed mine over and over and over again. I'm soo grateful for the opportunity I have to be a missionary and serving the Lord and the people here in Ecuador everyday! 

I love you all! Tenga una buena semana!

Hermanita Whitmore

Vanessa and Bryon! Yajahiras (my converso) siblings! 

Hermana Amanda y Hermana Matamores- Relief society presidente and one of my mamitas!

Elder Dickerson is working in the same sector as me!!! 

March 3rd- 17th, 2014

March 3, 2014

CARNIVAL!

Dearest Familia,

I only have 2 hours to do all of the outside p-day things today.  Wanna know why? Because its Carnival!  Carnival is a three day holiday when everyone in Ecuador throws water at everyone else.  So because we are missionaries and aren't allowed to "banarnos" (bath, but in this case it means "get wet"), we get to stay inside for 3 whole days! Fun right....NOT! Let me tell you, there is not  much to do in a 2 bedroom missionary apartment for 12 hours.  We get 2 hours to go out and visit our fechas and that's it!  So we have to super plan for those two hours to get everything done.

Well, this week we had intercambios for 24 hours and it was awesome! Hermana Pascual is de Guatamala and she is such a great missionary.  I learned sooo much from that 24 hours. But, we stayed up late talking and that probably wasn't the greatest idea...but it was worth it :)

Also, we had the baptism of Reynaldo.  Boy what a day.  We found him at 10 o'clock in the morning on Saturday to figure everything out.  The plan was to meet in the park at 5:30 pm to have the baptism at 6:00 pm.  Long story short, he went to Machala and didn't make it back that day. So, he got baptized on Sunday before church!

Que mas? Que mas? Well that's pretty much it. In these 2 days that we have in the house, I'mma read myself silly in Spanish.  60 chapters of Alma- Here I come :) 

I loveth you ALL!

~Hermana Whitmore

March 10, 2014
Carnival and baptisms!

Hola Querido Familia Mio,

I don't have much to talk about this week...
For carnival, like i told you... we could go out for 2 hours both monday and tuesday to work. So monday was all good, all the people asked before getting us wet, so by some miracle we returned to the house dry! BUT on Tuesday we went out and got attacked by some of our investigators and also these drunk she-men that were in the road.... its a very good thing that i dressed strategically, so i dried out very quickly :)

Our miracle for the week was that we were walking down the road in Estero Medina (part of our sector) and we stopped to talk to this lady. She wasn't really interested and we weren't really either because shes not married to her esposo. So we asked for a reference (ask everyone!), she said that we should talk to her mom who lived like two houses away. SO we went back the next day and she was super nice and had gone to church in the other ward the week before! (how crazy is that??) Its a little sad because shes not married but shes super ready to just get the papers signed and get baptized!!!

Our baptisms this week were crazy as always. The baptisms were for 2 boys, brothers. BUT we went to their house and their mom was all super unanimated because shes been talking to the Jehovahs Witnesses  and they told her, "The problem with the mormon church is they baptize people too fast! You need to CLEAN yourself with the word of god...."    SO,  I whipped out a scripture in the bible that says: he learned about the gospel of Jesus Christ, had faith, and was baptized the same day! so they ended up getting baptized :) THEN sunday rolls around and the mom says "they can't go to church, we're busy!!!!!" WHAT????? They have to get confirmed today!!!!!! So Presidente said it was ok to do the confirmations in their house after church. So we now have 2 new members of Santa Rosa 2!

Well that's all folks! I love you all! Have a great week :) 

Hermana Whitmore

                                               los bautismos de  David y Joel
March 17, 2014
The Hermano de Douglas

Hola Familia!

The highlight of this week was that we had the baptism of one of our recent converts. It's a bit of a funny story why he didn't get baptized before... so, his mom told us that he was 7 years old, so we didn't really focus on him, of course we taught him when he was with Douglas, cuidado!  Then he came to church with Douglas, told us he was 8, and we didn't believe him. BUT then after the baptism of Douglas, his mom was all "me equivoco, he´s 8! and he wants to get baptized! so we taught him all the lessons and he is now the newest member of Santa Rosa 2! Then we were at their humitas tienda last night after the confirmation and their mom was all, I want to get baptized too! So we explained that she needs to get married or be separated! And she accepted it. So we'll see what happens with her. We talked about eternal marriage in the temple and today I'm going to show her the pictures of amy's wedding that you sent me! 

It's amazing how one person's example can start to change an entire family!

Ok, so every week the Zone leaders tell me that i have cambios... when really i don't. So i stopped believing them because literally it's every single week... but yesterday they got me sooo good! They said let's play Rock paper scissors so that you can see the agenda. Of course i won! haha! But yeah they had all the "cambios" of the zone written down... i didn't believe, then i did, then i didn't and they let me think all day that i had cambios, then at 10:00PM they call and tell me it's a broma!!! WHAT!? cruel and unusual punishment i tell you... But yeah, long story short, I'm still in good ol´santa Rosita. 

Other then the baptism, we had a pretty rough week. NONE of our investigators came to church. we thought it would get easier when school ended but no! now everyone is on vacation all the time!!! BUT we'll just keep on keepin on. There are so many people ready for the gospel here, we just have to find them :)

I love you all! Cant wait to hear from you next week!

Hermana Whitmore

I asked my mamita for water and she gave me this cup... its literally bigger then my face!

                                           

This picture is sooo cool because it has our presidente, our convert that now has the priesthood and so he did the baptism. and of course, Cristopher!