Motherhood and Tsunami´s

April 7, 2014 3:35 PM

 Hola Querido Familia Mio,

Well, this week has definitely been interesting. Monday, we got the call for cambios. SOOO I was up packing until the wee hours of the morning, and then had to get up early to head out to my new sector in MACHALA! So I get to Machala and meet my new compy, she's a gringita from Colorado, Hermana Brule, and she's got 7 weeks in the mish! Guess what that means: I'm a MOM! ha-ha Step-mom really, but it's almost the same thing. Anywho, so we go out to work and we don't really have a program for various reasons so we were doing a lot of member and conversos visits. In the last visit,  we see the report of the Tsunami, and how the whole coast of South America needs to be on alert. SOO we head back to the apartment and get a call from the elders:"you´re all going to Santa Rosa". I start freakin out because I'm so excited to go back to my home land, and everybody else starts freakin out because of the tsunami. obviously, I've got my priorities straight. So yeah, we head to Santa Rosita and with my really good luck we stayed in my old house. However there were definitely 10 of us sleeping on 4 mattresses.... so yeah that was fun.

Not to worry, nothing happened in Machala and we came back the next morning safe and sound. Then the rest of the week was pretty normal. We are still looking for people to teach, and we just seem to be in a dry spell, but I'm not giving up hope!! If there is a will there is a way right? RIGHT? 

So yeah, it's been fun to be in a new area, but it definitely was sad to leave everyone in Santa Rosa. I learned so much there and I feel like it's my home away from home, but I know that I will be able to make whatever area I'm in feel the same way. 

OK: conference, I really didn't get to watch it because we were stressing about investigators and all that fun stuff, plus it was in Spanish and when I'm stressin´ my Spanish brain doesn't work as well. So when the Liahona comes out with all the talks, I'll let you know what I liked! ha-ha

Well that's all my fun news! can't wait until next week :)

Hermana Whitmore

TJ´s and Baptisms

March 31, 2014 

Hola Quierido Familia Mio,

This week was a little difficult in the work, which is a little disappointing with conference right around the corner. BUT it's all good, we are keeping our spirits up here in little ol´ Santa Rosita. We had the baptism of Brigette! Por FIN![finally] she is the cutest girl, 12 years old. And she is super pilas, and gets along super well with all the girls in the rama[branch]. I think that she is going to be just fine when we have cambios[transfers] and she has to survive just on the members. 

This week we got a reference from the other zone and this lady is sooo ready. She put her own baptismal date. How awesome is that? She was a TJ (Testigo de Jeovah)[Jehovah's Witness] and came to the church to see if we really worshiped  Joseph Smith,found out we didn't and that we only talk about Christ and all this good and now she's  soo ready to get baptized!!! Her baptism is planned for right after the Sunday conference. YEEHOO! 

It's amazing the difference between teaching people that are ready and truly prepared to learn the gospel and teaching people that need a little convincing. The people I've taught are about half and half. The ones that are prepared, definitely had the spirit teaching them everything. We just had to say the words out loud so that they could understand what the spirit was whispering. It's sooo cool!!! Los demas[the other] are fun to teach too because we get to use the scriptures and guide them to the right pathway to return back to our heavenly father. 

I had the greatest blessing this week to watch 3 of my converts help with the sacrament this week!! AHHH! 2 of them blessed it and the other helped pass it out. OH my word. I almost started crying- it was soo tender. I love being able to see the fruits of this work unfolding right before my eyes! Blessings Blessings Blessings! 

Well that's all I got for you this week folks! Les Quiero MUCHISISISISIMO! 

Tengan una buena semana![Have a good week]

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!

3 weeks of February

FEB. 10, 2014

COW STOMACH.......

Hola Querido Familia Mio,

jijiji! That's all the Spanish i'll throw at you today... hopefully :) Well this week was fun, with lots to do, Lots of people to see and far away places to go. We got some new training at the beginning of this week. So now we do plans de asistencia for church and all these steps to help people realize the importance of going to church. we were doing this before but now we do a Vancuna (vaccine) that's from Moroni 7. Good things come from God and Bad things come from the Devil... What is church? This helps people realize that church is the most important thing they could be doing on Sunday! It's pretty cool.

So the title of this email needs some explanation i guess... This week i got to eat cow stomach... twice... yeah... i decided i don't love it all that much. They cook it in peanut sauce and its like eating fuzzy gum. But its a little funny because all the members that find out you don't like it, always always always say "oh well its because you haven't tried mine!" yeah... so the thing we can learn from this is just don't talk about it! haha

We had the baptism of Yajahira this week! She is the sobrina of a member in our ward. She's gone down some wrong paths, made some wrong decisions... BUT hopefully now that she has a new start to life she can start making good decisions. We talked with her after church and talked a lot about temples and how awesome they are and how you can have an eternal family and be with someone that actually loves you! It was really tender :)

Well that's my week! OH! side notes:
-I gave my first machete (serious speaking) with an investigator. Ful poder! haha
-I'm starting to like fish! yikas!!! What am i to do??? 

-And our zone leaders are sooo awesome! They care about us soo much and they are soooo super spiritually powerful! love them!

Well family i love you all :) Until next time!

Hermana Whitmore

FEB. 17, 2014
NOT MUCH THIS WEEK....
Dearest Familia de mio,

How are you all doing? This week was a bit boring in the grand scheme of things... I did get your package!! So i now have a functioning camera! WOO!

That day was actually pretty eventful, we actually got a member to come with us and do visits! Woo! so we were in El Recreo, about 30 minutes outside of Santa Rosa, and we were praying when the last bus passed.... Yeah.. so this has happened before and we weren't worried because there is always a taxi of some sort that comes along.. yeah nothing came by for 45 minutes. know why? because it was raining.. when it rains, everyone buttons up the hatches and stays inside! So we had to call Elder Osorio to save us... Yay sister missionary moment!!!

We didn't have any baptisms this week, so no crazy running around on Saturday, BUT the elders in our ward had a baptism and their investigator was totally MIA! They were looking and calling him until 8:00, finally found him, and brought him to the church. BUT when they finally arrived, everyone else from the other 5 baptisms had left and all the water had drained out of the font!!! SOOOO we had to wait around for the font to fill up and there was only missionaries, one friend, presidente, and the mission leader. A little sad. BUT he is now the newest member of Rama Santa Rosa 2! (PS same thing happened for his confirmacion... yeah...)

Well tha-tha-tha-thats all folks!

Loves and h...handshakes!

FEB. 24, 2014
ANOTHER WEEK IN SANTA ROSA!

Querido Familia Mia,

Pues, everything is normal here in the middle of the globe. This week i had my first real sickness!!! WOO (I'm a real missionary now)! I woke up in the morning with a stomach ache but i was all "it'll pass" but then we went Planeamiento semenal and it grew a little... then we had lunch and it was a little worse... then we went to Estero Medina to do some visits and i couldn't even WALK! Yeah! So i tell my companion "voy a morir![i am going to die] Llamar los lideres porfa!!!"[call the leaders] so shes on the phone with Elder osorio and says hey we are going to the apartment, my companion doesn't feel very good. So i yell "Elder Osorio VOY A MORIR" and he just starts laughing!!! haha (its all good! he is my pata ((super good friend)). So we go to the apartment and I'm just laying on the bed dying. It was soo weird though because it was just pain, no other symptoms whatsoever! So yeah after calling the enfermeras [nurse] and checking my temp.3 times, a nap and  another call to the enfermeras, everything was still the same. The elders call and say "don't leave! we're coming by the apartment!" ...like I'm going to go anywhere... So they come by, go and buy my pastillas (pills) and then give me a blessing and and like 30 minutes later i was fit as a fiddle! So moral of the story... I'm not going to die and the sacerdocio [priesthood] works!!!

in other news, We had two baptisms this week! yihee! One of a kids is named Luis. He is super super smart and remembers everything like the second you teach it to him. He was sooo excited to get baptized, and it was a little sad because his parents didn't come to support him in his decision (but he had 3 cousins come and watch so that was awesome!) but he had elder thompson baptize him and when we met him at the church he says to elder thompson in super awful english "I'm here for my baptism!!!" ah! so cute!

The other is Douglas and he is super pilas too. We've been teaching him for about a month now and his mom is super awesome and supportive BUT shes not married and her man is Ateo and doesn't believe in marriage or something like that so she cant get baptized :(

So now Santa Rosa 2 has two new members! And this week we are going to try to do a lot of reactivating. So pray for the menos activos here in Santa Rosa because we´re coming to find them!

I love you all!!!

Heramana Whitmore

So much to do! So little time! AND... One more week in paradise!

One more week in paradise!

Jan. 27, 2014

Alright, what a week, what a week! This week started out with one of the hermanas going to Guayaquil for a training and so her compy was with us for a couple days... that was interesting because we were trying to work in two sectors. So one of the days i did a split with my converso, Derly. and I put a fecha! All by myself! in Spanish! and i verified everything! Woo, go me! Super confidence booster... it's really too bad that we haven't seen him since, but that's the way things go here in Ecuador.

Anywho! this week we had the baptism of Isabel Herrera, age 75! That was quite the adventure. We said that we would pick her up at 6:30 for the baptism at "7:00" AKA 8:00 But when we got there, we found out that she had left for Machala and hadn't come back yet! So we left in hopes that she would show up before 7:00. When we came back... she hadn't, so we wait around until 7:40!! BUT luckily she had come in a taxi (they live on the very edge of our sector, and she has really bad health so she can't walk very much) so we tell the taxi to wait because we need it! But my comp and i decide to wait in the taxi for her to change and stuff. so we hop in the taxi and the taxi takes off without Isabel!!! We're all , hey we need that other lady and he's all, it's ok I'm just going to get gas. and we're all ... ah ok... but we get to the gas station and there is like a million cars! I'm all, we don't have time for this! and he's all, why? well buddy, we kind of have a baptism and we need that lady that you left behind! THEN it all clicks for him... ahyayayi. well, after much trial and tribulation we get Isabel to the church, take pictures, change her into her baptism dress, find out she didn't understand the whole baptism by immersion thing meant that she had to get wet. get her in the font with 2 elders and a chair, and baptize that woman!!! all in all it was a very interesting day. BUT now Isabel Herrera is the newest member of RAMA SANTA ROSA 2!  WOO :)

Well that's all i got for ya, i hope you enjoy the story. i love the work here :) i love being a missionary, i love my life, all that I'm learning and doing. I love watching peoples lives change for the better, i love you all :) 

Hermana Whitmore

So much to do! So little time!

Feb. 3, 2014

Dearest Familia!

This week has been great! We found a family and they are sooo ready to hear the gospel. They are actually married (not very common here) and have 3 kids! Javier, the dad, is sooo excited about it! Its awesome. He took his kids on a drive to see the church and when his son said he didn't know how to pray he taught him the correct steps that we had taught him the day before. Only Javier and his daughter came to church but we`´ll get his whole family there! I know! :)

Also this week, we had a bunch of run-ins with Testigos and Evagelicals. It just made my testimony of this gospel really grow. The doctrine is so confusing if you don't have the book of mormon to straighten it all out. It was fun to talk with them because they kept trying to stump us with locisimo questions and we were just calm and kept reading them scriptures. in the end we invited two of them to read the book of mormon and pray to know the truth... we´ll see if they actually do it!

WE have this investigator, Angie, and we went to visit her and she said she didn't want to get baptized but didn't have a reason either! So we asked her to say a pray and ask directly if she should get baptized. after the prayer we all knelt in silence so that she could receive an answer. I know i was using that time to say a prayer and I'm pretty sure my companion was too. But after about 3 minutes, she says: i think i need to get baptized!!!! SOOO COOL! We'll have to do it again because she called us last night and said she changed her mind again... but i know that she can ask again and again and always get the same answer :)

Alright, so, fun story time!

Story number 1: The other night i open my journal and there is a cricket (giant enough that i thought it was a cucaracha) just hangin out! I freaked out and totally screamed, chucking my journal across the room. Then after that, it took us about 10 minutes to get up the courage to find it and kill it... yeah, that was fun.

Story 2: So we have to take buses to part of our area. we were on the bus and i was takin a little cat nap. When all of a sudden i feel a hand on my face... that's right ON MY FACE!!!!! I open my eyes and luckily the hand had been removed.. but there was just this creepy Ecuadorian man standing over me, smiling! WOW! some people. i was sooo stunned i couldn't think of anything to say.. let alone any spanish words to say. So yeah that happened.

Also we had the baptism of Angel! he's super pilas. 

Anywho. That's all i got for you :)

I love you all! 

Hermana Whitmore

Three weeks of January

(January 6, 2014) FELIZ AÑO FAMILIA!

The first days of the year here were so strange because everyone is so friendly... todos personas dicen "feliz anos" to everyone! New years was awesome. we had to stay in the casa but at midnight we woke up and stuck our heads out the window to watch the festivities! There were fireworks everywhere and fires all the way down the street from the burning muñecas. So yeah that was fun. This week was a little rough because none of our fechas are progressing. WE NEED to find new people to teach. That's our goal for this week.

Also, fun story. On pday last week we went and got our hair cut... yeah the lady cutting our hair was definitely a man... so weird and now i see him-her everywhere with her boyfriend... I've also become more aware of people like that and they are EVERYWHERE! Seriously every salon there are at least 2! yikas. anywho... not much has happened this week. there were transfers so we got a new elder in our rama from Mexico and he was in a mariachi band. so pretty much he is really cool!

I think that's it :) i love you all. i love being in Santa Rosa where the church, the temperature and the rain keeps growing!

Until next week!

Hermana Whitmore

(January 13, 2014) Hola Familia!

Well this week has been interesting... well not really. We have investigators and then on Sunday they all don't come to church again and then we have to drop them because they aren't keeping commitments. BUT we are working on obediencia con exactitud because for the amount we are obedient we get blessings and we need all the blessings we can get! The asistentes came and we had a meeting with them and Elder Pomares gave us assignments on what to study. so,Saturday i studied about how i could be a better disciple of Christ and i read the Scripture Lucas 14: 33 "así, pues, cualquiera de vosotros que no renuncie a todas las cosas que posee no puede ser mi discípulo". i was thinking that i need to give up a lot of things but mostly i need to give up my pride for learning Spanish. Always i want to be speaking in English "because i can understand it and actually have a conversation" but yeah so this week I'm working on my humility and hopefully it will help me with everything!!
Sorry its short this week and i didn't explain the scripture very well but you can ponder it and learn something for yourself! haha i love you all!

Hermana Whitmore

(January 20, 2014) Dear familia,

my view of time has changed because of your letter! its crazy to think that i only have 14 months left to do all that i need to do! and all that i need to improve about myself! i need to get working!!!

This week i got a new companion.. big surprise! She is also from Peru. That makes 3 Peruvians and 1 Colombiana. Hermana Herrera left for Guayaquil for 2 days for a conference so we have her companion now too. Hermana Iverson! She's awesome but we did splits last night and i was the odd one out so i got to go with a member. BUT by the time that everything got figured out and we got to her house it was raining like crazy so we made food and had a spiritual thought! then my companion and Hermana Iverson showed up and we ate the food. Then it was time to go home! We might have to do the same split today but who knows? not this girl! 

ANywho.. I finally got the package!! i literally almost cried when i saw the socks! GReatest late Christmas present ever! Also i love the missionary book. i read one page everyday to start my study time! i mark the scripture and it makes me want to be better everyday! 

So right now we have these to investigators that are gold!!!! Ful mango bajos ( i'll explain in a minute) one is Isabel and she is 85 years old and crikety and sooo cute! her son angel accepted a fecha the first time we met with him and he's planning on the 8th of February! entoces! a mango bajo is someone with no problems for baptism (can go to church, are married or single, don't drink or smoke, etc.) because they are easy to "reach". 

well that's all! scripture for the week, Alma 29:9

love you! 

Hermana WHitmore