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!!