Hermana Libby White has been called to serve as a representative of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Ecuador, Quito mission. She will be serving the people of Ecuador for 18 months.
I hope everyone´s Christmas was really awesome! My companion and I spent almost the entire week making cookies to give to pretty much all of the people we visited which was really nice to do something normalish for Christmas! We also went caroling on Thursday night!! I think that was my favorite part of Christmas week! Then Christmas morning was awesome! Between the two of us, m companion and I got a ton of socks and a ton of peppermints! It was awesome! Then I love Christmas Sunday! The best part of course was the phone call home on Sunday!! It was so nice to be able to talk with my family! It was nice to hear from them and everything, but I think almost harder to say good bye again!
Anyway, hope everyone had a good Christmas and will have a happy New Year!!
I seriously can not believe that Christmas is this week!! It`s only a week away!!
This week was just full of Christmas stuff and I almost got a concussion…maybe!
So Tuesday we were preparing to leave to go to Quito for our Christmas Dinner with the President. We were just walking home from lunch and my companion was calling someone and I kinda was looking down at the ground so I wound’t trip and fall and break something when I ran into a sign!! It was this triangular sign and I hit my head on the corner of it. SO my companion started freaking out cause I started bleeding and then the Enfermeras wouldn’t answer or the Elders and She faints at the sight of blood and I wasn’t feeling good so she called the Bishop cause he’s a doctor and we took a taxi over there so he could tell me if I needed to get stiches or do something else. But he said that the cut was fine and to just go home and rest. So we didn’t do anything on Tuesday cause I slept all day. And then after two or three days I was fine. SO it’s all good! Just something really exciting that always happenes to us!
The Christmas dinner was the best!! We had a little conference before and I had to give a talk about the Atonement. It was half ENglish and half Spanish so I hope that people understood it! But President talked about the word evangelio which in Spanish means gospel. And the root of the word means good news. ANd apperently in a lot of other languages the word for gospel is almost the same. So I thought that was interseting! But the food was the best part of the conferenece. There was mashed potatoes!!! I haven`t had those in like months!! It was literally the most delishes thing I ahd ever eaten! And the rolls that Hna Christensen made were the same that my mom makes for Thanksgiving!! I was really happy with the food! The games were pretty awesome to! Just some Christmas trivia games. Then after they gave us presents which was a keychaing and a bar of chocalte we went home!
Christmas Dinner
The other awesome thing that happened this week is that Hna Barraclough and I both got Christmas packages!! They were literally blessings from heaven! Cuase Hna Barraclough had been waiting for 5 months and we were both feeling a little homesick about not being home for Christmas. But we have stuff to celebrate the Holidays!! And we are both so Thankful for them!!
I hope your Christmas Holidays are really awesome!! Love you all!!
Merry Christmas!!
Hna White
And I forgot to say that We had another baptsims this week!! It was this little 13 year old girl who can’t walk. But she is litterally the most awesome person I have ever met in my life!! She goes to church ever Sunday even though it is really hard and she loves everything! Her mom is a less active and can’t read but Marissa reads the Book of Mormon to her every day!! She is so awesome I love her!!
OK this week went by so fast and I can almost not remeber anything that happened!!! I guess something new is that we havea new district leader because of cambios. It´s different but fun at the same time so that´s good.
My favorite thing that happened this week though was that a couple in the ward asked us to teach them how to make apple pie! So wednessday morning we went and made pie! I think that it was the best pie I have ever made to! I don´t know what was different, but it was delicious! We told the Elders and they were super jealous and had me make them another pie today for p-day! So I was pretty excited!!!
Then we had another baptism this week!! It was the parents of the kids who were baptized last week! and it was so beautiful! We sang familias pueden ser eternas (families can be together forever) with them and it was just awesome!! I love this part of being on a mission!! And this family already has a goal to go to the Temple next year for navidad!!! I am so excited for them!!
I think that´s everything that happened this week! I will try to send more pictures!
It was the last week of the change and the light up the world initiative made us do a lot of stuff together as a district and a zone. So it was really fun. One day this week we washed the bishops car. The other day we went to Ambato as a Zone to help a member clean up a school and stuff. That involved painting, moving rocks, sweeping, and weeding. But the cool thing was we weeded with knifes so ya... it was actually pretty usefull. Then we also weeded a member in our wards patio. So once again with knifes and screw drivers weeded in beetween the cracks in the sidewalk. It was pretty fun. And always after the service project they feed us...so that`s pretty awesome!
But the best day this week was saturday. We had 4baptisms!! The Children of the familia Ponton were baptized. This familia used to live in Quito and had wanted to be baptized for forever but then the parents had things that happened and they couldn`t but the kids did. So it was an awesome night. My first baptism!!!
Then Sunday was Cambios. And we all knew that one of us was going so it was pretty sad. We went to a family in the ward and had a Noche de Hogar (Family Night) with them and found out the cambios. Elder Arevelo, our district leader is going to Quito, but the rest of us are staying here and we are getting a new district leader. So I am really excited that I am staying with my campanion for another 6 weeks!
But another awesome thing that happened is that the American couple in our ward. Grace and Benjamen, Grace`s dad came to the Baptism and we talked to him and stuff here that`s different and that we miss from the United States, like peanut butter. You can not find peanut butter here anywhere and if you do it is so expensive! But he went and bought Hermana Barraclough and I a huge jar!! Like a costco sized jar that should last us the whole cambio but probably won`t! We were really happy and are eating it with almost everything!!
So this week was a little weird. It started off really awesome cause we went to Quilotoa on Monday and that was just awesome!!! But then Tuesday, my companion got really sick. Like we didn`t leave the house all day. I was pretty bored...so I organized our Ensigns and made our carpeta de area (area book) perfect! I am just so happy that we have the best Elders in our district!! They kept in contact with me all day and brought me food so that I woudn`t starve! And most importantly they gave Hna. Barraclough a blessing. So they are pretty awesome!! Hna. Barraclough still wasn`t better until Friday, so we lost a whole week of work but she is all better now!!
So this week was also Zone conference. And even though Hna. Barraclough was dying pretty much we went and President talked a lot about not being visiting teachers and actually being missionaries. Which means leaving the menos activos that aren`t progressing and also the investigators. Which is hard but will help the work progress faster.
My favorite part of the week was saturday evening. The Elders had a double baptism that night and we were able to go cause we had some investigatores going and we had to do a musical number. But the Elders didn`t buy or have someone buy any food!! So in the middle of the baptism we ran to the store and spent the las of our money to buy a cake!! It was pretty awesome actually!!
I can not believe that I have almost spent a month in Ecuador!! It has been so awesome!!
This week I had verifications, which pretty much means that President just makes sure I am alive and am doing good. But it was awesome cause we had this delicious breakfast which was kindof like a french toast casorole thing, but it was awesome and American!! Also we had Pizza for lunch so that was great!!
Saturday this week we did invasions in the Elders sector here in Latacunga. That pretty much just means that everybody in the Zone comes and contacts in the Elders area. It was really fun but Hermana Barraclough and I caused like 4 traffic jams cause nobody there has seen a white American girl before. People just stopped in the middle of the street to talk to us!! It was pretty awesome actualy!
Then today for P-day we went to Quilatoa (I think I spelled that right) which is a lake inside of an old volcanoe! It takes like 15 minutes to go down but over an hour to go up!! It is litterally the worst hike up!! But it was so fun!!
This week has one by really fast which is surprising cause I was a little sick this week. I thought this week would last forever but I was wrong.
One really aweomse thing happened this week. In our zone meeting we talked about working with faith to acheive our goals that we make for each month. Hermmana Barraclough and I decided to make a goal for 25 baptisms before Christmas and have faith in the Lord that He would halep us. This week has been so awesome because of it!! We found a family that is like so ready to hear the gospel and said that if this church was true they would change religions. Also our other investigadors are progressing a lot more it is so awesome to see all the little miracles!!
Today for p-day we had a zone activicty and we just played games outside together! It was so fun! I think today was my favorite p-day ever!! We played soccer (the Hermanas played then the Elders played) then we went an found this really awesome burger place. It was littlerly the best hamburger place that I have ever found!! They even had frysauce!! It was awesome!!
