A little bit of Random

Hey there!

This week has been pretty nice.  I have a bunch of random photos to help make up for the lack of photos last week:

We went to the zoo a couple weeks ago, but the zoo is closed on Mondays, which is nice because P-Day is only on Mondays...  We didn't see many animals, but we did see monkeys and this guy.

Luckly, the in beautiful little sector of Arbolito where we work (minor sarcasm intended) has a little tree by the river where we discovered a that ton of iguanas hang out.  This is just one but the tree was full of them.  Natural nature won over the zoo in this case.

We had the baptism of Adonis Vera last week, his family attended the service which is a big leap for them.  He's been coming to church and playing soccer with us on Thursdays for awhile now.  We've been teaching him little by little and we finally reached his baptism day!

Since this day he's been going to semanary and mutual on his own.  We're also getting to the point where we don't have to get up early to knock on his door on Sundays.  I have good hopes for this chico.

The picture didn't turn out too good because the flash died on my old black camera -BUT I'm sure the new one will come soon... he he.   .....We'll keep praying about the package.

I used a little home money to get my shoes fixed again.  I found a maestro zapatero (master shoemaker) to change my soles the right way.  The guy I paid to do it last time put $2 soles on my shoes and charged me $15 a pair.  He basically robbed me and did a terrible repare job.

My shoes are MUCH better now and my feet are slowly healing from the damage that the soles that the Zapatero Borracho (Drunk shoemaker) put on my feet.

As seen above, the bad shoe soles made my right shoe fill up with dirt and rocks.

...-I'm sure the package will get here soon.  :D

I thought dad would get a kick out of this one.  This is normal here, they build 20 story buildings using bamboo. In this picture they're restoring an old hotel using bamboo scaffolding.  I remember back when I was working in Alta Paints a guy came in boasting that he's been on jobs all around the world and that he's seen places where they use bamboo scaffolding.

Back then I told him that's crazy stuff, but now I just say "meh, that's normal."

"Its-a me, Mario!"

We ALMOST have water in our house.  We're getting there... I'll probably get to take one nice shower before I get changed to another sector.

Things here have been good, the normal actually.  The stake presidency is getting changed out here in the Duran North Stake, which means a general authority is going to come.  They say that its going to be Elder Waddell.  We also just recently got a message from the zone leaders saying that we need to have our houses clean and our Area books updated because it's possible that he's going to inspect our houses. =O

Now I have to go home and hide all the oreos...

Everything here has been good.  I hope back home things are good too.  I'll be praying for Grandpa and looking for mom in General Conference when it comes.

I love you all!  Keep moving forward.

Cameron

Agua, una cosa que no importamos hasta no tenemos *-_-

Hello there,

I have a bunch of pictures to show, but I can´t get the computers here to read my SD card.  I think you I´ll have to wait til´ next week.

Speaking of pictures, I took my old SD card to a guy who knows how to recover data.  He got about 80% of the pictures from the entire mission back for me.  My devastation has just about been resolved. Besides the fact I was robbed by that dis-honest sonsofhjsefnvgek$%&%&/hth56hj-

<continuación no encontrado>

*Ehm* I´ll go get an ice cream after writing.

This week has been a LITTLE bit stressful. The Church here in Duran isn´t an exception to the water problem.  We had a baptism last Saturday and filling the font took every ounce of brainstorming/phone calling/head-skiing that I had in me.  Me and my companion were there trying to find a solution for more than three hours.  In the end, we found a secret door in the roof which lead to a secret room with a secret switch that activated to secret pump that´s connected to a secret tank of water that only the bishop knows about.  He told us about it but he said he didn´t know how to turn the secret pump on.  That was something I had to figure out with my super secret ninja spy skills.  Long story short, we had a baptism last Saturday.  Know one knew how much sweat and blood was put into making the service possible.  All in a missionary´s day´s work.

(It´s very possible that none of that made sense)

I´ve already written the mission president telling him that Duran will probably make my hair turn gray.  He simple replied and said ¨Elder Howell, I think you would look very dignified with gray hair.¨

I forgot that president Riggins looks like this:

Bueno...

The truth is that I´m doing great out here.  The work is good and me and my companion get along well. What more could I ask for? *Egh*water*egh*

Really though, things here are all good. :)  Hope things are going good back home.  I´ll try to send baptism pictures next week.  I think that problem is my adapter.

I love you all!

Cameron

All is Well

Hola,

So, I´ve been living here in Duran for 3ish months now.  I´ve been in the mission for 17 months now and we´re riding along well.  However, I do have my low moments from time to time...

...the good thing is that I´ve got friends in low places.

(above is a joke...)

When I got here we only had water in our house in the morning and at night.  This is still true, but luckly ur landlord threw down a few bucks and is building a cistern in front of our house that will fill up with water in the morning and at night and we´ll have water everyday without fail.  Yay for not having to use a cup and bucket to take a shower!  :D

I was thinking about something that Bishop Green wrote me this week.  He was talking about Calvin´s mission and how every mission is different.  How true is that!

Here in Ecuador the are very few people who don´t believe in God, most of the population here is catholic and the rest are either Evangelists, Jehovah's Witness, or Mormons.

Calvin taught mostly buddists, I would have no idea what to do if I found a buddist.  Me and Elder Sanchez had a big brain fart when we found Jews in Guayaquil, we aren´t used to teaching people who don´t already believe in Christ to be honest... Work here is hot a humid, but wonderful.

I´m feeling well, so all is well. I´ll probably be changing sectors in October.  Elder Salazar is will be finishing his 3 month training then and he will probably trane a new missionary from there.  That´s how things are.

All is well here.  I´m checking out to check in to an evening in Arbolito Duran -where the dust is dry and the air is full of weed.  I love it!



Love you all!  Hope everything is going well back home.


-Cameron

Ice Cream keeps the world happy

Hey there!

I'm just checking in this week, I cant think of too much to say...  I guess my mind is a little bit more blank this week ;P Things around here are going normal. The other two Elders that were working in the same ward as us just got changed out and now we're the only missionaries working here.  We have a whole lot more ground to cover and a whole lot more people to visit.  We keep ourselves stress free by buying twenty five cent icecream bars called pollitos.

 I use Pollitos to explain the dollar to people who don't understand american currency.
They ask me "What's the valor of a dollar?"
I say "Four Pollitos"
They ask "what's the vallor of a quarter?"
I say "One Pollito"
they ask "is twenty dollars a lot of money?"
"Dude, we're talking like, eighty Pollitos."
They usually get it from there.

In my world, the national treasury isn't full of gold, it's full of Pollitos. Ice cream keeps the world happy.

Things here are going good.  It's not easy but it's all worth it.  Thanks for all the support coming from back home.  I love you guys!


-Cameron

We took this picture an hour ago.  It's proof that I'm still alive and well. ;)

Virtue Rant!

Hey there everyone!

Being a missionary isn´t all candy and sugar... it actually isn´t candy and sugar at all unless we go buy ice cream or something. :P President Riggins always tells me that the hardest kind of business is people business, working with people is SUPER hard, even for people people.

I´ve declared that the world would be a better place if people kept their promises and had the desire to help one another. After walking away from a house of a lady who basically messed up a big old plan of ours because she didn´t do what she said she was going to do I told my companion ¨When I get married, I don´t want a girl who´s drop dead gorgeous, that is, if she isn´t considerate, loving, and smart at the same time.¨

I then found myself declaring ¨I WANT A VIRTUOUS WOMAN!¨

I remember reading about Aristoltle difining virtue as:

¨a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices.¨

-or, as my simple mind translates to be: Virtue is when someone acts as they should.  Stop me if I´m wrong, I could be.  I don´t understand Aristoltle all that well, the man blows my mind with his words...

The question comes with the idea that virtue means that we should act as we should: How should we act?

In 3 Nefi 12:48 it we read:
¨Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.¨ (see also mattew 5:48)

and in 3 nefi 27:27
¨...Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.¨

Therefore, how are we to be virtuous?  We need to be like christ.  How can we be like christ?  Study the scriptures and try to develope his atributes in ourselves:

Faith, Hope, Love, Charity, Knowledge, Patience, Humility, Diligence, Obediece, ect.  (See Preach My Gosple chapter 6)

In Preach my Gosple it explains that virtue is not only our actions, it´s our thoughts.  God knows who we are inside and outside, and we will be accountable in the last days for who we are, not just what we do.

I remember the book To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee.  In that book the question was if Aticus Finch was the same in his own house as he was in the courthouse.  I think that we ought to ask ourselfs the same:  are we the same in our own house as we are in public?
or better yet: are we the same in our minds as our friends think we are.

Virtue is importaint.  For me, what matters is who you are, not what you do.

I could keep going, but I think I should stop there.  I´m out of computer time anyways.

Working with people takes its toll, but for the most part I´m alright, I haven´t gone crazy yet.  I did hit a depression point last week when my pen drive got stolen out of the cyber.
I lost all my pictures  ...again. I´m uploading what I have to Dropbox right now, as I should have been doing all along.  I´m sure there´s a lesson to be learned about procrastination and repentance in all this.  (see Alma 34:33 repent ye!)

You guys are saving the pictures I´m sending home, right?  I hope so because... that´s all I´ve got right now.

I´m doing good now though, we had to go over some icecream theorpy but I´m glad to say I´m back on top. :)

Things here are great. Thanks for all the support.

Love you all!


-Cameron

-The Elders of The Residence of San Gabriel playing Uno