Week 27

hi to everyone!!

This week was good! Hermana Sangredi and I are basically pros at finding our way around in our sector now. I still think its a maze but after 6 weeks im finally figuring it out! haha We are still finding lots of new people and working hard! We have some people progressing and getting ready to be baptized in two weeks! whoo hoo! We have one investigator thats my favorite person ever. Shes like 60 years old and the best thing that ever happened to this world. She reciently helpedbake the biggest cake in the world (or so she says). It was an activity for the celebration of the day of the dead. She also is allergic to pretty much everything outside of her house so we asked her if she wanted a blessing and she said yeah! when are they going to come and heal me?! She has great faith of loves going to church and we are going to keep working hard with her! Keep her in your prayers!

OH! I finished the book of mormon in spanish! haha finally! It only took me 6 months! But that doesnt matter haha its still as true as ever! Nothing else really happened this week. Just walkin, talking, and preaching! nothing else. Asi es la vida!

I love you tons and hope you are all doing great!! Have a good week:)

Love,

Hermana Brimhall

Week 26

Hey Everyone!!

I dont have a whole lot of time to write today but I have some good pics! My distict is super fun and our district leader is always pulling pranks on everyone. He has this Whoopie cushon that he brings everywhere and everyone always gives him the craziest looks haha

This week was good though! we are still working hard! We were contacting one day and this little 5 year old boy walks up and goes "hola guapas!" I was dying laughing and I could hardly talk. It was great! We are finding lots of new people still and a lot of new less actives. We are working with a family of less actives and they have been coming to church and are getting ready to go to the temple in december!!! My heart is so happy for them!!! 

We went to this place called Mr. Joy today and its basically like a giant chucky cheese for big people haha its great!

I love you all tons!!!

Love,

Hermana Brimhall

this is what $10 of fruit looks like here in ecuador! its so cheap!

Week 25

Hey everyone!

Im doing great here in Ecuador! Hermana Sangredi is a gem. We are finding lots of new people! This week we found a lady contacting and when we were inviting her to be baptized she told us that she was already baptized into this church. She told us the whole story of how she worked for a lady when she was 17 and she was a member. She now is like 60 or something and she never went to church again after she was baptized because she didnt really understand what was going on .  We were a little confused so we had to have the asistents look her up to see if she was baptized but it turns out since she never went back to church she never got the holy ghost so her baptism was never complete. Now she wants to be baptized and wants to do everything in the right way. She is great and we are working hard with her.

We have a couple that we are teaching and they arent married but they also want to be baptized! The girlfriend is from Colombia and the boyfriend is from the Coast. He talks so fast and I can hardly understand him sometimes because the people from the coast dont pronunciate all the letters. Its great haha for this reason we have a little extra help from God. But they are wonderful and I just love them all. They are great and we have lots more work to do!

I love you all tons and hope you are doing great!!!

Love,

Hermana Brimhall

Week 24

Hey Everyone! 

We had cambios today and I got the sweetest little bolivian companion in the whole wide world. Her name is Hermana Sangredi. We just barely got back to our sector because she came from rio bamba so we were in transit place all morning. Im still in Solanda and I only have 3 weeks here so we are going to be learning this sector together! haha its seriously such a maze! Before I came here I was talking about the corn maze and how fun it is and I think this is how Heavenly Father is showing his humor. I get to walk through a maze all day every day! haha

We had such a wonderful experience this week though! We have been working with a lady since I got here and she didnt really have the desires to go to church or anything so we were getting ready to drop her but when we went to visit her this week it was completly different! We started the lesson and she told us that she was going to stay in her house alone this weekend just because she wanted to go to church and her kids were going to Ibarra. She told us that she had recieved her answer that the church is true and she wants to do everything she can to feel it again and get to know more. The spirit was so strong and I just love that woman!! 

All is going really well here! Sad to see Hermana Greer but at least she is still in my zone! She is my hermana leader so I will still get to see her every thursday and when we do divisions. I love you all and hope that you are enjoying hunting season! haha 

PS the pic of the gym is because they know that you (dad) were so buff that they had to name a gym after you..

I LOVE YOU!!

Hermana Brimhall

Week 23

HEY EVERYONE!!:) 

It had to be a good week because Ecuador beat Argentina in soccer haha Everyone here was walking around in their jerseys proud as can be. It was pretty funny because everyone thought they were going to lose but afterwards were all acting like they knew it all along. Oh Ecuador.. haha 

I dont have much news for you this week just that we are doing good and Im still lost in this maze of a sector but Hermana Greer knows where we are so its okay haha. We are finding lots of new people! its great!!

The husband of our pensionista has a birthday this week so today all of us missionaries made them french toast and fruit salad for breakfast. We had a ton of extra fruit salad and they used it all! For once we ate a mountain of fruit instead of a mountain of rice.

I love you all!!! 

Love,

Hermana Brimhall

this note melted my heart haha cutest thing ever. from a cute little girl that we are teaching because her fam are less actives.

Week 22

Dearest fam and friends,

This week was good! Hermana Greer and I are working hard! Our sector is seriously a maze. Im glad she was here for a cambio and a half before me because im so lost all the time hahaha! There are all these secret passages and inside each one is a million houses!But its great!Im starting to fall in love with this sector too. The people here are so sweet. Nobody here can really say Brimhall so one family called me Hermana Brigham Young!haha My momma (Hermana Roach) is in my zone now too!! Shes my hermana leader so Ill get to do divisions with her! Hermana Greer is the greatest in the whole wide world!!! I love her so much and we work great together and have lots of fun along the way! We also have this family of less actives that own a cake shop and its dangerous! Im going to get so chubby here haha I eat cake or cookies or something fromthem like every time we pass by! 

OH AND THE BEST news is that we have a washer!!!!!!! yay!!! The other house we had to hand wash and take some stuff to the laundry mat. Im so grateful for washers.Pretty mush nobody here has dryers though but there is a clothes line on the top of our house whcih works just as good haha

Im doing good and loving the mish!! I love you are all doing good and I love you all tons!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Hermana Brimhall

President Christensen showed up at our zone activity today and he kicked the soccer ball over the fence.as you can tell everyone was a little disappointed including him hahaha

Week 21

Hey fam! We have emergency transfers so I will be getting back on the computer later but this week was good! The doctor wants me in a sector without hills so Im getting transfered to Turubamba. My new companion is Hermana Greer and she is from the good ol St. Johns AZ! We played volleyball against eachother but never met eachother until the mish! haha Im sad to leave Hermana Molina! But All is well!:)
I learned a valuble lesson this week haha! We were contacting and we knocked on the door of this guy and when he opened it I was a little scared to be honest. He has full tatttoos and he has a scar on his hand that is some gang/devil sign that looks like he did it with a knife. Hermana Molina and I just acted like nothing happened and introduced ourselves but the both of us were a little freaked out when we left. Yesterday we had a lesson with him and got to know him better but we found out he is only 16 years old and his mom died of cancer when he was little. He doesnt really understand who God is or know his purpose in this life. By the end of the lesson I seriously just wanted to hug him and cry cuz his life is so rough but he wants to learn more about the gospel. He is one of those people that need the gospel the most!! Everyone (no matter how scary they look) need the opportunity to feel the love of the savior in their life. 

Today my sweet convert Jennifer made me shrimp and all sorts of yummy stuff for lunch before I leave! I didnt know it was going to be so tough to leave my peeps of Conocoto! I think a little piece of my heart will be here forever!

I love you all tons! Im doing good and loving the work! Im excited to learn a new sector and meet more amazing people!! Have a great week!!!!

Love,

Hermana Brimhall

Week 20

Oh boy do I have a story for you all!!!...Once upon a time there was an Hermana in a far away land called Ecuador. Her foot was swollen for 4 weeks straight so she finally went to the doctor and he didnt know what to do. So he sent her to get an MRI. When they got the results the doctor was amazed! To his astonishment she had an extra bone! He called her case "special" and sent her home laughing with all of his extraterestial jokes..... Long story short we were in doctors offices most of this week and I now have to get cortazone shots in my foot and do physical therapy haha! Only in the mission....

We had a zone activity today and played survivor of the fittest. Our zone leaders are so fun! I was laughing through the whole thing. 

I have a bunch of pictures this week because we were stuck in the house alot.... its was kind of torture but Hermana Molina and I survived..

I love you all and hope you are doing great!!! XOXOX from me!

Love,

Hermana Brimhall

Week 19

WHAT? what? Peanut Blart and Jelly.

haha thats been stuck in my head all week and my companion doesnt understand why I say that hahahaha... but anyways. This week was great! Hermana Molina and I have been working so hard. We had like a bajillion contacts and we found some new investigators! We are working with a family and they are the greatest! I love them so much! They cant get baptized yet though because they arent married. They want to get married and be baptized but they dont have the money to do it. We are praying like crazy for them! They have 4 kids and the littlest one is like 1 year old and hes my best friend ever. We also found a lady thats a single mom with 2 daughters and they are great as well. The daughter has 13 years and wants to be baptized. She is such a mature and faithful young girl! She amazes me with her questions and how much she understands! We also have another family we are working with and the dad is super prepared but we are waiting for his wife so we can baptize the whole family together. That was the wish of the father was to bautizarse con su familia.So we are waiting and praying patiently.

But Hermana Molina is great. She is such a little jokester haha I never know what she is plotting on me. We get along great becasue we are constantly teasing eachother. After a lesson with a menos active they gave us some soup and Hermana Molina couldnt get the salt to come out and I got the giggles so bad. i had just taking a big bite and I was choking so bad I had tears running down my face and Hermana Molina wouldnt even help me she was just laughing even harder than me. The poor family was just staring at us like were were fools or something haha it was great. 

Not much more happened this week. Just WORK WORK WORK! Its so great! I love it here in Ecuador and I feel like I learn so much every day. I love you and hope you are all doing great!! Take care.

I dont have my camera with me but I will send some pics next week!

Love,

Hermana Brimhall

Week 18

Today we had our cambios! Hermana Terranova finished her mission so we had to say our sweet goodbyes last night. Elder Gallup (the old zone leader) finished his mission too so we ate about 500 times yesterday!! Im okay with that haha. All of the members wanted to feed us. I guess thats the good thing about missionaries finishing but its a little bit sad because we dont get to see them again. I know that I will have friends from the mission forever. I love my little missionaries and Ecuadorians.

Anyways, my new companion is Hermana Molina. I already LOVE her. She is from Argentina and loves to work but shes hilarious haha. We are going to get a long great. A bunch of misisonaries left and not as many are coming so we are getting the whole sector of the Elders and they are going to a different sector. They also combines our zone with a different one so now we have the biggest zone in the mission with 28 missionaries! 

We are preparing a little 8 year old to be baptized and her dads not a memeber but her mom/grandma has been a memeber forever. We had never met the dad and when we finally did this week we were all just talking and getting to know him and everything and the Hermana had to go get something in the kitchen so it was just us and him for like 2 seconds and we asked him if he was a member. He told us that he was a Jehovs witness. It got real awkward for a second and then he just started busting up laughing and goes no no no im not a memeber in any church. Its only funny because there are SO many Jehova witnesses here and they are really extreme. I have repect for them because they actually live what they teach but its just funny because its so hard to talk with them because they are all like missionaries too so they just try to talk over us and change everything haha but its whatever. They are all children of God too so we just gotta love them!

I dont have much from this week though just a lot of pictures!

I love you all tons!!!!

Love,

Hermana Brimhall

Week 17

Happy Pday :)

This week we had a special conference with part of the Quito North Mission. Elder Soares from the quorum of the 70 came to speak to us and it was so powerful. I love when there are a ton of missionaries together because the spirit is alwasy so strong! When we sing it feels like we are the next motab because we all sing so loud. I can never hear myself and I feel like Im screaming haha its great! Part of his talk was on how we are called as missionaries and how we are called to our missions by revelation. It was a really good talk! Its so fun to meet so many leaders of the church. I will probably never have as many opportunities as I do in the mission to listen to all of these great leaders in person. We are pretty spoiled as missionaries.

I got to see some of my little friends that I was in the CCM with! There are a bunch of them in the Quito North Mission so it was fun seeing them. We sat by a girl from that mission and she asked me where I was from and everything and when I said Snowflake, AZ she got really excited! She is from Argentina and I forgot her name but she told me that she used to be really inactive and that Dallin Merrell reactivated her and its because of his that she is serving a mission right now. Its so amazing how small our world is. Its so fun to meet so many people. There is also and Hermana Willson in my mission from Argentina and she knows Caden Larson. Its so fun to have little connections! haha 

Im doing great here in Ecuador though! Its great to be a missionary. Its so sad! I only have 1 more week with Hermana Terranova and then she is finished with her mission. 

I love you all and hope you are doing great!! Take care!

Love,

Hermana Brimhall

Week 16

My dear cute family,

This week was a little rough investigator wise because well we dont have any that are progressing but we were contacting SO MUCH. We literally have 100 contacts this last week, but hopefully we will get some of them progressing this week! I have faith in them:) I learned not to judge people by their appearance. One of our contacts was the man that looked kinda Asian because he was completely bald with only a beard thing around his mouth and their was three long braids in the part under his chin. My companion and I were both kind of avoiding him partly because his shirt was half way unbottoned and he had some knarly chest hair. He just started talking to us though and he turned out to be a really sweet guy! We got to talk to him and meet his mom and we are going back this next week to meet his brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews. The houses are a lot different here because a family (like grandparents, parents, children, and grandchildren) will all live in the same house just different floors or rooms by individual families. Its great though! We met a lot of new people.

At a baptism of the Elders the guy that got baptized was VERY happy and excited after so he came up and hugged me and Hermana Terranova. We all know thats against the rules as missionaries and the bishop was standing right by us so I just looked at him all guilty and he was laughing so hard! I told the bishop we are sinners and he just thought it was the funniest thing because of my face. He taught me how to shake peoples hads and push this pressure point thing so they cant lean in and it actually works! haha 

We had a noche de hogar with the family of our pensionista last night and they are just so much fun! Im learning all sorts of new games in the mission haha we will have to do a game night in like a year and a half so I can teach you all how to play them!

But all is well here! Im doing great. I have a few pics of my sector and house for you this week!

I love you all!!!

Week 15

Holla at my peeps,

This week Elder Waddell from the quorum of the 70 came to visit us. He is so  great! and EXTREMELY TALL! The spirit was so strong. He shared some stories about Eternal Families and sealings and it was so powerful! One of them was about this family that was being sealed and the sealer stopped 3 different times to ask if all of the children were there. The last time he asked a different question. He asked if any of their children had past away. The mom explained that she had a baby thathad died two days after it was born and the sealer told her that he kept hearing the voice of a child saying "mom dont forget about me." Its incredible how thin the veil is when we are doing the work of God and helping people in the earth amd also in the spirit world to have the blessing of the gospel. I wish you all could have heard him speak because it was great!!

Also in church yesterday I think I heard the best talk of my life from a young boy. He was talking about modesty and how the things we wear can give off a good impression or a bad impression. He was talking about how if you see a big black guy running down the  street every one thinks hes a robber but maybe he just wanted to exercise. And how if you see a woman in clothes that show a little too much we think that she is in a type of bad work but maybe she just likes those clothes. hahaha the whole ward was just about falling off our chairs including the bishop hahaha it was the funniest/greatest talk ever.

I am doing good here though! We are still in the process of finding new people which can be a little frustrating but its just part of the work. My companion is great. My district is great. My zone is great. We are like a happy little family. I love the people here! I hope you are all doing good! I love you all!!

Love,

Hermana Brimhall

PS The pics are of my zone (but we are mission one set of Elders). and the other one is the tan line on my neck for the people that keep asking me about my tanlines haha

Week 14

Hello my little sugar muffins,

This week went by really fast and to be honestly I dont really remeber what happened before thursday haha soooo we will just start there. There was a young guy in our ward who had 23 years and got in a really bad car wreck. He was a faithful young returned missionary and was the secretary of our stake. He past away thursday night and all of the missionaries in our ward went to his viewing friday. A lot of his family is catholic but his mom and little brother are members. It was really sad to see how much hard it was for the people that arent memebers to cope with everything. This gospel really is such a blessing and a comfort in all types of situations. PLEASE pray for his sweet family and especially his cute little mom.

We also had divisions this week and I had the cuttest little Hermana Líder as my companion for a day. Her name is Hermana Coronado and shes from Colombia. We had tons of fun haha but she doent know any English so she was whipping me into shape with my language. She really is great and so fun! The pic is awful of us but thats the only one I have haha Mission selfies are becoming a thing because thats the only way we can ever get clear pictures haha

I love you all bunches my sweet ooey gooey little gumdrops!

Love,

Hermana Brimhall