Mythbusters and pictures!

Beunos Dias!

As I thought about how I can best give my report this week, I figured sharing pictures and giving descriptions with the pictures is the best way to do it. Firstly though, let me take a moment to despell a few rumors about my mission that I hear before I left and during the CCM.

There is not a member who cooks us food, cleans ours house, and does our laundry.  In the CCM there was a rumor that in many South American missions there's members that are paid to cook you food and that all you have to do is buy ingredients and they're make something out of it.  When me and Elder Povar heard this, we both immediately thought "BROWNIES!" as in the mystical creatures described in Fable Haven.  We do have members who have assignments by the ward to take us into their homes to feed us lunch everyday, and we pay a member every week to do our laundry, but there isn't anything like a house maid or Brownies in our mission.

From the things I've heard about Ecuador in the past, things here have changed a lot.  The Bus system is good, the people are nice, and people don't mug people like I've been led to believe.  Though there are a few missionaries who have been robbed, it was always more of a take and run situation.

This week the world cup started along with the battle between missionary lessons and people's TVs.  Ecuador played yesterday, church attendance was cut down by a lot, and for some reason the people who did attend church were wearing Ecuador Jerseys or Yellow Ties.  Missionaries are told by the mission president to not have anything to do with the world cup, but it's nearly impossible to not know the score and who's playing who.

Anyways, time for pictures!

Love you!

~Cameron

PS. Go watch the John Tanner movie, especially if you've never seen it!  A part of my testimony comes from that movie, it's super good! Here's a link:
https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-07-139-treasure-in-heaven-the-john-tanner-story?lang=eng

The Main Room

The other side of the main room/kitchen

The room we sleep in

The random extra room where we store stuff and iron things.

The Bathroom... Had to.

My companion and me

La Comida de mi Gente.

Our Sector in all it's glory.  This is my favorite part of town to teach in, it's not as busy and crazy and downtown is

In the back of a Trictymoto, the best way to get around here.  I'll try to get a picture of one to send to you next week.

The missionaries all seem to sit on one side of the table when the world cup is on...

Giant Snails... EW!

Hi!

Today will be short. A normal day for me looks like this:

• 6:30am  I wake up
• 6:30 until 7:00 Exercise
• 7:00 to 8:00 Morning Preperation.  Showers eating and whatnot.
• 8:00 to 9:00 Personal Study
• 9:00 to 10:00 companionship study
• 10am to 11am Primara 12 Semanas, basically new missionary training.
• 11am to 12pm Idioma
• 1pm lunch with member
• 2pm until 9pm Teach and Preach and work like missionaries do.

Food here consists of a mountain of rice, sometimes some kind of soup, and usually chicken or a mystery meat.  I hated the food at first and could only eat so much until my stomach said no, but now I love it and eat it all. I haven't seen many "weird bugs" but I have seen a snail on a wall that was as big as my shoe, that was pretty weird...

Giant Snails. What a nightmare... (This is a pic we found on google)

I'm doing good! The work is hard but doable and I'm loving it more as the weeks go on.  STARTING WEEK 4! I love you all and I'll give you a better update next week!

~Cameron

This is Pablo, an awesome man who sells bread on the street for a living.  I got the privilege of baptizing him.

The Life of a Missionary

Hello Everyone!

I've been asked about where I'm living. So here it goes. My apartment has a bedroom, a main room with a kitchenette, a small bathroom, and another room that we iron stuff and keep random storage. It's actually a decent place to live.  It's on the third story of a building and the stairway has a lockable gate so getting robbed isn't my biggest worry.  The showers are ok, our shower head has a heater on it with a ghetto wire job, but it seems safe enough. I'll send some pictures of the apartment next week, first I gotta take some.  The owner of the little apartment building I live in owns a little computer area on the ground floor. She charges people for internet use and whatnot. This is where I email. Elder Pagoada has a little music player that's shaped like a Ferrari that plays music from flash drives. I'm probably gonna get one soon too.

Bueno Fe is sort of a poor city, not a lot of money or nice buildings, we are surround by a jungle, but what I see is mostly concrete and people.

They spray the air for Mosquito's here so there's not much of a problem with bugs.  The truck came by us as we were walking and we got a nice blast of the spray. I told Elder Pagoada that if that's population control I want nothing to do with it because I'm a gringo and definitely not populating.

In my first two weeks here we've had five baptisms and we teach at least three lessons a day, we plan for more but plans hardly ever go as we would like them to.  The people here are really really small and Latino, friendly though.  Yes, the kids sometimes stare.  Me and Elder Pagoada were performing a baptism for some of the Hermanas in our district and the little girl who was being baptized just stared at me the whole time and said "sus ojos es Verde!" (His eyes are green)

I had my first actual baptismal ordinance! We have five baptisms but I personally baptized little Junior Burgos.  I'm pretty happy about it. 

We know were're getting a new president soon, I'm not totally sure what rumors are true about him and what's not.  I don't know his name, I've heard rumor that he's a gringo who taught Spanish at BYUI but I've also heard that he's a Latino who lived in Idaho for a long portion of his life and now is coming to Ecuador, either way it will be good.

Well, I gotta go! Talk with you later! 

Love, 

Elder Cameron Howell

Lots to do, but first... let me take a Selfie.