¡FELIZ NAVIDAD! ¡PROSPERO AÑO Y FELIZIDAD!

¡FELIZ NAVIDAD! ¡PROSPERO AÑO Y FELIZIDAD!

Hola hola familia y amigos! i hope you all had a wonderful Christmas this past week! i loved hearing from you and seeing pictures of all the Christmas fun. Christmas is truly such a magical time of year... and im so glad i got the chance to spend this great time in Ecuador!

This past week was super different than the usual weeks here... but super fun! 

Tuesday- i had my final verification for my 12 weeks of training... so im offically out of my training and a "real missionary" now! :) the verification went really well and i learned a lot from the practices that we had to do. wow. its crazy to think my training is over!!

Then that night we got to sing around the Guayaquil city, Christmas Hymns, as a zone. we sang on the streets for the people that were passing by, and it was fun to share the Christmas spirit through song. As we were singing, i realized how blessed i am to have the Gospel in my life, and how blessed i am to know the truth. it is such an incredible blessing, and i am just so lucky to have been born in the Church and to be here in Ecuador sharing the blessings i have received in my life with the people here.

Wednesday- we went to the temple in the morning (luckily we made it after our taxi driver got lost...). such a great morning in the temple! Then we went to a living center for elderly people, and sang Christmas hymns for them and shared Christmas scriptures. Hermana Childs and i really enjoyed talking to an elderly man about his life story and all of the challenges he went through in his life. again i found my self so grateful for the life i have and the blessings i have received.

that night we had a huge Christmas dinner with ALL of the missionaries in the mission, and also had a talent show/variety show as a mission. all of the zones did a musical number (my zone sang peces en el rio and mi burrito sabanero). and hermana childs and i sang a special musical number of an arrangement of Angels we have heard on high and Hark the herald angels sing in spanish! :)

Thursday- Christmas eve we got to eat a dinner at our investigators house- joffre y kattis house. they made us some chicken, mashed potatoes, and rice! it was delicious! and... the best part of the whole week....  i got to skype my family!!! :) wow! such a good day!! :)

Friday- Christmas day! we spent the day visiting members and giving them little Christmas cards

once we hit saturday though... it became a normal week again, and we were back to the normal days of work! :) but it was good because we sure needed to visit our investigators! haha!! so it was good to get back to work!

Christmas was extra special this year in ecuador. instead of focusing on gifts and what i wanted, we were really just focused on Jesus Christ. He truly is the reason for the season. i am so grateful for my Savior. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. Through Him we can find the peace and comfort that daily we are in need of. He is the way that we can return to Heavenly Father after this life. 

Yo se que Jesucristo es mi Salvador y Redentor. Yo se que solo por medio de El podemos regresar y vivir como familias en las presencia de Dios. Ese Evangelio es un mensaje de paz y gozo. Un mensaje de esperanza. Yo estoy muy agradecido conocer la verdad y ser un miembro y misionera de la Iglesia de Jesucristo de Los Santos de Los Ultimos Dias. Yo se que la iglesia es verdadera. Yo se que Dios es nuestro Padre Celestial y nos ama y tiene un plan perfecto por Sus hijos. Yo estoy muy agradecido por todo sus oraciones y amor. Feliz Navidad. ¡Bendiciones!

les amo mucho!

Hermana Warburton

translation:

I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and Redeemer. I know that only through Him can we return and live as families in God's presence. That gospel is a message of peace and joy. A message of hope. I am grateful to know the truth and be a member and missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . I know the church is true. I know that God is our Heavenly Father loves us and has a perfect plan for His children. I am very grateful for all your prayers and love. Merry Christmas. Blessings !

At the temple with Hermana Childs

All the hermanas in my group that have the same time as me

My companion from the CCM 

Joffre y Katti on Christmas Eve

Christmas morning

My Christmas

Feliz Navidad y Nuevo Investigadores

Hola familia y amigos! FELIZ NAVIDAD! este semana es Navidad? Chèvere!

I cant believe that this week is Christmas.. it still feels like August when i left for my mission... maybe its because the temperature really hasnt changed since then! haha

This past week was my 11th week of training... and there are 12 weeks of training.. so im almost done! this week is my last week! this past week my goal was to take the initative in the teaching and planning situations. it was a little scary and hard, but a good experience too!

This week was full of new investigators and contacting. Hermana Childs and I found a new way we like to contact..  by singing Christmas Carols! the people love it, and it instantly bringings the Spirit to the situation. its amazing the power of song!

We found 3 new investigators this week through another investigator. Her name is Amalia. Amalia lives with her 2 daughters and grandchildren. Amalia comes to church often, but she is still not baptized, but wants her 8 year old grandchild to be baptized. The mom of this grandchild is named Karla. And karla wants her 8 year old child to go on a mission!! when we asked her why she wanted this and she said she thought it would be so good if he helped others learn about good things and about God. So we taught her that first he needs to be baptized, and she needs to be baptized too. And she accepted a bautismal date for january! :) her sister did as well!

we also had this woman yell to us and stop us as we were walking down the street yesterday. it caught us a little off gaurd, so we turned around and there was this woman named josselyn who had called us. she saw us walking and knew we were missionaries, and said she wanted to listen to us! she had been receiveing the lessons before a couple months ago when she lived in another area, and now that she was not having the lessons anymore, she felt like something was missing in her life. so.... we gave her a date for baptism!! :) yipee!!

it was crazy how we had investigators basically just appear this past week. I know that God is in this work, and there was no way this could have just happened by chance. He was there and is here every step of the way.

Also this week, i met a woman that is perfect. She has no sins. or so she told us! :) we were teaching a lesson about the attributes of God, and that God commands us to be clean and be baptized, even Jesus Christ was baptized and he had no sins. So as we explained about this, the investigator said "I dont have any sins." what? good thing hermana childs was there to help me out, cause i didnt really know what to say to that one!! :) hahaha 

This week also i ate 2 whole fish! one of the fish had thier head still attached when i ate it!! woah! thats a first! :) but luckily i didnt have to eat the head...

i hope you all have a great week of Christmas! one of the greatest weeks in all the year i think! :) admist everything, dont forget to take a step back and remeber the true meaning of Christmas, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Gracias a Jesucristo, we can have hope in this world and in the life to come. This week in my studies (cause we study a lot... ) I really realized that God loves us so much, and has given us so many chances in life. He loves us enough to give us agency. And then He gives us great tools so that we are not lost. He gives us commandments so that we can uses our agency wisely and choose the right. He gives us scriptures, prophets, parents, leaders to help us make the right choices. But we are not perfect, and He knows we often wont obey exactly what He says. So He has given us the Atonement. Which is an infinite atonement. We can repent any and every day, and get on the path of righteousness again. And the commandments, and words of the prophets are always there to guide us again. Not to mention the great power of prayer that is always there, so we can communicate with our Father in Heaven everyday. Wow im so greatful for the love of God, and that He loved us enough so He sent His Son for us. :) 

Tengan un buen Navidad. Les amo mucho y espero que ustedes tengan un semana excelente! Feliz Navidad! Bendiciones! 

les amo,

Hermana Warburton

ps the picture is my zone here

Libro de Mormon y Mas Navidad

Buenas tardes familia y amigos! Feliz Navidad! :)

This semana seemed to fly by so fast! Another monday and also another week closer to Christmas! wow!

This week we taught some of our new investigators and had some good lessons:) We are teaching a new family, Vicenta Coba and her 2 grandchildren, Josue y Michell. They are Evangelico, and so have a large Christian background, and belief in God. We taught Vicenta yesterday, and she said she read about 30 pages of the Book of Mormon, and talked about Nefi. and how of course Nefi was a prophet. God called prophets in the ancient times, and so why not now? She said that the Book of Mormon makes the Bible clearer. Wow! we were so impressed with her! This is what happens when the investigators read the Book of Mormon!! The Spirit can testify to them that it is true, and things become so much clearer. They are such a sweet family, and Vicenta (60 yrs old) is such a sweet lady!

On another note... we taught Erika (menos activo) y her husband Jose (investigator) on tuesday. he is very very smart, and has researched a lot about different religious things. Well we were teaching about how to recognize promptings of the Spirit, and shared Moroni 10:3-5... and i asked him what it means to him to meditate.... and for some reason he started talking about Hitler. Ah Hitler!!!! Wel....l i didnt really know what to say to that!! oh boy... haha, but they are a cute family, and we are happy to be teaching them!

This week we got to go to the temple 2 times!!! On wednesday we had a zone meeting with my zone and actually the old zone i was in in Quevedo with Presidente Riggins. it was a great day of learning more about the importance of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. It was also nice to go to the temple that morning. Also Presidente Riggins asked me and my comp and another hermana to, spare of the moment, to sing praise to the man for part of the training (like 10 minutes before we actually sang), because he knew we were singers. and it went really well! President Riggins said "of course you guys can sing, you toured!!" haha (because hermana childs and i toured in europe in the uam choir! hahaha)

We also went with our recent converts and members (that used to be menos activos) to the temple on Friday. It was so neat to see them go to the temple for the first time! they were so happy and so excited!! it was such a neat experience!

This week we also sang in a park as a zone for a stake party and contacted some people and shared the Christmas spirit which was fun!! 

on a funny note... our lunches here can be pretty funny at times.... sometimes the meals seem actually super american! like one day a hermano bought us asuper size meal from carls jr! it was good (but it was a huge hamburger and hermana childs and i about exploded!! )... but also we have meals where the cute hermanas basically command us to eat all the food on the table.. and its a little scary... but they are so cute and love to feed us that of course we eat all the food! but its so much food all the time! trust me we never go hungry here!! i about explode after every meal! we are always eating!! :) hahah! 

This week i was studying a talk from President Monson that i really loved about how we are never alone, and that God is always there to help us succeed. I loved this quote from him:

"Your Heavenly Father loves you- each of you. That love never changes. it is not influenced by your appearance, by your possessions, or by the amount of money you ave in your bank account. it is not changed by your talents and abilities. IT IS SIMPLY THERE. it is there for you when you are sad, or happy, discouraged or hopeful. God´s love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love. IT IS SIMPLY ALWAYS THERE."

i love this quote! God´s love is always there. And this is such a great time of year to remember the love that God has. He loves us so much He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, so that we all can be saved. Gracias a Jesucristo we can be saved and return to live with Them again. What a great message of peace!! Im so glad to be sharing this with others here in ecuador!

love you all so much! have a great week! share this great message of Christmas with everyone you meet! :) thanks for everything, all your love, letters, sweet notes, emails, and prayers! :) love you all!! :)

les amo,

Hermana Warburton

temple with our 2 converts cindy and vilma, and the bishop tobar

at the temple on wednesday with cute hermana childs

my Christmas!!! :)

La luz de Navidad

Hola familia y amigos! Feliz Navidad! (almost....) 

Another week in the great barrio of Semanes 1! I really do love this sector and this ward. Hermana Childs and I are having a fun time teaching and sharing this Gospel to the people here! 

We are still working with our investigator Joffre and his wife Katti. This week they were still not able to get their marriage papers done.. so no baptism this past week. But! This coming week they should be married and we should have a baptism! We are so excited for this great couple. They love the Gospel, and have such a desire to share it with others.

On Friday we did divisions with the Hermana Assitents to the President. We had a good day and were able to visit a lot of people. it was a little scary because i had to basically lead our sector, because i was with a hermana asistent and not with hermana childs.... and ive only had like 3 weeks in this sector! but i was able to find the houses, and it went really well and we didnt get lost! haha :) 

This week though i made some pretty funny spanish errors... 

-like i told hermana childs i was going to eat all her flesh.....

-------- So hermana childs told me that the meat we were eating for lunch was making her stomach upset... so i told her " yo voy a comer todo su carne".. which was " im going to eat all of your flesh"... oops! ( i was trying to say i would eat her meat at lunch for her... but it didnt translate exactly right)

AND

-all the people here when you greet them you give them a kiss on the cheek. both males and females do this to each other. of course the sister missionaries only do it to the women. BUT some men dont know that about the missionaries. so its suuuppper awkward when the men dont know that and i basically have to run away from them...

But im having a great time here. The ecuadorian people are such a sweet, great people. im learning a lot from them!

Yesterday in the Christmas devotional, i really like David a bednar´s talk. i loved how he talked about Christ as the Light. Today in my personal study i was reading about the First Vision and Joseph Smith and was again reminded that Christ is the Light. because when Christ and Heavenly Father appeared to Joseph a pillar of light came upon him, with great glory and brightness. Christ literally is the Light. Admist darnkess and confusion, the Light that Christ is, always shines bright. Light will alway conquer darkness. Gracias a Jesucristo, we can have this light shining bright in our lives admist the darkness that surrounds us. :)

Gracias por todo! Les amo mucho y tengan un buen tiempo de Navidad! Lo mejor tiempo en el año! Gracias por sus oraciones y amor! 

les amo! :)

Hermana Warburton

p.s. picture is of me at the mall de sol in guayaquil... its HUGE!! even bigger than the last mall i went to!