Hola! I have been so excited all day to read your emails. Thank you! It has been another great weeks in Baños Ecuador. First I want to tell you what I got to do today:) Today we went and hiked a retired volcano named Chimborazo as a zone activity. It was way fun because there was snow! I hope I will be able to send pictures. It was the first time for Hna Jaramillo and a lot of the missionaries to see snow. Hna Jaramillo and I built a snow man. Then we all had snowball fights. We had great fun. Then afterwards we went to the mall in Ambato and ate pizza. There is a super max grocery store there and I got to buy peanut butter. Seriously I have been craving peanut butter so bad. I only bought a small jar because it was expensive. But it was so worth the 4 bucks. I got home and had a nice cold glass of milk and a PB&J. Now I am writing my wonderful family. I just want all of you know how grateful I am to be in this family. I know I have been blessed tremendously. I often see a lot of broken homes and sad circumstances for children. I have also seen the change in a family when they start to recognize blessings from God. It has been a pretty good week. We visited with the Iglesias family and got a ton of great ideas for activities. This next week we are going to have a FHE were we are going to have a short lesson then play games and then a fireside on Thursday. I am excited to see how these turn out. Every Friday the Branch has a basketball night. Hna Jaramillo and I usually go because we invite investigators to come. I didn´t really play this Friday with all of the adults because I was in my dress clothes. Instead I played with the little kids. They are so funny. Actually the are perfect tutors when it comes to Spanish. They speak in such a simple way and they usually can understand me. Oh I almost forgot. I spoke in church in sunday. It was so stinkin nerve racking. haha My spanish is still rough and simple but I spoke on charity in mission work for the members. I am just so glade to get it over with. Hna Jaramillo prepared a talk because she thought she was going to have to speak. We got to church and the president said that no only I was going to speak out of the two of us and that I was going to be the last speaker. I am glade that the members are really long winded haha because by the time it got to be my turn to speak I only had about 10 minutes which turned out to be perfect. Today Hna Jaramillo only has 15 days left on the mission. Crazy! She is getting so anxious about going home in that she is kind of sad to go home. She is a wonderful and powerful missionary. She has been a great example for me and has taught me many things. I am getting kind of anxious to see what happens when she leaves. Like who will be my new companion or if I will be staying in Baños. I probably will stay here because they usually don't like sending to missionaries to a new area. But a little bird told me that possible they will be sending elders here in Baños because there isn´t many priesthood holders. Sooo it will be interesting to see what happens. 

Mom to answer your questions. No we have a pretty nice apartment and don´t have to take bucket showers. We do wash our clothes by hand. We walk or talk a bus every where we go. We are the only sister missionaries besides the nurse companionship to have a cell phone. We only have a phone because we live by a volcano. We have 6 different mamitas who feed us weekly. Sometimes  our food appointments fall through then we eat little snacks. The mission life has been pretty good. 

I need to go now I love you all!  

11/14/11

Hola! Every week all of your letters are so up lifting. I am getting so excited to speak with all of you this Christmas. It has been a pretty chill P-day today. We hopped on a bus to Rio Blanco which is about 20 minutes away and hung out with a girl named Esther from the Branch. The highlight today definitely was getting emails from all of you:) As it is always. So thank you! This week has been a good week with lots of traveling. We had a conference in Ambato with President Ghent-his wife and Elder Useda-his wife (a member of the seventy). It turned out to be a very powerful and inspiring conference. We started at about 3 and ended at 7:30. Elder Useda talked to us about the importance of obedience and also revelation. The conference was great but by the end of it I was about brain dead from trying to understand everything:) This Sunday Hna Jaramillo and I helped out in the primary. It was crazy ha but fun. We practically had to put a few of the boys in head locks to keep them from getting in trouble. Every once in a while we will be walking down the street and then all of the sudden someone comes hugging us from behind. We look back to find a little primary kid from the Rama. Anyways I want you all to know that I am doing good. I am getting so excited for spencer. He will be a wonderful missionary. I love you all! Cant wait for next week. 

Hna Wilhelm

10/31/11 Post

Hola my lovely family!

It has been a wonderful Pday. Hna Jaramillo and I had pizza today. So it has actually been really awesome. Along with a wonderful pday this week has been awesome. Really I have seen miracales and the power of God at work. This week we had the Romero family get married and bapitised! Seriously. On Tuesday Edison and Norma confessed that in fact they were not married. Hna Jaramillo and I were both stressing out all week over this because some how the Romero´s needed to get married before saturday because their baptism was this day. If they couldn´t get married we would have to push back their date. On top of all things Edison said he needed to file for another ID because he had lost it. This week we have fasted and prayed a ton. I know that our prayers have been answered. On thursday we invited a member, Hno Iglesias to come with us to the Romeros. During the lesson Hno Iglesias was like ¨you need to get married-I have a buddy who is over the civil marraiges in Baños.¨We were like sweet! And on top of that Edison found his ID. So straight from the lesson we went on a wild goose chase around Baños Ecuador. Norma, Edison, Hna Jaramillo, and I along with Hno Iglesias as our leader set out at 6 pm on this rainy thursday night with a goal to get a marriage done. We first walked to the Hno Iglesias buddies house. It turned out that he wasn´t there and that he was actually at the office...how convinent...So all 5 of us set out again. OUr eager leader Hno Iglesias was very energetic and walked super fast. Every two minutes or so he would yell back'Vamos Hermanas...Tenemos una matramonio.' Finally we make it to the office and Hno Iglesias fiend is their. He was super kind and said he would be glade to marry them that night. We just needed to find another witness. So Hna Jaramillo and I set out again in the rain to find another member. By the time we got all the paper work and witnesses ready it was about 8:30. It was such a fun and memerable experience because we were all soaking wet and Norma and Edison were super happy. Saturday the Romero Family and Miguel were baptised. On sunday it was such a relief to see each on of them recieve the HG and be confermed a member of the church. I know that we couldnt have got this done if we didn´t have the help of the lord. Seriously it seemed like satan was working really hard on our investigators. I know that this is the Lords work and I am so thankful to be apart of it. On another note the Branch held a basketball night and it turned out to be a blast. Hna Jaramillo and I couldn´t resist the temtation to play so we ended up playing full out in our sunday clothes.

Thank you everyone! I love you all. I am sooooo excited for Spencer. I was happy to hear that he will get to go home for thanksgiving and go through the temple. G2G XOXOXxooxOXoxOOxxXXOo


Hna Wilhelm