Off to New Year!!!

You'd think he wasn't writing a letter home!!! If I am not home to get the letter personally I guess he just makes it general!!!  Too funny!!!  It was a blast to talk to his cute face on Christmas Day! He's doing fantastic, he is happy and he is working hard.  What more can a mom ask for right?!?!

 

This week was pretty cool i got to talk to my parents on Christmas and more than that we got shut up in the house on Tuesday and on Wednesday. i guess that was our present from president to us, but we did not get much work done. we did not have our baptism this Saturday  because our investigator needed a little bit more time to prepare himself. but we should have a baptism this Saturday. Hermana Martha Alvarado got married on Friday and will finally have the chance to get baptized on Saturday. So that will be great.

This week i finally finished off alma and all of the war chapters. in reading that i love seeing the faith of the armies of the nefites. they are having a lot of trials and problems but the press on even when the odds look against them and i thought that was pretty great being able to see that.

but that is my week i love everyone and their support.

Elder McCammon

 My Zone

and a pic of me and elder riffel at the temple

Not exactly sure who Elder Riffel is (did he get another new companion?), but it doesn't seem like he's getting any taller does it!!!  Standing next to Ecuadorians he seems to be tall not so much next to Elder Riffel!!!  Its cool if he got to go to the temple again, not sure about that either!!  Guess it'll have to wait a week to clarify these things!!!

Mid Month Transfer and a New Companion

So this week has been pretty hecktic. on Wednesday in the morning the missionaries in the house had changes, we had four now i am the only one left and i got a new comp, Elder Gomez he's from Nicaragua he's pretty legit and has four months in the mish and he loves working hard and its pretty great. They closed the other sector in my ward. cool. What sucked was that the area book from the last missionaries was not well used and we had no clue where all the people that they were teaching lived so this week we had been running from house to house with a member that accompanied the other missionaries to the houses of all the other investigators that they were teaching. so that was fun being really. busy. But i am pretty exited for this Saturday because we are preparing Ricardo Mata to be baptized. he has gone to church this past few week and his wife is a member. Kayla and Nuirka who were also preparing to be baptized did not come to church this week because the dad of Kayla who drives truck and is almost never in the house was there and wanted to take his daughters to the mall and because Kayla's family did not go the family of Nuirka did not go either. so we moved their baptismal dates back a few weeks to make sure they can come to church. so this week we had 8 people in the church but some of them are almost ready for marriage and once they are married they will be good for baptism.

this week in my studies i was reading the words of Alma to his sons and one phrase that he uses a lot is to the degree that you keep the commandments you will prosper in the land. i loved that a lot because he says that a lot and we know that when they say something more than three times in the scriptures it is very important. so we all need to better ourselves in obedience.

Love you all, Merry Christmas

Elder McCammon

two of me in a usu shirt (his birthday present)

 The birthday party in the house of Kayla. It was her grandmas birthday. Happy Birthday Mama Lola.

Guayaquil Mission Christmas Card

Sister Carmona (The mom of one of the Elders in Jesse's apartment) posted this on her sons Facebook page and I asked her if I could share it here.  She said she received it in a pdf file through the email yesterday. Not sure from who though.  Jesse was in it so I asked if I could share it on his blog too!!!
Here you go!!!
(UPDATE: Jesse told me it came from the Mission home and I should have gotten one, thank goodness I know someone who did so I could see it!!!  Thanks again Sister Carmona!!)

Almost Hump Day!!!

On December 19 it will officially be Jesse's 1 year mark in the mission. Most people count that as hump day.  Thursday will be that day. Its crazy that it will be a year. As I look back it seems like the year has gone fast, but in the moment of every day we definitely feel his absence. Our lives go on and so does his! What a blessing it is to have him be a missionary. The next year will whiz by I am sure!!!

This week has been a great week of work. In church this week we only had three people that came but two of the people are preparing to be baptized on the 28th of december and the other has come to church a few times and we are going to visit him today and see if we can have him start preparing for baptizm as well. the two people that were in church that are preparing for baptism are kayla muñoz and nuirka reyes. they are neighbors who their parents and some siblings are members of the church that are less active so they have yet to be baptized. the other that was in church his name is eduardo. his wife is a member of the church that is less active as well. they are not living together for right now, because they are going to get married in one or two months, so we are going to talk to him today about how he has liked the church and if he would like to be baptized. felix did not have the ability to come to church this week becuase he wend out of town and should be back today so he is still good for his baptism date of the 28th and he is very excited. we are also teaching mauricio who is the boyfriend of a less active member of the church. he has not  yet come to church but we are hoping that he comes this next week. but we are finding a lot of new people and we are teaching a lot of lessons, but we would still like to strart teaching more.

this week i have been studying in alma and reading about the zoramite and reading about how faith is like a little seed i invite everyone to work on the faith and keep growing it have a good week everyone.

love elder mccammon

Thanks to sister Balseca and Sister Carmona for these pictures!

Jesse and Elder Carmona (he's from SLC) he's an elder from the other Companion set that lives in his apartment. That are becoming fast friends!

The zone La Pradera

The Wonderful Week of the Epic Elder McCammon

Seriously that's the title of his email!  He must be in a good place right now!!! Its the Holidays and I miss him like crazy and he seems to be okay...which I am so glad about its hard to imagine them homesick and hurting and well...he's just not!!!!

This week has been fun we have been busy teaching a lot of people. some are progressing better than others are but we are teaching a lot which is good. we did have four people in church this week and we are hoping to keep having more and more. i do not know if i told you about Felix last week, but we found him Sunday night and we have been teaching him all week. he came to the mission devocional that we had on Friday and to church on Sunday. he used to be evangelical but he ended up losing his leg a few years back and he said when he was not able to make it to church anymore the church forgot about him, but he is very friendly and talking to him always brightens up our day. we have found a few other people during the week. two of the other people we had in the church are close to marriage but marriage here is not something you encounter too often. we are teaching a lot day to day, but we need to work a bit more on finding more people that is one of the things i feel we should do better, because it is always nice once in a while to get a little more exercise and run back and forth to visits.

this week i have been reading about the sons of mosiah and the faith that they had to serve the lord. they were willing to leave there family for the space of fourteen years to go out and teach the people of a group of people who were there enemies. that is the love they had for there brothers. i hope everyone out there is working in sharing the gospel of christ that way all can know the truth and can feel the comfort of the gospel in their lifes.

I wish a good week to you all 

Elder McCammon

No pictures this week :(

Where do we stand? Going through the motions or understanding the Gospel?

This week was pretty good. we were working hard all week and we kept finding new people. But the biggest problem i have here with Ecuador is that it seams like you can constantly find new people who want the gospel in there lives but are too darned lazy to go to church. The two people that we had in church this week is the boyfriend of a less active member who liked the church a lot and accepted a day to prepare for baptism. His name Is Byron. he is 16 years old. he likes listening to us and it appears like he really wants to get baptized. The other is Miguel who i believe is like 28 who has had a lot of problems in the past but is looking to change and put God as a priority to do that. We are also preparing a different Miguel to be baptized this Saturday, but i feel like it will be difficult, it does not appear if has gained his testimony yet. so we are going to really try and help with that this week. Then we have a few other people who can get baptized whenever they just need to get married but other than the actual title of member they are fairly active. We are hoping that this week we can find more people willing to go to church.

In my studies this week i loved in Alma 12:10-11 when it is talking about listening to the gospel and how if we are actually willing to hear and listen and apply we will gain the knowledge but if not we won't. Many times we think that we are listening and willing to apply the teachings to our lives but many times we don't. We read are scriptures to read, conference is on because its suppose to be or we go to church because we have the class. We think to ourselves that we are following through with the commandments but we are not allowing ourselves to understand the gospel we just listen to what we know and don't understand more. I hope it made sense where i went with that. i just want that people know that we need to actually apply the word into our lives and work to be better members it does not just come by following part way.

Letter and a transfer = no more anxiety!!!

Seriously he missed a week of letter writing and I still get barely two paragraphs!!!  I've also decided that I'm not going to fix typo's anymore.  Its hard to type on spanish keyboards in english I get that, but now I think his spanish is taking over and the typo's aren't just from a bad keyboard!!  I think they are kinda cute!!! The spelling of Prophet to profet makes me smile!!!

These past two weeks have not been too bad. the last week tony and milka got baptized, so that was pretty fun. it was great to see the excitement that they had for their baptism. but i did have changes and i am in Guayaquil now. and it is still as hot as ever. you would wish that it was a little bit more chilly here on the equator. the good news is i do have great tan lines coming in. In my new sector i am a little bit more south of the area i was in the first time i was in Guayaquil. the name of this area is the floresta. it is supposed to be a little bit tangerous (I am assuming dangerous, but Abbie told me that infested with tangerines is less worrysome so we'll go with that!), but i have not seen it yet, nor heard of recent problems, so that is good. we are preparing some people for baptism which is nice. Their names are Miguel and Jose. Miguel has 23 years of age and he faults a little bit of testimony for baptism still, but that is why he is working toward the 7th of December as well as Jose who we recently found this week. He is 13 and he brought up baptism before we did and he loves church so that is good. the other people we have i do not know to well because i do still only have one week here but i believe i will have more information on them the next week. 

My scripture study this week has been a lot on profets and the importance they have in the church. and the two scriptures that are really helpful with them is amos 3:7 and Ephesians 2:20. In Amos it talks about how the lord will not do anything with out going through profets. so profets are the mouthpiece of god to us and in Ephesians it says that they along with apostles are the basis of the church of Christ. i love these scriptures because we are the only church with this foundation. i know that this is the true church and that it is lead by Jesus Christ and people the are called by him.

Enjoy you weeks and i hope you enjoy reading.

Elder Jess

Some other information I have gleaned from him through a couple minutes of writing back and forth...His companions name is Elder Maravilla, he's from El Salvador and has 8 months in the mission. And he still doesn't have his birthday package!   If you've seen his pictures you've noticed he's changed size a bit, we told him to look for a new suit...he says he doesn't want to cuz he's still changing sizes, I say do it anyway you look like a homeless man who found a suit in the garbage!!!  Did you see the picture of him in front of the Ecuador temple...get a new suit!!! LOL!!!! Here's a few pictures!!!

 Tony and Milka's baptism

New Companion!

Anxiety attack!!

There is a certain amount of anxiety that occurs when it's Wednesday, your son usually writes on Monday and you haven't heard from him yet!!!! Just wanted to explain why there is no post this week...hopefully nothing is wrong! No news is good news I suppose! Keep him in your prayers!!!

Birthday was just a normal day.

My week went very well this week.

We have been spending a lot of time teaching two great families. One of them, the father was baptized about 35 years ago and his children are not baptized, so we have been going to their house and teaching them. Tony is 13 years old and his little sister, Milka, is 8 years old they are really great and they love the lessons and going to church. They are both preparing for a baptism this saturday. So that should keep us busy. We have also been talking to a kid of 15 years, Bryan, and his family when they are there and he as well loves listening to us and is excited for a baptism. he has problems with attending church and we have not quite figured out why. this week when we passed by his house at 12 he was very excited for church, but when we went by to pick him up at 2:45 he was not there. So we are planing on passing by his house tonight to find out what happens and see if he really does have desires to be baptized. but we have been teaching them and helping them progress, but more than that we are having difficulties finding other people, but i feel that this next week should be better. It is always fun teaching these families. Tony and Milka are always very excited and teaching them is also helping the father come back to church because he has had a lot of trials in his life. And Bryan is pretty cool as well, he is always waiting we we come by in the week and he has desires to keep learning. I hope he will start coming to church, i would love to see him be baptized.

But this week in my studies i have almost finished the book of Mosiah. and there was a scripture that i loved a lot in Mosiah 27:35 and 28:3 the first is talking about alma and the sons of mosiah that after they had seen the angel and repented they showed the lord how much they had repented and went around doing the best they could to repare the damages they did to the church. the second talks about the sons of mosiah and the desires they had to help there bretheren, the lamanites, know the gospel as well and just the thought of a soul not being saved made them sad. These five people had a testimony so strong that they were willing to do whatever it took to edify the church of god and i would love to be there with them and i am doing the best i can to strengthen the testimony of the church as well as i hope those of you reading are. This is the true church and we all need to do our part for the church becuase we are a part of the church.

Yo espero Que todos van a disfrutar esta semana

i got to go love you chao beso y abrazo (bye, kiss and hug)

Elder McCammon

PS no birthday package yet, but birthday was a normal day here nothing too extravagant.  ( I feel sad no one made him a cake! Even worse that I got my package off late...I need to get moving on his Christmas package!!!)

Happy Halloween!! And Happy Birthday Jesse!!!

Jesse will turn 20 this Sunday...its so hard to believe he's that old.  I also have to say I am not so good with the missionary packages...so all you mothers out there who do them and they are on time...basically you make the rest of us look bad!!!  I didn't get Jesse's birthday package sent until last Tuesday it needs at least 3 weeks...it will be late...Story of my life!!!  I should get his Christmas package sent this week!!!  I haven't even thought about Christmas!!! OH BOY!!!

Here's his letter for this week!


First I will say that I hate Halloween here it is crap. The actual day of Halloween nobody does anything, but on Sunday everybody goes to visit the graves of their family members, which means that we did not end up having very many people in the church this week because everybody left. We have been finding new people this week though which was really nice and finally we have somebody who I am almost 100 percent sure will be baptized. His father is a member of the church for a long time but he has not been around for a while and now he is back he would like both of his children to be baptized, one age 8 and the other 13. So I am pretty sure they will get baptized. but this week has been pretty well my companion and I have been getting a long a little bit better especially because we are starting to find more people so that is good. but this week was an ordinary week.

In my studies I have been reading in Mosiah about Abinadi and him talking to King Noah and his priests. I love that we can see that the spirit touches the hearts of everyone, but sometimes we give in to the world and peer pressure and do not listen to the spirit. After Abinadi was talking to King Noah it talks about Noah having fear of the truthfulness of his words and he does not end up listening because his priests are telling him not to listen to Abinadi. We all need to do better at listening to the spirit, because he can help us in the times that we need it the most.

I have to go love you lots mom

love your boy Jess

He didn't send any explanations for these pictures???
[Diego is leaving for his mission and got everyone ward mission shirts]

Goal setting...no pictures :(

This week has been an okay week, all of the progress that we have worked at this week has not been that good. The people that we have been teaching did not end up going to church, we did have some people that ended up going and we will start up work with them, but i am hoping that we can find someone who will actually progress. I am just hoping we will find them soon. The work is pretty irritating when you think that you have found someone who will progress, but they do not show up on Sunday. I have found that as Ecuador that is one of the biggest problems, that people have a hard time committing to going to church, so i hope that we can start finding people that have Sundays free. More than that, there has not been that much to the people that we are teaching, and they are ever changing and we are hoping that we will be able to find people who will actually progress ya mismo.

But in my studies this week I have been working a lot more on studying how to set goals. Through goals is how we have success. if we set our goals so high they are unrealistic, we will never be focusing on them and never make it, but if we set our goals too low they serve no purpose because we will hit them every time. we need to set goals that are challenging, Where we have to be diligent and work hard in order to reach them. but that was my week. i hope that everyone else had a great week and will enjoy the next even more.

Cuídese 

Elder McCammon

We've been talking about fasting in our family scripture study and we asked Jesse if there was anyone that he's like us to fast for, I can tell from his letters lately that his frustration level is pretty high, his reply...I would like you to fast for all of Ecuador. Especially Machala in the ward Boyaca, but more specifically for the elders not the sisters. :)  (I think it must be pretty competitive between them!) but I am good of health, I love you whole bunches mom but I have to go, thank you so much for your help and have a great week. love your son.

Faith, don't overthink, trust The Lord

This week was not the best in teaching and finding a whole lot of people, but this week i did have two really cool experiances. on friday we were talking with a member of the church and we were talking about a friend that they had that had listened to the missionaries before but here parents were not too accepting, but me and my companion were saying that it would not hurt to try again and after about five minutes of talking to them, they started giving us the information of their friend and right as we started writing it down the friend came to the house and we were able to talk to her in person and she was really excited to talk to the missionaries again. Then kind of the same thing happened on sunday. we were passing by the house of a less active member to remind them of church and one of his neighbors passed by the house and said that she loved the church and she wanted to come today, but we needed to get permission from her mother and the less active member needed to attend. who would have guessed that the permission was easier to get the the less active member to go to church. he said he would but as we were coming around to pick them up he had left to go play soccer. i was mad. the good news is we had four people at the church today, none of which were people week had invited it was a family that a member brought to chuch and we were lucky enough to talk to them before the sisters. so this week was not bad, but i am hoping this next week will be better.

This week i was studying more about the faith. and the popular scripture that i have come to like more and more is that the faith is not a perfect knowledge in alma 32:21. there are many people who want more time to think things through to asure themselves in decisions and in the process of doingso overthink a little bit. there are times in life when we need to just run with our faith and the lord will help us with the rest, but we have to trust in him that he will help us make  the right choice.

I hope everybody enjoys the week coming.

Elder McCammon

No pictures this week :(

A New Companion

This week was a week that was full of fun. On Tuesday i got to go to Guayaquil to change my companion, that was a fun bus ride there and back. This week was a lot of work to try and rebuild a program, because the people that we have been finding have not been progressing so we have started trying to find a lot more people and we found a lot of great people this week that showed a lot of promise for future progressing investigators, but all of the work went away when none of them ended up coming to church. it is always sad to see a whole good week go to waste with just one Sunday of not coming to church. i guess we just need to go out and work harder the next week. it is also sad to see when the same thing happens to a lot of the other sectors in you zone, but i guess as missionary's there are ups and downs. witness does not come until after a trial of our faith so we will see how far our faith with works takes us this week. wish us luck. (I told him to not get down because of not baptizing...look at how much teaching and contacting and touching lives you do and feel the success in that! He said: Success in the minds of leaders comes in baptisms when your mission is in the top 5 baptizing missions in the world. The name of my new comp is Elder Cabrera we are working hard so I am hoping we can have a lot more success he is from Peru. We are working on our relationship and I believe it will come quickly.   He is our district leader and I am his junior companion to help him be a district leader because he has been struggling with it, it is a change. (We are studying fasting this week as a family so we asked for an experience from him) As for a fasting experience. The biggest result from fasting is the help of feeling the spirit more when testifying. I have fasted for things that did not happen right away, but when fasting you do end up feeling a lot closer to the spirit and it makes it so if you do not have the best day you can still leave with the excitement of the next.

Love you all

Elder McCammon

Jesse, the ward mission leader and Elder Quintero

That's a lot of Banana Stickers!!!

So i am going to start off the week with the bad news and work to the good. The baptism that we had planned for this week did not end up happening. Miguel Angel likes the church, but his wife is not as open to listening and he does not want to end up having a bad relationship with her, so he wants to take a little bit more time so he can talk it over with her and to be sure this is the decision that he wants. The good part is he will keep attending church and follow through with the things that he is supposed to do, he just wants a little bit more time to think and talk it through. We also have been finding more people this week. We ended

up having 3 people in the church on Sunday, so it was not that bad. one of them is preparing for a baptism on the 19th of October, his wife also came to church with him so we will have to find if she comes to accept the same baptismal date that he has. I was also pretty happy this week to find that i got to watch the priesthood session of General Conference. that was pretty nice. I do not remember who gave the talk, it was the first counselor in the presiding bishopric. he was talking about how when we see someone in church that we do not know, get to know them. It does not matter if they are less-active, a new convert, or someone who has recently changed wards, we in the church are one big family, make sure people get that same feeling when entering the church. you will end up making new friends in the church and give people more of a reason to preservere in the church. That is my week I hope others had weeks equally as good or better.

Elder McCammon

Definitely a lot of Banana Stickers!!!

 Jesse's Apartment

 Must be laundry day

 The pink room is Jesse's (I can tell by the suitcase under the bed!)

 Other bedroom

View from their house.

Banana Stickers and an upcoming Baptism

This week sadly we did not have too many people in church, we just had Miguel Angel Gomez, but the good thing is that he is also preparing for a baptism and confirmation for the fourth of October. So we should have a baptism this weekend. we have been working really hard this past week but it is always hard to find people who are willing to progress. I guess that is why President Torres has been focusing on getting referrals from as many houses as possible. Now that we have references we just need to make sure we get times scheduled to contact them with the member who gave us the reference. But we need to start finding a lot of new people so we can keep the baptisms coming. That is probably the biggest problem that we are having finding a large enough quantity of people that we can make sure we have at least some who are going to progress. But other than that this has been a good week, my stomach sickness is gone, my collection of banana stickers is growing, and we will be having a baptism. So that is always something good. (I am going to have to ask why he collects banana stickers!)

What I loved this week in my studies is en my readings of the book of Enos. He talks a lot about faith. When he is in the process of repenting the Lord tells him it was possible because of the amount of faith that he had. Later he is praying to the Lord and the Lord says he will give him his desires for his people because of his faith. At the end of the chapter, as he knows he is about to die, he says he is happy because he knows he will be able to live with the Lord and the Lord has a place ready for him. So I exhort everyone to work on their faith, because we can all work on having more faith, me too, but I want that we can all have enough faith that by the end of our lives that faith can be a knowledge. Good luck to everyone and I hope that you all have a great week.

Elder McCammon

My comp sleeping in a hammock

 My mickey mouse pancake

Half and Half

This week was a half good week half bad week. It was good because we are having success. We are finding lots of people, and we had five people come to church this last Sunday which was not bad. I believe out of these people one or two will progress to baptism. It was a half bad week because on Thursday I got to go on a division, my district leader came to my sector with my comp and I went to his sector with his comp. He went to lunch in my sector and apparently had a pretty good lunch, I went to lunch in his sector and I got food poisoning. So Thursday after lunch I was not feeling so good, but was able to work, Friday could not leave the house for anything. I was having a hard enough time to walk without getting nauseous, Saturday I was doing better so I left the house and did alright.The mission nurses gave me some pills, I am still having stomach cramps, but pepto bismol isn't working. I might call the nurses again, some of the members are telling me I have a stomach infection. Sunday I was grateful that we get to have our day of rest in the church, because you are still accomplishing something and you are out of the house. In church we had a family of 3 adults, husband and wife (not married) and their niece, their daughter stayed in the house. We had the girlfriend of a less active member in the ward (also not married, but together) and then we had a man come who is 72 and he loved it he stayed for the entire time. So hope for the best! 

This week in my studies I was reading in the story about the Talents, and how if we use and utilize our talents the Lord will bless us with more, but when we are not using out talent and we have it just to have it, we will lose it. We need to recognize the blessings of the Lord in our lives and use them to help our lives and the lives of others, if we do that we will receive more blessings. If we do not and we just receive the blessing, do not give thanks, do not utilizes it for good, we just let it go to waste, we never will receive more.

By the way mom, we didn't eat all the banana's...but almost!
 

Use your talents and have a great week

Elder McCammon

no pictures again this week :( 

Keep Calm....

Letter...I need to be better with the questions I ask!!!  My questions are first and his answers follow.

(The pictures you sent last week were pretty cool…where did you find someone carrying all those banana’s that’s too funny!) I bought all those bananas, best 3 dollars i ever spent.  (I also loved the pictures of the Christopher Columbus park…that’s pretty cool.  Is that like a mall or amusement park or something?) no it is just a park... with a really big boat right in the center. (How is training your new mission companion going?)  Training is going well, he is progressing pretty fast, i believe the secret is that he already knows spanish, haha!!! We do get along good, but he is working me pretty hard, he likes to work and not rest, so I think I have been doing a ot more walking and losing a lot more weight. (Isn't it the senior companion who is suppose to work the jr.?) (What can you tell us about Elder Quintero?  Where is he from, I assume he is fresh from the CCM?)  He is this Saturday turning 19 and he is from Cali, Columbia. he is very spiritual and has a big testimony of the church that he says he wants to share with everybody, and like I said before he likes to work.
(you said they put mayo on everything…like what? Don’t you just eat rice, soup and chicken?) i have had rice, chicken, salad, potatoes, corn, carrots, steak, ham, hot dogs, french fries, and beans all with  mayo, some at different times and some at the same time. (By the way don’t electrocute yourself in the shower with all those wires!!) I won't,
(ou said people are being more receptive to the gospel there that’s good news, we’ve been praying for the people you teach to be open to your message and that you can teach with the spirit and the spirit can touch them.  We know it can only be done through the spirit and you are just the mouthpiece!  Use your testimony and testify!!!  On one of the facebook groups I belong to for missionaries it said the proper music can help fill in a message of a testimony…so have you got a favorite hymn?) In the spanish hymbook "placentero nos es trabajar" 88 (can anyone help me out here!?!? LOL!!!)  (What is your favorite scripture?)   1 nephi 1 to moroni 10, but more specifically in Alma 26 when it is talking about the joy of the work in mission. 

This week has been another long week of contacting, we did have people in the church this week so it has been better than the last two. We also did find someone this week who liked listening  to the message that we had to share, especially when Elder Quintero was talking, she was a little ga ga for him. Then we found out on Saturday that she is an old investigator who got dropped because she did not want to commit to anything. She was smart and liked to listen, but not much more. We have been trying to contact more and more and find more and more people that want the gospel. Lets just hope that this week the work pays off.

Love,
Elder McCammon

Cool graffiti that i found here in Machala 

 the cool world cup glasses that we bought with our 60 cents and 4 coca cola lids.

Come Mr Tally Man Tally Me Banana's

I am going to answer your questions first this week.  (Are you sharing an apartment or did you have to find a new one since its a new sector?) We did get set up with missionaries in a different apartment, the apartment is not that big either so it is a little cramped but not bad because we usually do not spend too much time in the apartment. (No hot water, that's just so weird why is that?) They do have hot water, kind of...the shower head is electric and it has two cords sticking out of it so to actually get the hot water you have to buy the cords,but I tried that in Guayaquil earlier missionaries broke the cords to the shower head so I haven't bothered trying it yet here.(Did you go through the temple in Spanish or English?) I did go through in Spanish and I got the gist of the temple session, but only because I have seen it in English. (They have a new temple video here, do they have it there yet?)  Still do not have the new video. (You have bought so much stuff did you have to buy another piece of luggage?) I did not have to buy new luggage, but I did end up using the blue laundry bag for a lot of stuff so I did have enough room. (How does your new area compare to Guayaquil and Cuenca) Machala is pretty much the exact same area as I was in in Guayaquil, just a little bit bigger, but the members are nice and there are more here than in Cuenca and they are very nice. (how's the food?) I am back on the Guayaquil diet though. I do miss the houses where I ate with Americans and I got food that was not covered in mayonnaise  (oh how he HATES mayonnaise poor kid!!!) 

This week I have been studying a lot about how to use time wisely. Now that I have a companion that is new we are going over the basics a lot so that has been where we have been focusing. Before I felt like we were working hard and doing what we could to improve, but the numbers were just not there. This week we have improved greatly on that. We may not have found a lot of people this week, but we have had the number of lessons that does show that we are working and putting in an effort. (that must be the most frustrating thing about missionary work, proving that your working when the numbers don't show it because people don't want to listen.)

This week has still been a lot of contacting. The difference is here people are listening. we have put a few baptismal dates up and been let in the door of a couple of houses in our sector where the sister missionaries here have been shut out. We have not had a great showing to sacrament meeting as of yet, but what I have seen is that the Lord is preparing the hearts of a lot of people here. I may not have seen it in many contacts, but I have seen it in a few and it looks like us as new missionaries that were added to the ward may have been just what the Lord needed here in this ward. 

I love you all out there reading and I hope you stay tuned for next weeks episode of Jesse's mission to Ecuador!

Love

Elder Jesse William McCammon

 He said these two pictures were taken at Christopher Columbus Park

That's a bunch of banana's!!!!

The Temple and a Transfer!!!

Well my favorite part about this past week is I finally got to visit the Ecuador Guayaquil Temple. On Monday night I got a  call along with a lot of other missionaries that was told to pack my bags, bring a study journal PMG and scriptures to the bus station at one o'clock in the morning. President now wants before a missionary starts training a new missionary to start going to the temple. So now every time that someone gets to train they get to go to the temple. Me and my companion, get the opportunity of not living in Cuenca. Me and my new companion, Elder Quintero, get to open a new Sector in Machala. So I am in Machala now. The part that sucks is that two new missionaries get the 2 baptisms I was preparing for on Saturday! The first few days were really fun because we did not know anybody and we did not know our limits so it was contact and hope you do not put baptismal dates in anyone else's sector. That was really fun. we have been contacting like crazy here and i have learned that the biggest difference between here and Cuenca is that when contacting people are a lot more open to listening. so i have appreciated that a little bit, because majority of the time all you need is for people to open there ears. what i do not like about Machala is it is hot, all the time, I no longer have hot water, it is freezing, and my sector is small again, there are not museums or cool stuff in our sector like there was in Cuenca. The funny part is I came to the same zone in Machala that Elder Christensen was in, but I found that once I got here that Elder Christensen went back to Cuenca. So I am also getting to know a lot of new missionaries here, but this week here we have been looking for new investigators, but have not had the best week. hopefully now that we know the ward we will have a better week.

 Looks like a beautiful place! I am so glad this mission president lets them go to the temple. I know they are there to do the work of the living and not the dead, but its still nice to be able to go once in a while.

 This poor kid looks like his suit is on a hangar!!! I think he needs to look into having it tailored!!!

Beautiful!!

Strike a Pose

This week we did not end up having any baptisms. We passed by the farmacy of Juan Medina on Tuesday and talked to him. he loves the church he love learning about the gospel, but there are still some things in life that he does not want to change. So we will keep visiting him just with less frequency, until/unless he is willing to change some habits in his life. Then with Maira Quesada she feels like a baptism is what she needs to do but she just felt like she was pressured into wanting to be baptized on the 24th of august, but she is still looking forward to her original date for the 31st of the month of august. Evelyn Llanos also attended church this Sunday, so she will be able to get baptized this Saturday, she just needs to pass the interview. As for me and Elder Vargas as a companionship we are all good. my language is starting to progress a lot more and i am a lot more fluent that i was about a month ago so that is pretty cool. i find that i am actually starting to think in Spanish and there are some things that i have to translate into English.

This week in my studies we received a letter from president talking about how we all need to have more charity in our work and how we need to have more confidence with everyone. It is not our place to judge and when we do criticize it needs to be constructive criticism. he had us read the scriptures Matthew 8:13 and Luke 6:36-38.

i have finished the Book of Mormon. not in Spanish yet but i am working, it takes longer in Spanish, but i love you mom i got to go i look forward to writing you next week. mmmmmmmmmmmmmuuuuuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh (its my big kiss!!!)

Elder Jesse

 elder mccammon working with a new weight that just happens to match his tie.(i have been taking my measurments frequently i have not grown any taller, but i do lift weights)

 Elder mccammon in his barney stinson pose

elder mccammon being a normal missionary and eating top ramen

What a difference a week can make!

This week was a pretty productive week. We have started finding more people to talk to and we have been a lot busier than usual. We Have been teaching Maira Kasada, most of her family is members except for her so we have started teaching her and she has a very strong testimony of the gospel. She has attended church a few times and we are going to see if she can get baptized this week. We have also been teaching Juan Medina who seems a little bit too smart about the gospel for his own good. He loves the Book of Mormon and other books of the church. He read Gospel Principles in three days and was interested to learn more about the contents. He does have a little problem with the WOW, though but he seems to be progressing really well. 

Also I had a recent change of companions this past Thursday. My new companion, Elder Vargas, is fairly new in the mission His mission was actually in Brasil, he had only been there two months and he got bronchitis and had to come back to his home country of Ecuador for a little bit of time, they sent him to Cuenca to acclimate to the colder weather and then he will be able to go back and finish his mission in Brasil. 

This week in my studies i was reading in the end of 2 Nephi where the Lord is talking about how in the last days His word, His gospel, and He Himself will be rejected by the people of the world, but how when they decide to follow him, change there ways, obey his commandments, his hand will still be stretched out waiting to help them along. It does not matter what we say, what we think, or what we do. We will always have the opportunity in our lives to turn our hearts to the Lord and he will still be there waiting. I really liked comparing this to the story of the Prodigal Son. The son leaves and goes out and does dumb things, but when he comes back his father welcomes him with open arms. The Lord is our father who always is there for us and always wants to help us....we just need to let him in.

Love always, Elder Jesse

So sad no pictures, but he did tell me that his convert Marina, tailored 4 pairs of his pants, he said he wanted to send a picture of him in pants that fit, but it took her longer than he thought and he didn't have time.  He also told me he is getting more comfortable with the language it was quite a change going from an English speaking companion to a native that speaks no English, and his attitude didn't seem so good so I was worried. His new companion is saying that he has really good Spanish for someone who only has 8 months in the mission. That's good news considering two months ago his mission president didn't want to hear him speak Spanish because it was so bad!  I love hearing from this kid!!!  Today is a good day!!!

I love him very much and my testimony increases each week as I see him grow!!

How does one obtain an Ecuadorian License plate....hmmm?

This is what happens when your on vacation!  A week late with his letter so today will have two letters posted!!!  Can't really call this a letter anyway...its more of a note.  This is too frustrating.



This week was not the best week. the people that we had that were preparing for baptism all fell, because they did not go to church. We did have some people in the church, so this will be a week to build up what we have. We do not have too many to teach right now, but we are always looking forward to more.  This week was a lot of contacting and a lot of getting rained on so it was not too fun. Here when its raining and you're wet the bus drivers won't let you get on. That is the personality of Cuenca. But it was not that bad we had Pablo with us a lot so we almost always had someone to talk to. Lets just hope and pray that this next coming week is lots better.

Love, Elder Jesse

Missionary work can be frustrating

This week was a weird week. It seemed like through the entirety of it all we were working we were always doing something, but at the end of the week there is not as much success as you would like. We receive probably a lot more referrals this last week than i have en the whole mission, but it is a pain to get into contact with people here and i do not know why. But we have a lot of new references that we need to contact and get a hold of so i hope this next week goes pretty well. The family that was in the yellow brick wall story quit answering there phone are never in there house. the one time they did answer they were lying about why we could not visit, because the story kept changing. Vanessa we have been trying to contact, but she has been really busy lately and when we talk it is only for a short time, but hopefully that changes this week. 

Love everyone out there and i hope that life is treating everyone well.

Con amor

Elder McCammon

Chatted with him through the email for a bit.  His letter isn't long but after chatting he seems good. He said the language is coming along way better.  He seems frustrated about the contacting but said he has faith that the work will move forward and baptisms will come. He said he loves the area he's in, it reminds him of home.  We sure miss him, but we're grateful for the opportunity its given our family to have a missionary!  We feel very blessed!!!  Thank you for your prayers in his behalf.  Doesn't he look great!!!

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Jesse send me stuff written in Spanish and its making me crazy!!  Google Translate really doesn't have any idea what he is saying!!!    I hope this is close!!!

The language is improving, much thanks to my Companion.  It's a little different as a senior companion, but I'm getting used to doing this position I'm taking on the mission. Cuy was great. Have a taste that was like seafood, but very rich and I want to eat it again.

Then here is the second part of what
he wrote, at least this is in English!!! 

This week was a long week. I was expecting that Vanessa was going to get baptized this weekend, but that did not happen. This Friday we had a training from our president, he came and talked to us for a little bit and then did interviews with everybody. The training started at 8 in the morning, but we were one of the last to have interviews and by the time we got to lunch and changed out of our suits it was 600 and we had three hours left to work. This week like most has been a lot of contacting, because we have not had too many references coming in. 

I had a cool experience Friday in the morning when we were contacting. We were just walking around looking for someone to talk to before lunch and we came to a wall that had yellow bricks and I looked at my comp and said follow the yellow brick road, he laughed, but we walked down that way and found a man who was interested in the message and told us to come back to talk to all of his family. He, his wife and his 3 children 8, 5, and 2 or 3. We went back on Saturday and they all accepted a baptismal date for the 17 of August. The thing that I feel that we can all take out of this, is that we might be able to watch the wizard of oz in heaven, because it appears that the spirit likes the movie!!!

But that was this week and look forward to the next.

With love Elder McCammon

Here are the pictures he sent this week...

 Not sure why he's spitting off a bridge, lets just hope there aren't people down there!

What a handsome kid!!!  Looking Good!!!

Facebook Stalking

So I was on Jesse's Facebook account checking out who got mission calls or getting married or other such nonsense I keep him updated about and one of the girls that he went out on p-day with last week posted some of her pictures of the day.  They were different from the ones he sent me so I thought it would be fun to post more!!!

Enjoy!!
This first one is earlier before he got his new companion the day he ate Cuy! But taken by her.

He doesn't look nearly as excited about ice cream as I think he should be!!!