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]