My Sister the Mom

Melissa N. and baby Guillermo (William Jared).

Under Pressure

Okay, post-mission adjusting...not so hard.

not with Jen and her cheesecake...


Not with a little Godiva cheesecake from Cheesecake factory...

or with your best friend Jen...

or with my mom...

So, I start classes next week at UVU, and I'm looking for a part time job to tide me over. I'm also on an insane pregnancy hormone diet-HCG. It is basically condoned anorexia that entails having injections everyday and eating 500 calories a day. I just polished off 2 crackers with turkey and mustard and asparagus for lunch. Not too bad and definitely better than chicken foot soup.

As this is what I've eaten I'm wondering...have I completely lost it? I suppose my 55 pound weight loss in Ecuador didn't quite cut it for me and now I will do anything to hit my target weight which I'm not sure is in accordance with what I should weigh.

So yeah, I would just like to say that I am back in the USA. Where else would this diet be thought of as anything but crazy?

Loving it.

My New Car

How cool is my dad? Totally thought I'd be driving my mom's car!

Fin

Julio Astudillo, Sandra Córdova, Mishell, and Alexander (whom I adore).
Feria- The fair where I was at 5:00 am buying a pig...we promised Sandra (Córdova) that we would help out.
It was a huge mistake to name her Matilda, I was the only person who cried when they killed her. I pulled her all the way from the fair. Interesting experience though...I´ll never eat pork again...maybe. I guess after 5 years of killing a pig every week stops affecting you after a while. Ese Alexander!
Zone Otavalo and our Jersey´s. Some of my best friends are here in this zone!

The view from the balcony of my new apartment! I love living in Centro, life is so much easier...and pretty.


So this is it, my last update...at least as Hermana Whitney Tanner.

I can hardly believe that it has come to an end! I´ve loved my time here with all it´s ups and downs. I´ve had success but really the only person who benefitted from my experience is me (and maybe a few of you who learned to love me more-absence makes the heart grow fonder). It´s definitely been a crazy but amazing experience that will never cease to bless and enrich my life. I know that I´m a harder worker, more loving, and all around better person for all of the experiences I´ve had. Thank you too all of you who helped me along the way. My leaders in the Mission field, family and friends at home, and the people who let me be a part of their lives here in Ecuador. I love you all, and I´m so grateful for each one of you.

I am ending things on a really high note! Sandra Córdova and Julio Astudillo were baptized yesterday April 16th, 2010. It was a really stressful week. They both needed additional interviews and we really wrangled every possible source that we had to get it done. President Montoya, first counselor to President Sloan was actually going to be here in Otavalo so we were able to arrange a meeting with him. He was so great and waited even when Sandra and Julio came late! We were so grateful for him, he has also been called as a Mission President in the Valencia, Venezuela mission and leaves in June for the Provo MTC. Anyway, Sandra and Julio are officially the newest members of Barrio (ward) Rumiñahui (Room-in-ya-wee,there isn´t any translation).

For those of you who cared about the pig story. Sandra sells Fritada, which is like fried pork (I´m not the biggest fan), and what with her baptism she has been really busy so we promised that we would help her out this Saturday. It was an unforgettable experience to say the least. We woke up at 4:45am to buy the pig at the fair, it was quite a process but we finally found the right one for $90! I had to tug her all the way to Sandra´s, we bonded, and the name Matilda Tanner was tossed around. I couldn´t do it so Julio had to put the knife in the heart...yeah, horrible, I cried. The skin is a valuable comomadity here and I didn´t know it but they blow torch the outside of the pig to sell the skin (yes, to eat). Anyway, I miss Matilda and now understand why we can´t eat pork here in Mission Ecuador Quito.

It´s been tough to say goodbye and to have to keep saying goodbye. I love Ecuador so much!

Loving you from Ecuador,

Hermana Whitney Tanner

Week 69

I forgot to mention that I have actually been in the mission field for over a year and a half now. CRAZY.

For all of you who keep asking me about the bomb, I´ve never had vichos (parasites) and I don´t think that they give us the bomb here. It´s really not as dirty here as you all think...it is dirty but not that much.

This week has been another week of looking for apartments, and today we finally found one (after 2 that fell through). We move in Monday, just in time for me to pack everything up, unpack and then pack again. Yeah, but I´m excited to have a new house. Away from the crazy landlady that looks through our stuff. She keeps telling everybody that we don´t clean...the zone leaders checked and said it was cleaner than theirs. Yeah...end rant. Oh, how I hate finding her inside of our apartment.

Julio Astudilio and Sandra Cordova are still doing well and have a gazillion questions, mostly because Julio has a friend who works with him on the bus and is a member of one of those scream and shake churches and keeps teaching them crazy stuff. Julio told us not to worry though because he didn´t believe any of it. Julio did have a little set back with the bottle but we set him straight and he was pretty humble about it. Just for the record he did need setting straight because he didn´t come home at night. He definitely knew that he was in trouble, it´s pretty funny to see a grown man hide from 3 twenty-something missionaries.

Fernando Garcia isn´t doing to well, he hasn´t been eating or taking his medication and his daughter, Miriam is pretty worried about him. So are we and I´m not sure that he will be ready to be baptized next weekend. We are praying for him though as is his very numerous family!

Our other investigators are doing well but our program is a little lagging due to our house hunt, now that that has been resolved we can focus on getting everything going again.

I love you all and look forward to seeing you in 11 days!

Hermana Whitney Tanner

Flight Information

WEDNESDAY APRIL 21ST, 2010

American Airlines AA932 Quito, Ecuador- Miami, Florida 6:25am-11:35am
American Airlines AA887 Miami, Florida- Dallas, Texas 1:30pm-3:40pm
American Airlines AA1925 Dallas, Texas- Salt Lake City Utah 6:15pm-8:00pm

COULD I HAVE MORE LAYOVERS???

Week 68

This is me with the majority of my zone for general conference- we are dressed like the indiginous people of Otavalo- have I mentioned how cool it is here?

Sandra Cordova and Julio Astudilio

...and Elder Edgington...grrr.

Sandra Cordova and Julio Asudilio were also finally married this week. After weeks of driving the poor lawyers and judges of Otavalo completely crazy the legal papers were finished and Sandra and Julio got married (inspite of me wacking the judge in the face...accidental, of course, it was still super embarrassing). They are now all set for their respective baptism on April 16th, 2010.

Carlos, Estefanía, and Micaela

I think I look pretty ridiculously happy.

Carlos Espinosa was baptized! To my surprise I ended up having a talk but it really worked out fine. They said they had been waiting for me, it made me really happy. Guess what? We are going to the temple together next year... so that he and Estefanía and Micaela can be sealed together forever. It was probably one of the most spiritual baptisms I´ve ever had. Carlos gave such a beautiful testimony and really I am so proud of him.


General Conference was pretty amazing too! I got to watch one session in English but the rest in Spanish. It´s a pretty darn good thing that I now understand everything that´s being said. Although President Holland´s talk cost me a few minutes before I understood the theme...I got it though. It´s funny as a kid I used to just count the minutes until General conference ended, but now I dread it. I loved that the focus was all about families, because really that is what is most important!

The only down side to this week is that we´ve been looking (without success) for a new apartment. Our landlady likes to look through our stuff and well, we aren´t big fans of that. Apartments are really hard to find here in Otavalo...wish us some luck because we have to move really soon!

Love you all,

Hermana Whitney Tanner

Ps. I completely forgot to post about our baptism last week...so yeah. Read week 67 again...there is a picture.