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

I survived the first week! (in Ecuador)

oh wow! What to say? well lets start with this week has definitely been longer then my first week in the MTC. OH guess what? i placed 4 BOMS on my way here. so awesome. anywho, we got here and the president took us to the temple, then we had a whole day of training and talking... most of it in spanish, then we met our new companions. My comp is from Peru and she knows exactly no english! Her name is Hermana Ureta and she is pretty great. The language barrier is a little difficult but its getting better... sort of. So we thought we were going to Machala but really we were going to Cuenca (yes the city) so we had to go get all of Hermana Ureta's things from Machala (4 hours by bus) spend the night in Machala and then take a bus at 6 in the morning to get to Cuanca (3 hours by bus) when we got here, the elders weren't at the bus station yet so we had to wait for about an hour. When they showed up they took us straight to our casa, which is awesome! Its the best house in the whole zone and everyone is a little jealous. Its new and has 2 floors, 2 separate bedrooms for the 2 companionships and 3 bathrooms, also, separate rooms for studying and a kitchen! So great. Anywho, missonary life is so different then MTC life, i dont know if this is how it always is or its just the way my comp works or what but i feel like we take forever to do things and we never make it to appointments we set up with people on the street. No se. anyways, we do a lot of contacting and spending time with people in the ward. The people here are so nice and open. A lot of them don't really care about what we have to say, but they will listen and are willing to talk to us again. so that's awesome. 

So the language barrier... yeah. I'm getting to the point that if i listen super carefully i can understand the jist of what is going on but usually im lost. ive heard that the first transfer is for learning to understand and that the second is for learning how to speak so im giving myself 3 months before i get too frustrated. This morning, my comp said i had to memorize all these points in PMG(Preach My Gospel) and so i made a deal with her that if i memorized them in spanish she had to memorize them in english and i think it helped her understand how hard it is to learn a new language. She gets a little frustrated with me when i speak in english to Hermana Clark, who is one of the Hermanas we live with, i was actually in the MTC with her so she is going through the same things right now! i love her mucho :) 

Que mas? oh my bishop is totally american so thats really nice and one of our mamitas is american too and she speaks no spanish so i am actually the one that has to translate for her... sometimes its a confidence booster and sometimes its not. So the mamitas here are just the people that feed us so we have like 7 mamitas... 

I cant really think of anything else. Ecuador is awesome, i hope i learn this language soon. 

I love you all!

Hermana Whitmore

This is the picture the mission office sent, along with a letter, to let Krista's family know that she had arrived safely in Ecuador!

They want to keep me here FOREVER!!!!

Dearest Familia,

 

So today has been the longest day EVER! It started off just a normal last day at the CCM, we were going to go print off our boarding passes. When we arrived at the computer lab and i typed in my confirmation number, big suprise! i dont exsist in the system. However, many a person said that this was normal so i remained calm and called the travel people. On the phone they kindly gave me a new confirmation number and then he said something strange: From mexico city to bogota to quito... WHAT? Quito?! Yeah definitely that is on the other side of the country from where i want to be going. I politely told the man this and he had the gall to say i was WRONG! Anywho... after many hours, they got me a new confirmation number and a plane to the right half of Ecuador. But as i was looking for which seat i would like to sit in, my dear Elder Dickerson noticed that his seat wasn't blocked out... strange... i go back and check and low and behold im on a different flight 8 hours later from Bogota to Guayaquil. So awesome i get to spend 8 hours by myself in the Drug capital of the world. no Bigs. Anywho, i call the travel people who recognize my voice by this point and ask if i can be changed to the flight that at least has my companion on it... yeah THEY have no available seats so im stuck in Columbia. But then they decide its probably not wise to have a sister missionary in a strange land by herself for 8 hours so they say go find some elders to switch you tickets. I thought they meant a companionship of elders so they could be alone together but when i asked Elders Whetton and Surowiec, they only changed Elder Whettons seat. This is still in the happenings so nothing is set in stone. I just checked my number and im still on the later flight but they said come back at 8 and see.... Keep your fingers crossed that someone will  get everything straightened out! Anywho that is the update on that.

 

Other happenings this week, oh well today, we had an amazing ... blessings meeting? with the whole district. Everyone got a priesthood blessing and it was amazing! Elder Dickerson gave me a blessing. His first ever. He did a fine job i might add :) All the elders did great! it was most of their first time giving a blessing so it was really fun to see them overcome that fear of "the first blessing" and follow the spirit. Also today, we had to pack up all our stuff and Hermana Bennett left a whole bunch of stuff so we found the cleaning lady and said she could have it. She was sooo excited but she was like you have to write a note that says i can take it. So we just wrote a note that said she could have everything in the basket. It was like a hair curler, my straightener, jewelry, books and food. So simple and she was so grateful. It was really tender!

 

Alright... que mas que mas? OH DUH! General Conference!! Favorite GC moments:

1) Carole M. Stephens whole talk!

2) President Uckdorf's talk... the whole thing. It is so applicable to everyone. Best quote "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith" nuff said.

3) Jeffery R. Holland "Live by faith, live fast by hope, and show compassion one to another"

4) M. Russell Ballard something he said made me realize that i need to take investigators by the hand and INTRODUCE them to Christ. I cant just talk to them about him but let them know him for themselves.

5)Elder Richard J. Maynes how we need to develop spiritual strength and perserverance.

6) and of course Elder Christofferson! That guy is awesome :)

 

In the CCM they schedule those whole 2 days around conference so the schedule was literally: get up, eat, study, GC, study, eat, study, GC, study eat study, RS and EC repeat for sunday.BUT it was so awesome. Apparently they took pictures of us that might be in the Ensign/Liahona so look out :)

 

On Friday, we had infield training. It was literally all day!!! We talked mostly about working with the members and quick contacting. we also covered planning and goal setting. It was a long day and it kind of feels like we didnt talk about that much. Crazy.

 

Other then that its been pretty normal. just scootin along waiting to head out to Ecuador if they will even allow that to happen for me!

 

I love you all!

 

Hermana Whitmore

Week 4- The ULTIMA Semana

Dearest Familia,

What happened this week? OH! I went outside the wall (the giant 15 foot barbed wire wall that surrounds the CCM). After i finished emailing you last week, we went to the clinic so i could get my eyes checked and they just wisked us away and we were gone for the rest of the day! The traffic here is crazy and it didnt help that it was rush hour. It took us 2 hours to get to the eye doctor and then she made me wear these goof-tastic glasses that looked like the ones on national treasure. I, however, do not have a picture because we had nothing with us when we left the CCM. After the optometrist figured out my perscription, she gave me one frame to choose from. I picked the blue ones because they look the LEAST giant on mi cara. Picture to come.

 

Que mas, que mas? This is my last week here!!!! It is seriously so crazy. I can not believe how fast the time goes here. But we have this saying that days seem like weeks and weeks seem like days. Even the head honchos know this saying. One of them mentioned it in a meeting we had on Sunday. It is was pretty funny. He also mentioned the 14th article of faith... yeah... Id never heard of it either but here it is. "We believe in meetings. We believe in all meetings, we hope for meetings, our rears have endured many meetings and have yet to endure many meetings." It goes on but i dont remember it... haha Anywho. we actually used that in a lesson we had with some other missionaries that are a week behind us. the topic was the importance of church. it was crazy. Ive never had the spirit yell at me so hard to say something. Luckily they spoke english so i could say it without having to think of it in spanish first. Also this week, my espanol has improved immensly. Its because i just read it as spanish instead of trying to translate it into english. it makes it so much better! Im not at the point were i can read the scriptures in spanish but im getting there!

 

My testimony has grown so much this week too! i thought i had a testimony before but compared to now it was nothing!!! I cant even imagine what my life would be like without this mission and its only been 5 weeks!!!

 

Sorry its short today but nothing really that exciting happened. All our native friends left so we have no one to play soccer with anymore :(

 

Te amo todos! and there is no place i would rather be but aqui! (That was a little language rhyming for you :) )

 

Hermana Whitmore

nuestro nativo amigos that play futbol with us!

the cage. this is where we play soccer!

mi distrito con  rama (branch) presidentes. our last week of church was on sunday because of GC.

They made me pay $50 for these babies because im "norte americano"... they thought i wouldnt understand spanish when they said that one :)

Week 4- "Lo siento, por su tiempo! Me gusta comer.... hotdogs!"

Dearest Familia,

 

What to say about this week? It has been crazy. Full of spiritual growth and a crazy amount of learning. Sometimes I have to take a step back and look at things from the outside so that i can see the improvements that have actually been made. This whole week has been a crazy week of faith. I swear everywhere i turn im learning something new. I think the Lord is trying to tell me something, what say you? I had this crazy experience during early morning study. I was just sitting there and I prayed to know what to study and what i needed that day, and this overwhelming feeling came over me to turn to Alma 32. That whole chapter is on faith, it was perfect!!!!!

 

My language skills havent gotten that much better but every once in a while ill just spit out something and im like "donde en el mundo did that come from?!" So thats pretty cool. We have this program called TALL to help us study but its been down for a week and it finally came up yesterday and everyone was freaking out because it is so awesome!! Seriously though we have language study right after TALL time and so this week has been a three hour a day language study and do you know how hard it is to concentrate for that long on a language that makes no sense. Well, its hard!!!

 

We play soccer pretty much every day and i realize why i gave up on soccer so early in life.. there really is no hope for me and that sport. It doesnt really help that we play with natives and they are naturals and look like they are dancing around with the ball... its crazy but sooo fun! OH! also i love the attitude the natives have towards games. They are all lets fit as many people on this court as we can! when its just nortes (north americans) they are all lets split up into teams and we´ll swith out when we get a goal... so lame! But when the natives are playing it is a free for all!!! So FUN!

 

Yesterday, we have a crazy day! our whole schedule is switched around. we have super early breakfast and gym, then class, then lunch and service, then class, TRC, class, dinner, language.BUT i love service! it is so fun. we go to this secret laundry room and fold sheets. Sounds lame but as missionaries, we have the ability to make anything fun! So we have very friendly ....contests, because "competition" is not allowed at the MTC, to see who can fold sheets the fastest (of coarse i win every time, but not really because there is no winning and losing). Anywho, its fun. Yesterdays TRC was so amazing. Hermana Bennett and I finally had a good lesson! Sure it was with other missionaries and sure it was mostly in english, BUT it was amazing. We had the spirit with us and we were making sense. We both felt awesome!

 

OH MY WORD! I cant believe i almost forgot to tell you! Our "investigator" decided that she didnt really want to hear our message anymore so she shut the door on us! i didnt even know that was allowed at the MTC! arent they supposed to be building up self esteem?? Well anyways now we can either try to get her to let us in again or we can just get an new investigator... WE have no idea what we are going to do. I feel like our situation is teaching the whole district though. we can all learn from this!

 

My funny thing for this week is the title. Mi compañera made up that song one day while she was getting ready for bed... so its been our theme for the week! Its crazy the things we come up with to entertain ourselves here!

 

I love you all!! I hope that you all have a great week!

 

Con amor,

 

Hermana Whitmore

  There is a scandelously clad man right outside the walls of the MTC! Also pictured is the 15 foot high wall keeping us from escaping the convent.

 I may or may not have sent a picture of this already.. but DAD this is me by that sign that you said i would never see!!! QUE PASO?

this is the panic circle... they are not very stratigically placed because if there really ever was an earthquake... we would die from falling trees and light poles...

Week 3

Hey Family,

 

This week has been pretty crazy. The whole country has been going loco because of independence day! Every night there are fireworks and gunshots and sirens... pretty crazy. So on Saturday Presidente Pratt put together an independence day program for all the missionaries. We gathered in the Gym and watched cultural dancing and fireworks (yes inside) and a movie on Mexican history. That was really fun, especially because we sat by the natives and they were going crazy! The next night, Sunday, was the "Grita", which is a shout for the independence of Mexico. The best part, or worst part (depending on how you look at it) was that the "Grita" was at 11:00 PM so we were out way past bed time. Which will never happen again with permission from the mission president. Anywho, that was crazy because the Presidente of Mexico would read "Viva (a name of a famous guy)" then the whole country would shout "VIVA!". Pretty much it was awesome. Before the program started, the security came in and warned us to get home as soon as possible afterwards because of all the bullets that would be flying through the air. Dont worry, i didnt get hit with anything.

 

So that was probably the most exciting part of my week, its been pretty hard. We teach our investigators everyday and pretty much we are getting no where with them. Ive realized that there are 4 parts to learning a language... 1. Be able to understand what people are saying. 2. have the words to respond 3. be able to write it. 4 ( and this is the hardest one) relearn the parts of english so you can understand what the teaching books are talking about.

 

OH! also this week, we got kicked out of our house so that was fun. We came home for gym one day and there was a sign that said the bathrooms were unsafe so everyone gets to move to a casa around the corner. We have 2 new roommates and they are super cute. I felt bad though because we totally killed the schedule they had. They havent had roommates and they have been here for 4 weeks!

 

Um.... One of my teachers is actually studying chinese history, and wants to study in none other then NANJING! So I got to talk to him about that, and it was pretty fun :)

 

I got to go to the temple today, and i actually understood some of it this time. It was really fun!

 

Love you all.

 

I love being missionary and someday I will actually understand the people im teaching instead of just loving them!

 

Hermana Whitmore

The hermanas and i with one of the dancers at the independencia celebracion!

 This one is just me being artistic!! :) Woot

  it rains everyday here... Yes everyday! And dad will appreciate this... my umbrella totally broke the first week... just like he said it would!

Week 2

Dear Familia,

 

Im glad you shaped  up and all send me letters :) I really appriecieate it even if i dont ahve as much time to write you! The plan was to come print everything out so I could write back later becauase pday is from 8-5 so we can split up our computer time thoughout the day and it is all on the honor system that you use only an hour. ´pretty much all the elders in our district fail at that... But im working on obeidience with exactness (even if I can{t spell it). But yeah i ran around trying to find a printer that worked to no avail so that wasted like 20 minutes of my time. Whatevs.

 

So this week has been pretty amazing, so many amazing talks and learning so much. Our maestra gave us the smack down and told us to shape up. The day after that happened another class from our branch cam in and their teacher apologized for the example that they had been for us because they were not at the point they shoud be after 6 weeks. It was a very powerful experience of the atonement and a great lesson for everyone in our branch.

 

Whatelse what else? oh mom! coconut oil really can be used for everything. I used it on my extremely squeeky closet door and the squeeks went away but now there is this creepy like ticking that comes from the offset of the hinges. So i guess the living arrangments are pretty strange i might have told you about them in the last letter but we live in a casa with 5 rooms and 4 girls to a room but it is suprisingly roomy. We have way more room then we would at Provo, and i lot more freedom too. I think the elders dont really understand that because they have never lived away from home and in a college dorm...

 

We finished teaching Martin and he actually became our teacher. Super weird to get use to that but for some reason i can understand his spanish now and not when we were teaching him... i think he slurred his words on purpose! We also started teaching a "new investigator" who is really our other teacher and she is soooo har dto teach but its definitely a step up from martin!!! but in our lesson with Luz i was actually understanding her and responding! it felt so good. it is crazy to think how much ive learned in 13 days.

 

So sunday is always funday and we have devos all day and RS and Sacraments.. all that good stuff. in Sacrament meeting we are all assigned a topic to be prepared for and then its like a raffel almost to see who will talk and they dont tell you until they announce it in sacrament!! They say its training for the real mission which freaks me out a bit but i guess thats one of those things i have to accept. Anywho, i survived this weeks reaping and lived to speak anouther week.

 

We listened to the most amazing devo from president holland... i tried to look it up to see if you could watch it from LDS. org but alas i couldn{t find it. It was an MTC devo given in January and it was so powerful about how if you only come back with one convert it better be yourself! Amazing.. try to find it if you can. especially Kevin.

 

I love youall!!! Love Herm. Dubs

 

OH my word!! how could i forget?? mi companera toally got bitten by a radioactive spider... ok not really but a spider yes. her whole elbow swelled up and i even picked a pincer thing out of it... SO cool!!!