My White Clothes Are Now Blue

Hello all, and a very Merry Christmas,

Yesterday I had a dilemma. My towel was smelling funny and I needed to wash it. The problem is that I was washing my whites. Rather than waiting for a load of colors, I threw my towel in and figured it probably wouldn't affect anything. I was wrong. I pulled out my whites and they were all a nice light shade of blue. Oops... Hopefully another load and a bit of bleach will solve the problem.

Yesterday we had an incredible Christmas multi-zone conference (hence the Tuesday p-day) that went great. We read the Christmas story and each zone had a musical number. Our zone sang La Primera Navidad (The First Noel) and we killed it. We also had an awesome lunch, and President Escobar gave each companionship a package filled with snacks, Santa hats, and decorations for the house. It was really great.

In terms of the work, things are going really well here in the mission. This last Friday we went with Lorena and her 8 year old daughter to the temple to do a tour and despite a tedious 4 hours of combined travel time, the experience was super great and spiritual for them. Yonatan (Pronounced Jonathan) came to church on Sunday early which was super cool because in the past we've walked with him but this week he came on his own. He also went to this concert that the stake did for Christmas with a bomb choir.

I'm loving the mission, and this Christmas season is super great. Thanks for all the support, I love you all and I hope you can spend this year focused on what really matters.

-Elder Watts

Our Christmas Tree that we bought

Tacos I made

President and Sister Escobar, Elder Musick, and I

Mission Nurse

Lorena and her daughter

Elder Musick and an elf at the stake Christmas concert

Another Week in the Service of the Lord

Hey everyone,

December has started and it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, that is if you're used to a super hot super humid Christmas season :) The work has been going super great this week and we've had a ton of super awesome charlas. The heat is an awesome blessing because everyone comes out of their houses and people are a lot more willing to talk and listen for a little while.

This week we were blessed to find this super awesome person named Lorena. She is really prepared and we are super excited to work with her. We found her looking for a less active member and she was super open and willing to talk to us. We taught her the restoration and she shared a ton of spiritual experiences that she has had in the past. We invited her to come to church with us and made plans to walk with her in the morning. She committed to come, and Sunday morning we found her leaving her house completely ready to go. She said she had prayed at night that she would be able to come to church with us and in the morning she felt like God was waking her up and telling her she has to go to church. She came and loved it.

I don't have a whole lot of time to write, but I love you guys lots. I know that this church is true and that Jesus is our Savior. This Christmas season I invite you all to follow the Savior and turn to others, serving them as the Savior did. I know that in doing so you will find joy and peace during these holidays.

Hope you have a great week!

Elder Watts

Service project removing a tree in the rain

 Me cooking soup for Thanksgiving

Still cooking

Zone picture (We were doing paperwork and didn't make the picture, though thanks to the wonders of technology we managed to be there in spirit)

Thanksgiving dinner

Multizone Conference with President de Hoyos

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Hey everyone!

Happy thanksgiving to everyone! I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend celebrating being grateful and family.

This week was super awesome. For lunch on Saturday we visited the despida de soltero (bachelor's party) for a recent convert in our ward. He's super awesome and was recently called as 2nd counselor in the elders quorum presidency. One of the people that the other elders are teaching came and performed magic for us, which was an awesome way for him to get to know the ward outside of church. We also had some chorizo and it was awesome.

We also got to see some awesome miracles this last week. For one, we made plans to visit an antiguo contacto. We looked where his house should have been, but didn't find his house. A little bit further down the street we were surprised to find little alley way with the number of the house we were looking for. We went down the alley and found a completely different person who we weren't even looking for staying at the house of a friend. We were able to talk to him and it was really cool. Another miracle was with a Cuban lady who we've been teaching. She's been looking for work, and we promised her work if she would put God first in her life. We've never promised that before, but in that moment the spirit was there and it felt right. Three days later we passed by and found out that she wasn't there because she was working. Yay! Another miracle happened in a lesson we taught to a woman we've been teaching. She loves listening to us but has had struggles accepting the law of tithing. We brought with us a member from the Dominican Republic and her testimony was perfect. She shared her personal experiences with tithing and at the end of the lesson the person we're teaching was much more open to the idea.

That's about all. I love you all! I hope you have a great week!!!

Elder Joseph Watts

Pictures from a bachelor party for a member of our ward and a picture from the mission call opening for one of our ward missionaries (Guayaquil Oeste):