Most of the month of May 2014

No letter on May 12th, just a phone call home on Mother's Day!!

Hermanas in their new dresses! Miracle time!

May 19, 2014 2:28 PM

Dearest familia,

Not much happened this week BUT I have been watching the most amazing miracle happen. One of our investigators, started out as we only invited him to church and he came. So we went and put a baptismal date and THEN found out that he has been doing drugs 3-4 times a day for 4 years! We taught him the word of wisdom gave him a book of mormon and really he has done the rest. He stopped the drugs cold turkey and hasn't had any problems. He told us that every time he feels tempted he just reads the BOM or says a prayer. He has read all of 1 and 2 Nephi in a week! He also taught himself to use the footnotes and the whole plan of salvation. He is sooo amazing. We were sitting outside talking to his neighbor and he walked past with all of his dvds because he didn't want the temptation! AH! seriously, there are no words for how amazing it is to see someone change so completely with the help of the gospel! 

ok, so this neighbor of David is Patricia and she is going to get baptized this week! POR FIN we have baptisms! Her kids are getting baptized in two weeks! AH mi primer familia :) 

And the other fantastic thing that happened this week was that we had lasagna!!!!! bah! it was awesome, minus the pile of rice that came with it... seriously whats with the rice people? i do not need more carbs! haha

Welp, thats all i got for you this week folks!

Love you all!

Hermana Whitmore

Picture 1:This is what i do when I'm waiting for my companion on pday! 

Pic 2: Writing (typing)  letters on pday!

Another week in the REAL paradise :)

May 26, 2014 1:32 PM

Hola familia,

I love hearing the different sides of your cruise stories and the reaction of when you got home! haha Awesome! I hope you enjoyed yourselves because i sure did this week! We´ve been working and working and working and finally it all paid off! We finally got to see a baptism here in the Aurora. Her name is Patricia, and she a single mom with 7 kids! Yikas. 2 of them will be baptized next week. She is so great and has a good little testimony started of how the gospel can help the family. We´ve been working so hard this week to get our program set. We are working with a lot of people and families! Its so awesome to work with the members and get their friends to come to church. Its so much more meaningful to them both! 

Most of the week was normal, just the regular working and working and working. I love learning from my companion! She is a convert of 3 years and has soooo much knowledge of the scriptures. I hope i can really use this time wisely to learn as much as i can! 

I have to apologize... i don't have any really cool stories to tell you... I did learn that i can follow the spirit this week. We were in a lesson with 3 supposed menos activos, which usually means we talk about the sacrament. But i felt like we needed to cover all of lesson 3, sooo then we found out that 2 of them have never actually been baptized and we put 2 new fechas! Woo hoo espiritu santo. So that's my awesome missionary experience this week! 

Love you all! hope you have

a great week :)

Hermana Whitmore

picture 1: p-day papas! 

Picture 2: Patricia and most of the herd!

Yay fiebre!

Yay fiebre! [yay fever] Quierido Familia,  Todo esta bien en la tierra de Machala.[all is well in the land of machala] We're all on our toes because we are expecting full cambios[changes/transfers] tonight! But i want to thank you all for remembering my birthday and tambien[also] i want to publicly wish happy birthday to my daddy!!!!! Entonces! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!! and HAPPY MOTHERS DAY MOM!!!!!!!! It's quite convenient for me that those days ended up on the same day :) haha  Well this week has been fun. Normal things going on. I got really sick.. like 101 degree temperature. But no worries all is well now! Our menos activos[less actives] definitely still need your prayers and our investigators really really need your prayers. Seriously, we had this flip flop situation with one of our investigators. He was all super excited one day and then the next day he was all i don't want to be baptized... i know its all true but I'm gonna stay catholic.... what???????? seriously. And we finally got one of our menos activos to come to church and it was literally, physically hard for her to walk into the building. Lots of prayers for Elizabeth please :) But really that was all that's been happening. Just work work work!  I'm super excited for SUNDAY!!!! yoohoo!  Love you all! Hermana Whitmore Pic 1- washing sheets in the sink is not fun.... but i will be a fantastic mother if our washing machine breaks!  Pic 2- This is what fever looks like in 90ish degree weather! Pic 3- Breakfast! yum,yum!

May 5, 2014 2:08 PM

April 14, 21, 28 of 2014

i love being sickly...

April 14, 2014 2:38 PM

Dearest Familia!

Como estan? This week has just been a treat. I started out great and then about an hour after i sent off the letter last... well that's when the fun began. My kidneys started hurting and then it just went downhill from there. We had to stay in the house Wednesday and Thursday because even though i was feelin pretty good, presidente was worried i had an infectious disease! No se preocupe[worry]- i don't!  well,  just to make sure these things don't come back, I'm taking multiple pills, multiple times a day. woohoo! gotta love south america!

Anywho, real missionary things that happened this week. My testimony of the Book of Mormon grew! Again! It was awesome, we were having a lesson with this one fecha and his cousin and his friend. and this friend is a "bad kid" so to say, does the drugs alcohol, tattoos, all that stuffs and was only talking to us to "give us his opinion" on everything- but we were reading in 2 nefi 31 and after he was all: i wasn't interested before but now i want to listen and i´ll read this other chapter tonight! How cool is that? The book of Mormon can change someone like (*snap) that!

Also, to answer moms questions, Machala is a decently sized city (like... no sé... sandy? but ecuador style!) There is a city center for shopping and its right on the ocean, but i never see it because its in the other zone! we eat a lot of fish and shrimp... and yeah. That's machala! we have this big ol´ huge sector that covers all the outskirts of the town on the way to santa rosa.  Its a little frustrating right now because we don't have people and its really hard to find them, but we wont lose faith or animos![fortitude]

I love being a missionary- even when i'm sick! my testimony grows everyday and i learn a little bit more about Christ too! i love it!

Hermana Whitmore

April 21, 2014

full poder!  [full power]

April 28, 2014 2:31 PM

Alright family!

This week was full of spiritually uplifting experiences! We had an Area Seventy come and we had capacitacion[training] with him for 6 hours! it was AWESOME! He got us all excited to work with the members and he talked all about this new era of missionary work! It was so enlightening and ... ah just awesome! I just know that it changed the way I'm going to do everything in my mission. I obviously have a gift with menos activos[less active] because that's literally all we've been able to find this week. Our program looks super sad but really we are just reactivating tons of people! In sacrament meeting we had 4 investigators and 5 menos activos! woo! But that was another miracle by itself because we were only planning on two menos activos and all of our investigators flaked!

So we got to church all depressed-like and one of the conversos[converts] of H. Brule had 3 non member family members and some menos activos were there just because they felt the need to come back to church after five years and he brought his brother who also isn't a member soooo! We put fechas with 2 of them and have plans for the other ones for this week! Our faith finally paid off! Woo! Happy day :)

Well, really, i think that's all. Sorry its kinda a lame letter but i just can't think of anything else that was really that cool.

This morning i studied some pretty cool stuff about the prodigal son. I just love that story because its like what we are doing right now! We are finding all of the lost "sons" and bringing them back so that our heavenly father can rejoice for their return!

I love you all, I love being a missionary, I love ecuador!

Hermana Whitmore

PS if you can pray for my investigators: dana y jhonny pogo. and these menos activos: Shirley Barreto, and Luis Pesantes and family, Victoria, and Christian. I would greatly appreciate it!

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!