Hola!

Well hey! 
   How are you all doing?  I hope you all are doing great, things this week were good.  I celebrated my nine month mark by going out and working hard.  But I think that is the best way to celebrate month marks in the mission.  You don`t have time to think about your family or how much time you have left.  You just have time to think in Spanish.  So the days are not so long, which results in the months not being so long which means I will be home in no time! 

   I heard about the elections and I am going to be honest.  How did Obama win again?  I really thought that Mitt had it in the bag but I guess I was completely wrong.  I am pretty sad that he won again.  I remember the first time he won and poor Dallin Jenkins got my wrath (when we were waiting to go on stage for Little Abner my senior year in High School) when I said that America is in BIG DEEP TROUBLE and NO everything is not okay!  Well all of you Mitt supporters, you put up a good fight, and I am crying with you down here in Ecuador.  

   This week my companion and I are looking for new people to teach and we finally found someone who agreed to come to church with us. Her name is Yesenia and she is really nice and "open to listening to anyone who talks about God."  We will see how she progresses.  

   This week all of our recent converts went to the Temple for the first time!  That was exciting!  They all were pretty happy to have the chance to enter the Temple and do baptisms there.  The Macias family brought a bunch of family names and said that they had a really good time.  I wish that Hermana Paasaca and I could have joined them in the Temple but we can`t go to the Temple in our mission.  So that kind of stinks.... -___- Last Sunday, we announced our idea in our Gospel Principles class, it was really neat to hear the buzz that everyone made.  I don`t think that they realized that they could enter the Temple.  So it was nice to see everyone really happy about the chance to go. 

   After we announced our idea on Sunday, we decided that we had better prepare our new members, so we had aFamily Home Evening on Monday about Temples to answer their questions.  It wasn't until I heard some of their questions that I began to realize that they don`t even know what to bring when they go to the Temple!  I told them, this is just like a normal baptism, you are going to get wet, bring your make-up and hair things so that you can leave the Temple looking normal!  Our new members want to participate and do the right thing but they don`t know how and need help... I was glad I had this experience to be able to help them, it was so fun to get to see them progress. And so quickly!  We set the goal on Sunday and by the next Sunday they had accomplished it!!

   Well this week when we were visiting a couple of members and less actives many of them were putting up their Christmas decorations.  It made me kind of homesick because I LOVE CHRISTMAS and who wants to be away from home for Christmas!?! But one thing that I realized is our family LOVES Christmas.  We were helping some families put up their trees and it only took about 15 minutes to put out all of their decorations.  It made me think of the decoration process that goes on in our house.  These people have a bare Christmas tree and ancient ornaments that are just sporadically thrown on the branches (These branches were not properly fluffed I had to restrain myself from stopping the ornament hanging process and fluff all the branches).  But they seem happy to have a Christmas tree and I am sure there will not be very many presents under their trees.  It is different down here.  

   Something kind of funny happened to me this week.  Well I don`t remember if I told you all about our newest recent convert Luis.  Well I was happy to see him baptised but the thing is... He is still weird.  This week I had such an embarrassing moment.  Well I have mentioned this in my letters but not in my emails but Luis has the habit of giving me things.  Usually when our investigators give things they give things to us both.  We both are teaching them-right?  Well he only gives me things.  He gave me two harmonicas and wants me to learn to play with him.  He gave me a book on how to learn to play the harmonica he also is making something out of wood for me.  He is really into art.  I am happy to receive all of these things but when he is only giving them to me... There is a problem. Well during a family home evening that Hermana Paasaca and I had we invited Luis.  

    Luis is usually late to everything so we started without him because there were other people present.  We sang a hymn, said an opening prayer and a member was giving a spiritual thought when in walks Luis and he says , "buenas noches." to everyone.  Then he walks across the room and hands me a bottle of water saying, "Hermana Welch, Buenas Noches!" Uhhhhhh.... This was super duper weird.  Not only was the spiritual thought still going and there were about seven people present in our Family Home Evening, but WHY DID HE HAND ME A BOTTLE OF WATER??? It was a nice gesture sure but... P-LEASE!!!! I then whispered gracias my face bright red, (and shiny... it was so hot in that house) and then Luis plopped himself down on the arm of the couch.... There was a couch open right next to us that he could have plopped on!  When the Family Home Evening ended, Hermana Paasaca and I were on our way home, and Luis was insisting that he walk with us because it is unsafe.  Luckily I weaseled my way out of that invitation..... Yikes... Please let me know what I can do to improve this situation. 

Well my time is officially up but I know that this church is true and I am so happy to be a part of it.  I really do love this work even though I am sweating all the time and still can`t roll my R´s.  But that is okay, the people can feel that our message is true and that is all that matters.  I love you all more than I miss you!!!!! 

Love Hermana Welch #1 xoxox