01.04.16 - Happy New Year!

Hey there everyone!

Once again... I´m REALLY late and we have an appointment in twenty minutes so I'm going to be quick this week (Sorry!)

This new years eve in its own crazy way was crazy, the last one was crazy in its own way too... However, the story of this year and last year are both stories that I´m committed to not tell until I get home. :P

But really, this new year was good and don´t worry, nothing BAD happened to anyone, I just like to drive you all nuts with mysteries. (jamas voy a recordar escribir bien en ingles)

This year President Riggins gave us the regular order ¨You can NOT be on the streets later than 9:00¨ but he also added ¨I know that you all aren't going to sleep throughout the noise and music, you can stay up until midnight but NO GOING ON THE STREETS¨ Score!

We went up on the roof five minutes before midnight to see the fireworks and the city burn on the new year.

Always fun to see, the people around here always go nuts with their pyrotechnics. (JAMAS!)

We´re getting the new year started now, setting baptismal dates and finding new people to teach.

New missionaries when they come start a training program called ¨The First Twelve weeks¨  Durning this program they are in training until their twelve weeks ends.  I pulled out my old booklet from My First Twelve Weeks this week because I realized that I´m in my LAST TWELVE WEEKS as of today, I decided that I´m going to start the program again, only backwards, with the idea that I´m going to keep myself focused in these important few months. (Nadie les gustan trunkies)

But yeah, that´s it.

Dad, I´m sorry that I didn´t share christmas thoughts this week, I had today all planned out and I was going to have enough time in the cyber to write all the people that I wanted to but the dessisions (meh) of others made me loose a little time today.  Next week for sure!

I love you all and hope that you´re all having a good new year!

See you all later!

Cameron

Giant Cardboard Duck, ready to light on fire for the New Year.

12.28.15 - Release Date!

 Christmas came and went, the call home was the best part. Just to catch everyone up who weren't on the call, I got my release date the other week, I'm coming home on the 29th of March 2016.  The best two years was a big lie, turns out that it's the best year and 354 days because I started the mission on April 9th of 2014, but that's ok, it's close enough.

Christmas was fun and all, and the people around here LIKE Christmas but for the last few weeks they've been getting ready for the big party, that is, the new year.










Here for the new year they make cardbord figures the sell them, they come from in small, live sized, to twenty feet tall.





The kids run around with jars asking for money to buy fireworks to put inside their "Año viejo", the men run around in black dresses and wigs flirting for money to buy alcohol and fireworks too.

At midnight, all the fireworks go up and they burn the cardboard figures in the streets. Everyone is traveling to the beach or to be with family for the biggest party of the year.
Us? we'll be watching from the window just like we did last year.  We don't want anything to do with the danger of being in the street on new years night.

I'll send pictures of the locura next week.



Things here are all good, I hope things back home are good too.  Stay safe this new year try to stay warm!

I'll talk to you all later!


Love, Cameron

12.14.15 - Christmas and...Crickets

Hey there everyone!

Dad sent me a picture of all the snow you guys got.  I just got to wait one more year and then I'll be building snowmen.  Emma, have you learned how to use swords yet?  It's important to know that I haven't changed THAT much. ;)

Here we had a white Christmas early as well, but was a different kind of white Christmas; we got to baptise dos chicas cheveres this last Friday.  The first (on the left) was baptised by her father who was less active and the other is 15 years old and has been working with us to be baptised since I got here.











Other Christmas Preparations are also being made.  But don't worry, I'm staying focused in my progress as a missionary.

We have been getting rain in the nights and in the mornings as well.  That's the rain season here in Ecuador, we still await El Niño, however, some say its nothing more than a scare.  We will see.
Rain, however, does mean one thing: the prophecies in revalations are true.

...And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power...

...And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man...

(See Revelations 9)



Rain here means crickets, sometimes five months of crickets as there are about four or five months of rain.

Lots and lots of crickets.  No, they dont "sting" but they are annoying, they find their way into everything and they are said to eat clothes. that would be very much NOT welcome as I am in the last strech of my mission and I have no interest in losing my yellow shirts until I finish.  Crickets are to be killed and damned.  We await
 the seagulls.

Really though, all is going well around here.  I've basically over come my cold and dont plan on getting sick again.  (last rain season I had a fever of 102.5 and I will not be repeating it)

We're enjoying the Christmas season here in the mission and we're currently looking for a place where we can call home.  We have less friends among the members here in contrary to other sectors and we're trying to fix that so we can have good christmas dinners and Skype calls.

I hope all is well back home and that everyone is driving safe in the winter weather.  I remember that we always talked bad about Utah drivers and about how they had to relearn how to drive every winter.  ....I can only imagine what would happen if it snowed in Ecuador.  As crazy as they drive around here I think the streets would be a bloodbath.  ay, no voy a pensar en eso...

I love you all and wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Love, Cameron

12.7.15 - Navidad, lluvia, y mi pobre arbolito con el luz de Cristo. :)

Hola!

This week has been eventful, we went to Guayaquil to attend the temple and have a multi-zone conference with president Riggins on Thursday.  He always sends us to the temple for zone meetings, it's very important to him and I don't really complain, we get to stay the night in the temple hotel where there´s AC and hot showers, something that we don´t usually get to have.

Just before we left to go to Guayaquil, babahoyo got its first winter rain which drenched us.

Rain here means play time for the local kids.  Everyone takes off their clothes and run through the flooded allies.  Their parents don't seem to care that EcuaRain is SUPER dirty and most people get sick at this time of year because the dirt on the roofs and the pee in the streets gets kicked up into the air by the rain, I´m no exception to the sickness.
I´ve had cold symptoms for over a month now. :P

At the meeting, Sister Riggins gave us a briefing and ¨El Niño¨ and confirmed that it´s is very possible that it will hit the mission this winter and gave us the commandment to buy canned food and extra water bottles in case we get trapped in our apartments. FUN :D

Other news is that my packages came last week.  I´m enjoying the Christmas Spirit with Christmas music, a paper snow globe and my Charly Brown tree with its bright green lights.

We went to the Christmas devotional broadcast on Sunday as well.  We took a few investigators to hear mom sing.  Yes, I did see her on screen a few different times.
I liked what President Uchdorf said about the Christmas lights, I thought, my Charly Brown tree is pretty cool because it has green lights on it.

It was also really cool what he said about the Choir and how angels likely listened to the beautiful music and perhaps sang along too.  way to go MoTab!

Christmas season is great, even though its SUPER humid and SUPER hot the Christmas spirit still exists.  However, Christmas for me has always been better with bitter cold weather, hot chocolate by the fireside and family.  I just have to wait for next year. :P

I hope all is well back home, all is well here.  Remember to enjoy the season and the cold weather.  I love you all!

Cameron

11-30-2015 - Vídeo de Navidad

Hello everyone!

Last Friday President Riggins came to Babahoyo and the other zones in the mission to show us all a video that the Church put out for Christmas.
We got to see it early so that we could know what was comming and that we could start handing out pass-along cards promoting the video.

I went up yesterday (Sunday)  and I thought I'd start sharing by sharing it with all my friends and family back home. :)


BOOM, LINK!

Things this week have been going well enough.  We've hit a few walls but that's ok -Walls exist for a reason; getting around them is part of the intended path.
We're getting things ready for Christmas and the new year.  People are starting to make their año viejos to burn on new year's night.
New Year is a bigger party than Christmas, I'm not too sure why, I like Christmas best.
Christmas is cool for missionary work because people are already thinking about Christ or know that they ought to be, so teaching lessions is a little bit easier.  That and we can carol and stuff!

I did miss Thanksgiving.  If a remember right, I ate two rolls that I bought on the street on Thanksgiving.  They were over salty and a little stale.  They aren't anything like the fresh buttery rolls that thanksgiving ought to have.  *sigh* People generally don't eat turkey here, apparently it's expensive.  I've never had a turkey sandwich here... when I mention the legendary "turkey sandwich" people look at me funny and ask "¿existe jamón de pavo?"

¡SI! (yes, sometimes my emails require google translate)

Yeah... I'll be home for Christmas however. ...next year. :) Thanks for sending pictures of thanksgiving, it's cool to see everyone.  I'm starting to locate members with computers here that we can use to call on Christmas.

I hope all is well back home and I'll be writing soon. :)

Love, Cameron

New Area - Lots to do!

Hey there everyone!

I'm a little short on time today, there's lots to do right now...

Last Tuesday before District meeting they informed me that I'm the new district leader, so now I'm worrying about three other sectors apart from my own, the good thing is that I've been the companion of a few district leaders so I know what to do and have a pretty good idea of how I want to do it.

In the mission I've discovered that I'm OLD.  I feel like basically anyone who is over 30 and lies about their age.  I tell everyone that I have 18 months in the mission to avoid people calling me Trunky.  I AM NOT TRUNKY btw, I refuse to be a crappy missionary in the end of my mission. besides, there's WAY too much to do to be a crappy missionary.  There simply isn't time to be lazy around here.  Lazy is for p-days, and p-day is only 10 am to 6 pm on Monday.

My sector here in Babahoyo is a small little ward called 18 de Mayo.  The wonderful thing is that ALL THE STREETS ARE PAVED!  Which means I don't have to worry about dirty shoes and dust like I did in Duran.  Yay!  We have some good people that we're working with too, I look forward to the future to see what happens.  President Riggins however did tell me that he put me here to fix some things, so I'll be banging things out with a hammer in my time here as well.  Feels good that President Riggins trusts me like that.  :)  I personally think I lack a whole lot to be a "good missionary," but I'm doing my best.

I think I said everything I can think of about Elder Rojas in my last email... but if there's something that you want to know ask away.  Here's a terrible selfie of us in front of the Temple in Guayaquil:

I've been bogged down with a cold for a couple of weeks now, and I managed to eat something on Saturday that made me sick all day long and throw up in the night.  But I'm doing what I can to pull out of that now. there's a vapor rub made by the Chinos here called Metol Chino, it's basically my best friend right now.

That's about it.  As always, I'll write next week.  I need to get to work now.

Love you all!

Cameron

Regresando a Los Ríos

Hola!

Last night we got a call that we were kind of expecting, I got transferred today.  After spending five and a half months in Duran in the beautiful Arbolito, I boarded a bus (I still hate buses) and got sent back to La Provincia de Los Ríos.  I'm in the City of Babahoyo, I've only been here a few hours so I cant really say too much about how it is here.  From what I've learned as an outsider is that Babahoyo is that capital of Los Ríos and that when the rain comes it gets pounded.  We will see about the rumor of the rain when El Niño gets here.  It looks like I'll be here for Christmas, so I'm going to start making friends as fast as possible.

My new companion is Elder Rojas.  Again, I've only been here for a few hours so I cant say really say too much about him either.  However, we did talk an the bus ride:
Hes from La Paz Bolivia, he has three months in the mission meaning that he just got done with his training, I'm his second companion and his first experience with Transfers.  He break dances from what I've heard.  We are going to have a lot of getting to know you time as we will be together constantly for the next couple months.

I have a habit of staying long periods of time in my sectors: I was in Buena Fe for about 7 months, Guayaquil for about 6 months, and Duran for five and a half months. Looking at the numbers and seeing that I only lack 5 months in the mission, Babahoyo very well be my deathbed.  However, lots can happen in 5 months.  We will see what happens. :)

As far as health goes, all is well.  Apart from the fact I have a nagging phlegm in my chest that makes me cough.  That's just a result of the seasons changing.  -or at least that's what they tell me.  The season changes aren't that extreme in Ecuador, its always hot and  wherever and whenever.  The difference is that it gets a little cloudier and more humid in late October/early November.  In January-March it rains a crap load and continues being devilishly hot.  I guess I could say I'm used to it, but Ill be missing the cold for another while more.  ♪♫ I'm dreaming of a White Christmas... ♫♪

All is well here. from what Elder Rojas tells me we have lots of good families and tons of work to do. Cant wait. :) I'll write you all next week and let you all know a little more about the new sector.

Tell me all about Thanksgiving!

I love you all. :)

-Cameron

(This week Ill be ponderizing D&C 123:12)