I'm Back.

This seems to be the only creative liberty I've got left...haha!

Just some Easter fun! I hope you all had the happiest of Easters!

Disneyland

I'm off to California for Memorial Day weekend! Hope you all have a great one! I'll fill you all in on the details soon!

What I've been up too.

I know, stupid, but the strawberries here are just so good, so red, and so juicy!
Hello snakeskin heels.

I've no idea what Amanda is doing in this picture.

My mission trainer!

Garrett and I hanging out in the basement.

I get to see my mom every day!

My cute little brother Jared.

Jared being really weird...


This really isn't a what I've been doing post, but who I've been doing it with!!! It's so much fun to be around family again. As for what I've been doing...what haven't I been doing? BAM, baby!

Dejame en Paz

Dedico este cancion a los que no me dejan vivir mi vida: vayanse y no me molestan mas.


Perdóname por lo que vengo a decir
Hace tiempo no me acuerdo de ti
No no no
No entiendo porque ahora preguntas por mi
Si fuiste tú el que me dejo partir


Ahora hay otro en mi vida
El curo mis heridas
Me devolvió la alegría que daba por perdida
Ahora hay otro en mi vida
El curo mis heridas
Me devolvió la alegría que daba por perdida


Da la vuelta y déjame en paz
De ti no quiero saber más
Ya hay otro en mi vida que me hizo olvidar
Da la vuelta y déjame en paz
De ti no quiero saber más
Ya hay otro en mi vida que me hizo olvidar

Sal por esa puerta y no vuelvas más
Baby ya yo te olvide y no te quiero ver más
No insistas que nunca te voy a perdonar
Lo pasado, pasado ya no vuelvo más

Yo tengo a otro que me hace vibrar
Ya tengo a otro que me hace soñar y suspirar
Ahora soy feliz no te lo voy a ocultar
Lo mejor es que te vallas y me dejes en paz


Ahora hay otro en mi vida
El curo mis heridas
Me devolvió la alegría que daba por perdida
Ahora hay otro en mi vida
El curo mis heridas
Me devolvió la alegría que daba por perdida

Da la vuelta y déjame en paz
De ti no quiero saber más
Ya hay otro en mi vida que me hizo olvidar
Da la vuelta y déjame en paz
De ti no quiero saber más
Ya hay otro en mi vida que me hizo olvidar

Date la vuelta, Ya no regreses
Porque mi amor tu no mereces
Yo tengo a otro, que si me quiere
Se fue mi tiempo de mala suerte

Date la vuelta, Ya no regreses
Porque mi amor tu no mereces
Yo tengo a otro, que si me quiere
Se fue mi tiempo de mala suerte

Tu mentira y tu engaño
Ya yo olvide
Ahora hay otro en mi vida que me hizo entender
Que las cosas no son papi
Como las predicaba
Engañando, lastimando, esa era tu jugada
Pero bueno es el tiempo y existe el olvido
Aquellas cosas ya murieron así es el destino
Yo se que vas a pasar, lo mismo que yo pasé
Y te arrepentirás, por no haber sabido querer


Ahora hay otro en mi vida
El curo mis heridas
Me devolvió la alegría que daba por perdida
Ahora hay otro en mi vida
El curo mis heridas
Me devolvió la alegría que daba por perdida

Neglected

I'm sorry blog, I really am, tomorrow I will update you.

Love,

Whitney

Home.

I won't always post my apartments but since I did it throughout my mission I thought I would post about my post life experience!

My Dad even built the vanity. He's very talented, did I tell you that he got a 97% on his physics test? ...and has a 4.25 gpa?

Kitchen.

I have seriously missed my books!

Living room.

I know that the closet looks really messy but it's actually very organized!

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.

Week 67

Evelyn Varela and her family!

Well I don´t think that I can say anything to top that I have a nephew but here goes.

Evelyn was baptized this week! Wow what a disaster another ward had a baptism and had drained the font. Yeah, we bucket filled it but still was so low that Evelyn had to be baptized sitting down. She was a little traumatized but everything turned out okay. Until the next day when the church was flooded because the bishop forgot to turn of the water in the font...yay! It was definitely an interesting experience though.

I don´t actually have a Preparation day today because President Sloan gave me permission to go to Ibarra because my investigator Carlos Espinoza is getting baptized today. It´s pretty much amazing. This is Carlos and his family for those of you who don´t remember. I also will get to be with Hermana del Aguila overnight, so really there isn´t anybody happier than me today.

We also had a pretty interesting week, I got a little legally involved here in Otavalo because our investigators Sandra Cordova and Julio Astudillo are only waiting for one legal document and they can be married and then baptized. We´ve been waiting 4 months, I was tired of it so we went to talk to the judge. It did the trick and Sandra and Julio should lhave this paper by next Tuesday and Julio and Sandra can finally be baptized!!! It´s super handy to have Julio because he works in the public buses and we get free rides a whole lot lately. Anyway, I´m so happy that we are almost done with these silly problems and we can get to the good stuff.

Have I mentioned that I´m now an Aunt? Yeah.

We are still working with Anabel Garces, but it looks like I won´t be here when she gets baptized because she needs to work a few personal things out before she can be. She is so great though and we are working with her to help her out. She really has had things pretty rough.

Everybody is counting down the days until I go home and it´s pretty tough but now I have a new little reason to be home with you all. Remember that I love and miss you all.

Chuta, soy tia.

Tia Tanner

NO LO PUEDO CREER...

QUE LINDO, PERO SUPER LINDO...NO LO PUEDO CREER. FELICIDADES M-ER´S Y SCOTT.

I´M AN AUNT, NO WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY! CHUTA ME EMOCIONE! SOY TIA! MI SOBRINO ES LINDO!

¡BIENVENIDA WILLIAM JARED NESLEN! ¡YO TE AMO SOBRINO MÍO!

Photos ll

Jijijijijijiji.
Otavalo
I got to see mi compa again! Mi Favorita.
We totally won the prize for the best food in Zone Conference...Tacos, I even made tortillas by hand.
I just really love this picture. Verde o plaintains.

Photos l

Yep. We passed cleaning inspections...take that! ¡TOMA! They left us cookies.
I realized I have no pictures with my Mission President and his wife Sister Sloan.
I´m finally in Elder Morris´ Zone, it´s the first time that we have been together since the MTC.
You will always be in my heart...so you don´t forget what I look like.
I just like this picture, washing laundry in the river, we don´t see things like this back at home.

Week 66

Well this week was a conference week so not much got done at all. It was really strange though because I gave my final testimony and had my final interview with President Sloan. He will be in Peru so I won´t be able to have my final interview in April like I hoped for. What can you do though? It was really all about picking my spouse…yeah…no.

We have a baptism today, Evelyn Valencia, the majority of her family are already members and I´m not sure why she was holding out, but she is really excited and so are we. She is 15 years old but really quick and knows that the church is true.
Anabel Garces also has a baptismal date for April, but the Elder who did her interview sort of freaked her out. He told her that she was impure and couldn´t enter the church…yeah, we are working on it though. She pretty much decided to get baptized on her own so I was a little irritated, she is tough though and I know she will pull through.

Sandra and Julio Asudillo also have a baptismal date for April but we are having a hard time getting their papers worked out so they can get married first. All their children are members but they have been unable to because of legal problems.
My companions are seriously spectacular and I am having the time of my life. Hermana Chu is pretty crazy (like me) and Hermana Chonay has just about the purest heart that I have ever encountered. I also was able to see Hermana del Aguila in zone conference, it was pretty great!

Zone Conference was great though, I really learned a lot and encourage everybody to read Alma 32, we studied it pretty in depth. It kills me that soon I will be home when I have so much learning to do! I do love and miss you all though , so here is the good news. ..ready?

I will officially be in the Salt Lake City Airport at 8:00pm on April 21st, 2010.

Week 65

UNA SEMANA EN LA SIERRA Y YA TENGO GRIPE!!!

Mis Queridos-

It´s definitely different being back in the Sierra after so much time in the Coast. I can´t say that I´m loving the cold because it has already given me one...with a cough. It´s freezing here, but with the mountains it looks a lot more like home. There is so much to buy here, it is insane, but they are trying to rob me blind and I´m now used to the prices so I know that they can´t charge me so much. I haven´t actually purchased anything but a hat!

It is pretty great here, it´s so different, there are indiginous people everywhere. My ward and sector is Rumiñahui (Room-in-au-wee) and it happens to be 1 of 2 wards that speech spanish. The others all speak Kitchwa, I´m relieved to be sticking with spanish I´d like to get it a bit better before they ship me off to the States.

We have some great investigators here already. The family Villacreces (Via-cres-es), Carlos and Soledad have a baptismal date for 17th of April. It took a lot of work and a lot of scripture power but they did say yes. They have already been investigating the church for 7 months, which down here is a really long time. They already know that they want to be baptized but they just like to wait. They are a great little family, they have two small children too. They have been attending pretty regularly too!

We are also teaching Evelyn, her family are already members and I´m not really sure why she was holding out but she has a baptismal date for 20th of March.

My new companion...or companions are (yup, I´m in a Threesome) Hermana Chu from Peru, and Hermana Chonay from Guatemala. They are both a lot of fun and I really enjoy them both. Hermana Chu is crazy, disorganized and totally lovable. Hermana Chonay is quiet but really sweet and always willing to help. I already love the both and am glad that they will be my last companions. It´s a whole lot easier to work in three because we are able to do a lot of divisions with members.

I´m having a blast and please everybody stop counting down...I already know that I only have 35 days left and it´s not making me all that happy.

Love,

Hermana Whitney Tanner

¡Ya Me Voy!

I will officially be home the 22nd of April 2010!!!!!! Can you believe it?

In other news:

I´ve been transferred for the last time- I´m off to Otavalo and unfortunately that means that P-day is now Saturday so that the missionaries can shop in the otavaleno market! So I´ll be updating everybody Saturday!

I love you all and you are in my prayers.

Hermana Tanner