Sister Hull in Ecuador: The New Year....2016...Can you believe it!?!?!?!

Mama

Sounds like you had such a wonderful, wonderful Christmas time and New Years Eve. Sounds like you had lots of people over and tons of fun and I love the pictures. They make me happy. Not going to lie when I first started the mission, pictures made me the most homesick because you know how much I love pictures and picture taking. But now it is just good to see you guys and how you are doing not only through words but through you smiles on your faces!!!!

I know that the whole thing about getting assigned your mission call is partly based on the mission president that you will be able to grow the most under and it is so true. President Richardson is amazing. I mean for the first little while it was hard to get use to the strictness of the mission because really our mission isn't like bad, so we aren't strict we just follow the missionary handbook. There are other missions that can listen to different music and such and just more chill but, really I would not want it any other way. President just expect obedience and when we are obedient I don't know how many times he has promised different blessings that are there waiting. I love President. He has helped me become so much more than I ever could have been.

I think that is super legit that Kaitlin is putting her papers in!! I mean the mission is the best thing ever!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tell her that it is the best and I call Ecuador Quito North as my guess.....the best mission in the world but wherever she gets called with be the perfect mission for her!!!!

Christmas was great!! We got to talk to you guys and had a couple lessons with members. We didn't have a big dinner with a member because the have their Christmas meal that is with like turkey and stuff at 12 am Christmas morning and so yeah, we were in bed and in the house a long time before that. I loved my gifts. We had a little tree and hung the stockings up. It was good. Didn't really feel like Christmas without snow but it was fun. We had to be in at 6 pm and just hung out open gifts, I cleaned the kitchen really well, and wrote in my journal about what happens here for Christmas. It is mostly just a family holiday and they eat a lot. They don't do anything on the 25th and lots of drinking and dancing.

For New Years we had to be in at 5 pm and we were glad for that one. They have what they call "Viudas" which are men dressed up as women and the go and dance in front of cars for money and it is quite disturbing because it is in the day. And then at night they shoot off fireworks which we heard and burn what they call the "ano viejo"(old year). They take some pants and shirts and stuff them with paper and other things to burn the old year and to get rid of all the bad that happened this year to prepare for the next year. That is cool but i didn't get to see it because we had to be inside and there is tons of music and dancing and of course drinking. We saw all the cops in the street the next day. And then at first no one is out and no one does anything because the party until like 4 in the morning.
What we did was our planemiento semenal and then talked and we bought Chinese to eat too!! Then because rootbeer doesn't exist here we got strawberry ice cream and Sprite and had those kinds of floats then just hung out and talked and were in bed by 10:30. But I woke up right at 11:59 and laid in bed for the New Year to come watched some fireworks out the window and then fell back asleep. Probably the most chill New Years I will ever have in my life!!!

Hermana Ukle is doing well. We have a person with fecha(baptism date). Her name is Jenifer. Please keep her in your prayers and especially pray for her to receive and answer about the Book of Mormon. She is great and we just found her and she really could be very strong, just lots of prayers would be super helpful. We are also finding new people everyday which are the miracles after the trial of my faith, that is for sure. With the last change and almost half of this change we haven't seen any progress and I got to be really stressed and doubting, wondering what I was doing wrong. But then we had a capacitacion(training) about how we look at the situation and our attitude. And I had just started feeling this way so through prayer and study I was able to really look at how much I have grown and now the blessing are flowing and we are just going to keep going to really help our sector progress.

I love putting goals now and have 10 for this year and would like to share them.
1 Find the family that is waiting for me
2 Really work on my personal conversion even more
3 Understand more fully the power of the Atonement
4 Speak the best Spanish possible
5 Truly become the consecrated missionary
6 Love until it hurts....even more....every thing
7 Focus on the now more....especially God´s hand in my daily life
8 Be a bit smarter about food choices
9 Return home with honor and truly changed
10 Find a job and get working hard to meet my goal to come back to Ecuador in 2017 and for school

I know the last 2 I am not going to really think about but I felt I needed to put them. I just love the fact that I can look and how much I progressed up until now in my mission and just want to keep going.

I love the mission so much and am so grateful for the blessings I receive everyday.

Funny story really quick.
So I was walking and saw some people throwing a football. Well in my brain i was like "what kind of ball is that?" "It looks kind of fun.....wait.....I think I know that......hmmmm. wait I do. That is a football." I said the last part out loud. I couldn't even recognize a football. #mylifeinecuador

I love you all a ton and am so thankful for your support!!
Have a wonderful week a good time doing whatever you do
LoVe
Hermana Hull

PS I told my comp about our goats.....like everything about them......she laughed
PPS I don't need anything but I always like twixes ;)
PPPS I had a question about our ward and stake. So since there is a Logan, Utah mission are there more missionaries working in our stake or is there no difference that you know??