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.