Chapel in Saraguro

so this week was pretty good we had 9 people in church this week. and all of the Moposita family came and the best part is we got started almost on time! so that was not so bad, this week we have 6 baptisms so that should be great. we also had the Albito family in church here in Loja, I just wish the two sons would come with them to church. but this week has been a great week. i started reading the old testament again, but this time to finish it and am about half way through the book of Leviticus. I love how Moses always has so many experiences where he talks to God that we get to read. In genesis you read that the people heard God but in Exodus it talks about how Moses is always talking face to face with God. it shows that he has  a lot of faith, man i would love to have faith like that, but we must work on our faith.

Please pray for all of the Moposita family who should be baptized Saturday as well as the Albito's.

love you all have a good week elder mccammon

He told me he finally got his Easter package!  YAY...bonus the Chocolate was still in tact!!! He also told me he went to the window to look out and moved the curtain back and the window shattered...6 bucks to replace the window!

Here is their meeting house in Saraguro...no one here should ever complain about the size of our meetinghouse again!!!

[The yellow house is not the church, it is a house that looks like the house from UP. The others are of the room used to hold all the meetings in.]

Welcome to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!

He didn't indicate, but I would assume this is all inclusive for Chapel and Sunday School at least.

Here they are prepping and painting the building.  Why is he painting in his suit pants??? 

Looks like they put in a lot of work!

Looking forward to some Baptisms

So this was a fairly good week, me and my companion are according to the zls the best companionship in the zone, we have six baptismal dates and we had ten people in church on Sunday so i am pretty excited we went from when i came here to having nothing but the lord has blessed us a lot and we have been able to have a lot of success. and the week of the 31st we should be having 6 baptizms and we are hoping we can get the Albito family. another family we are teaching to accept a baptism date tonight. for the 14th of June. this week other than that has been a pretty normal week.

I love you all and hope you Have a great memorial day weekend

Elder McCammon

Looking down at Saraguro

This is Jesse's MTC companion Elder Jeske (Jet ski without the T sound)

Maybe the reason I've never EVER received anything from the mission home...they didn't have the right email.  I follow an old companion of Jesse's and his mother put another photo on like this, I asked her about it and she sent me the email to the mission home, they sent this back with an apology that they had the wrong email.  Hmmmmm.

Mothers Day in Loja (lo-ha)

It was so good to see him yesterday.  He said he's got 30 Sundays left. He is enjoying the area but he still doesn't have electricity through much of his apartment and absolutely no hot water.  He said it takes him 10 minutes to shower...9 of it is staring at the water trying to get up the courage to get in!!!

He told me how much he hates writing letters and that he's not great at keeping a journal.  He went to speak to Cierra and said her name then stopped and said, wait is that how its pronounced?  He's used to rolling his r's not a hard r like in her name...it was funny.  I found out he actually slept in a hammock for 9 weeks but sold it because it didn't fit in his luggage, plus it hurt his back.  He now owns a machete. The town that he's in is in a deep valley and there is basically only one main road that goes right through the middle. Its a bit nicer of an area than in the city.  When he goes to Saraguro they are to stay in the city limits because outside the wall is dangerous!!!  LOL!!! (there's no wall but I thought it sounded better!)  I said do they have guns...no machetes, that's how I found out he owns one!!! I think the going back and forth between Saraguro and Loja is rough and gets tiring being on a bus all the time. We talked for an hour and laughed, he's happy and having great experiences.  Much better than the Skype at Christmas where the people in the room were distracting him. All in all a good conversation and it filled up my bucket til I get to see him in December, he said that he was told his release date is Dec 7th.  Can't wait, but I wouldn't wish it to pass quickly for anything I want him to love and enjoy every minute!!!

Dear Family

So i do not know what to say this week it was a pretty long week. i am glad that i got to talk to you yesterday, but the week did not have anything eventful pass. i have the cold. and today i was lucky enough to have a flu shot. The family we are teaching was working a lot this week which made it hard to teach them all at the same time and it also made it so only three of the kids were able to attend church this week, but one of them was Jonathan who did not attend last week so at least he has now come and seen what church is like he is more excited to come next week. This saturday the apartment building in where we do our church meetings we are going to clean and paint and make it look all nice so i will be sure to take pictures because i know how much that you like them. I hope that you had a happy mothers day mom and that all the mothers out there that are reading this had a great mothers day as well. 

In my scripture study this week i have started reading about alma and amulek. how when alma first went to go teach the people and they rejected him he was sad that the people rejected him, but he continued on his way to keep teaching others. then the lord told him that there was still more to be done in that city and that is when he went back and found amulek and they started to teach the people.

I feel that there are alot of times that as missionaries or members we may become discourage when we are not finding the people that we would like to help. and we may just try to go on continuing our lives, but we need to make sure we are always listening to the lord so we can find those who are ready. Finding them was never meant to be easy. if it was everyone would belong to  the same church, but the lord always prepares people and we need to be ready to help them. So as Walt Disney has said, "Keep Moving Forward"

I love you all and hope that you have a great week and i hope every one had a great mothers day.

Elder Jesse William McCammon

So this is the entrance into Loja City.  This is what wikipedia say's 

• Puerta de la Ciudad

The gates of the city are modeled after the Coat of Arms of the city, presented by King Felipe II of Spain in 1571. The gate is on Av. Gran Colombia, and houses four galleries which show contemporary Lojano artwork, and a cafeteria and gift shop. A stunning view of the city is found by climbing the clock tower. Loja contains a number of historic churches; the city's board of tourism has approached finding them in a novel manner. Beginning at the Puerta de la Ciudad, one of the first thing a tourist will notice is a large orange stripe painted on the sidewalk. Following the stripe takes the interested on a self-guided tour of the main historic churches and areas of Loja.

He didn't say but I think this is in Jipiro Park too.

 So he told me this train is the internet cafe where he emails me while in Loja.  It looks like kind of a cool park that it sits in too, its called Jipiro Park!

The tale of two cities...Loja and Saraguro

I have not got package yet, i do have places to look at, i still have not gone and taken pictures, as for the food i do not take too many pictures of, i feel weird taking pictures of food. I do not cook too much. In the morning i have been doing pancakes with nutella, eggs and bacon. Food i normally do...top ramen but they sell pancake mix here so why not.

so this week has been better we have found a pretty cool family in Saraguro that came with us to church on Sunday. They are the Moposita family and they are preparing to be baptized on the 31st of may. You have Pedro Moposita(40), his wife maria Moposita(35), and their children Jonathan(13), Marixa(11), Miguel(10), and Erika(8). they all, except for Jonathan, came to church on Sunday. The two sector situation makes it hard to do, i am in two cities, one in Saraguro out side of Loja and i am in Loja. Monday we are here in Loja, Tuesday Saraguro, Wednesday Loja, Thursday Saraguro, Friday Loja, Saturday Loja. On Sundays we drop our investigators in Loja off at church at 8am then leave to go catch the bus for Saraguro so we can set up the room/chapel and pick up our investigators before church at 11. The church in Saraguro is weird because there are only a few members. They give prayers, they don't have priesthood, so we bless the sacrament, give the talks, lead the music, and teach gospel principles. The members in Loja of the branch that Saraguro pertains too (because it is only an extension of the branch in Loja that is why we have the both) do not go very often they think its too much church, so they just told me yesterday that i am the 3rd counselor of the branch presidency so they can have someone preside when they are not there. 

This week has been great. In my studies these past two week of the Book of Mormon in Spanish i have made it almost to Alma. one of the last things i read was about Abinidi when he was preaching to Noah. King Noah almost changed his mind about killing Abinidi and letting him go, but he ended up listening to his priests and decided no, we need to be ready for peer pressure in our lives because we should always remember who we are and what we stand for.

I love you all have a good week.

Elder McCammon

No pictures this week :(