Put Off the Natural Man and Become a Child

¡Buenas tardes! 

Wow the first month of the year is gone... and we are into february already! :) I am so grateful for the experiences ive had on my mission so far, and for the good month of jaunuary ive had. the baptism and wedding of joffre and katti were some of my highlights of the month! :)

Right now we are teaching a couple of families with little kids that are super adorable. Family Amalia and her daughters and grandkids, and Katty Viteri and her kids. Teaching families is so fun! But.... its also WAY hard. Because these kids can be CRAZY!!! like running around, yelling, stealing everything from our bags! haha! so hermana childs and i have bringa bag of candy to give to these kids during lessons and church to hopefully keep them under control a little bit!! 

But its also fun to involve these kids in the lessons, because its amazing to me how much they already know about God and Jesus Christ. As we were teaching Katty Viteri this past week (a new family), we had her 7 year old son help us "build" the church of Jesus Christ.... he helped us construct with blocks the foundation of the church of Jesus Christ (blocks that are labeled with "revelation", "profets", "priesthood", "scriptures"). At the end of the lesson the 7 yr old said the prayer! I love the faith that little kids can have. they believe in God, and have no doubt. Just as in the Book of Mormon, King Benjamin taught us that we need to put off the natural man, and become as a little child! :)

On Wednesday we had a training with presidente riggins and a bunch of other zones that are around the guayaquil city area. it was a training of all the things we learned last week in the world wide missionary training broadcast. it was good to review the things we learned, and also learn soooooo many new things!! Presidente Riggins is such an amazing teacher, and i learn so much from him every time we get to listen to him talk and teach us.

On Saturday we had a baptism.... well not really. the zone leaders had a baptims... but we basically set the whole thing up for them! the zone leaders couldnt use the baptism font in their church, so asked us to fill up the font in our church for them. So hermana childs and i went to fill up our baptismal font for them.... and to our surprise... the font was still full from the baptism of joffre, 2 weeks ago!!!!! needless to say.. it was super nasty!!!!and we had to clean it out and re-fill it for them!! and even though it wasnt our baptism, we were able to bring one of our investigators- Sahiana, to the baptism so she could see it, which was really neat! :)

The food here really is pretty good! i am learning to love all the dishes that they make here for us, including the rice!!! :) But sometimes we get fed SOOOOOO much food!!! its incredible the amount of food i am able to put in my body. this past week i found myself singing "The Eye of the Tiger" twice during the lunches.. because man. i felt like a winner when i finally finished all the food!! haha! but really the people love us, so they feed us, and its delicious food!

Also there is this tradition in ecuador that they make little paper dolls of people and put them at the end of pencils. so this past week a hermana in our ward made a pencil paper doll of ME!! She said it is EXACTLY just like me!! :) haha so ill send you all a picture to judge if it is EXACTLY like me! hermana childs told me that they make the dolls just like they see you, so to them thats how they see me! (with blonde hair and long eyelashes)!!

This past week we were able to teach a lesson with our district leader about priesthood and the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ. As he was teaching, i found MYeing the one that was being taught! I was reminded of how true this church is. It is the SAME church that Christ established with the SAME priesthood power of God. The priesthood power is the power and authority that we have in this church to perform ordinances, heal, and preach the gospel. we have the permission from God to baptize, and these baptisms will not only be written here in the earth, but in the heavens as well. I am so grateful for a loving God who sent His son to the earth so that we can be saved. And through baptim, other ordinaces of the true church, and the atonement, this is made possible!

I love you all lots! Gracias por sus oraciones, apoyo, y amor. Se que Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador y nos ama. Se que La Iglesia de Jesucristo de Los Santos de Los Ultimos Días es la iglesia verdadera. 

les amo mucho,

Hermana Warburton

The doll that is EXACTLY like me