First Area - Buena Fe

Ecuador...  It's just a little bit nutty here. As expected I don't understand a thing these people are saying, one because its Spanish and another because I'm in the land of mumblers!  Meh. I can pick out things here and there, I have memorized portions of lessons, questions to ask, and I'm learning words and phases poco y poco.

Me and my companion communicate in Spanish as much as possible, when I'm struggling or don't know how to say something I tell him in English and he tells me how to say it in Spanish, same goes for if I forget a word in a lesson or something.  I luckily have one of the few Latino companions who is extremely fluent in English. Before his mission he studied language in the University for two years. Elder Pagoada is from Honduras. And he's pretty dang awesome.

The city we're in is called Buena Fe, which I'm pretty sure translates to Good Faith. The people here are probably on the lower end of society, not too sure if there's too much of a higher society anywhere in Ecuador but... these people definitely aren't at the top.  I'm sure if you Googled it you'd know more about it then I do.  There's lots of bikes, carts, and people trying to sell candy bars, shampoo, and churros out of their hats, and the most part of the people live in concrete houses with bars for windows.
The food...  We eat at members houses every single day for lunch.  The way meals are done in you eat breakfast, a HUGE lunch, and usually no dinner.  The food is good, I can honestly tell the members that feed us that I like it. For the most part it's eatable. I have been a little sick since I got here, I'm just as of yesterday feeling better.  I also can't seem to get the mountains we eat for lunch down my stomach without my stomach eventually saying "NO MORE"and I have to inform the member that the food is amazing but I'm sick.
Otherwise though, when I feed myself, I eat eggs rolled up in a store bought tortilla.  They actually have a mall a 20 minute bus ride away and I can get most of my regular morning diet there. They also have a Carls Jr at the mall. Lunch on P-day is good.

The bugs here aren't any more scary than the ones in Mexico.  Spiders, cockroaches... the biggest problem we have in our apartment is ants.  Church here is awesome! We have a strong ward and they all sing off key. :)
On Friday we went to the church to fill the font for a baptism when we discovered that the water in the church wasn't working.  The bishop called a water guy who came, looked at some stuff, said he didn't know what the problem was, then left...  Because we had a baptism that night we walked away from the church deep in thought. As we were walking, I asked Elder Pagoada what we should do? Right at that moment, he stopped walking and we were standing in front of the fire station.  Long story short, the firefighters were bored as heck and the font was filled by a fire truck and three firemen.  Day saved!

Love you all! Talk to you later!

~Cameron

View from my Apartment.

Ecuador!

Hola!

I'm in Ecuador now.  I flew all night on Avianca Airlines, showing up to the airport at 10:30pm in Mexico and taking off at 2:30am, we landed in Columbia to transfer flights as the sun was coming up.  I made it to Ecuador and immediately realized that humidity sucks.

When we got here the Mission President took us our to eat at the fanciest and best all you can eat buffet I have ever been to. I met my new companion at the mission office and then discovered that my area is on the furthest end of the mission, which is a four hour journey by bus. My companion speaks pretty good English, hes from Honduras. But the idea is for me to learn spanish which is really hard.  I'm not really sure how many investigators we have, when I asked Elder Pagoada 

he looked up and said that we have a thousand.

Apparently baptizing is really easy down here and people love talking to the missionaries.  We're going out teaching in a couple hours. We ll see how this goes... can't say I'm not scared out of my mind about the language.  Hopefully soon Ill be okay about it all.

Cameron

Almost Outta Here!

Hola!

I met up with Bronté yesterday and she brought  me the care package this morning at breakfast! Thank you so much for everything I needed and wanted! And for getting the small Preach My Gospel in Español on such short notice!  It definitely made my day!

Elder Howell & Hermana Taylor!! 

So I'm flying outta here at 10 30pm this Sunday! It feels a lot like my mission hasn't started yet, that the CCM is a non real world experience like a glorified mission prep.  I'm trying to prepare myself for the straight up shock that's gonna come from stepping into Ecuador and teaching real investigators and speaking with people who use Spanish in a less merciful dialect than out teachers do.  I'm SUPER nervous, but also ready to get out into the world.  I know that my Spanish isn't good enough for the field yet, but if I don't get outta here soon my head might blow up. I love the CCM, but.... my head might blow up.

Love,

Elder Howell

These are some pictures of District 6A.

District 6A.

All Together

Elders

Hermana's.

Companions: Elder Howell and Elder Fakahafua

Parrots here are really really hard to spot because they're a clever shade of green, but I finally got some pictures of them!

More Parrots!

Hola!

Ecuador in two weeks!

I met Elder Yama over the last week, he's from Guayaquil, he's also a really really weird kid... but it's cool meeting someone from there!  I haven't been able to pick out dialects of Spanish because I can barely communicate in Spanish as it is.  But people keep telling me that Ecuador Spanish is really weird

I buy myself candy at the Tienda all the time and as long as you keep money in my account, I'll be a happy me.  I'm doing my best not to buy big things like the scripture case I got last week.

Yes, if there's new missionaries I'll see them.  We get pretty used to the faces around here after a few weeks.  The CCM is on a slow season right now with only 300ish English speaking missionaries.  The Latinos are hard to keep track of because they only stay for two weeks.  they tell us that in June the numbers of missionaries will raise too about 1000 English speaking missionaries here at a time.  I'll see Bronté when she gets here. I'm super excited for it even though I'll be leaving when she gets here.

Elder Holland Spoke on our MTC broadcast last Tuesday.  Every Tuesday night a General Authority gives a conference quality talk specifically to the missionaries, making Tuesday one of the best days of the week.  Hearing all the general authorities is awesome. But when Elder Holland, the Head of the Missionary department speaks at a devotional, his talk is quoted and repeated for years and years in the different MTCs.  If you can and if you have the time you should see if you can watch Tuesday's talk somehow.  It was AWESOME and he threatened to kick us in the throat and what not! Apparently Elder Holland isn't above tormenting people who don't serve meaningful missions.

We had another earthquake a couple hours ago, it felt a little bigger than the last one but there still wasn't any dramatic shaking.  Cool little Welcome gift for the new arrivals that just got here yesterday and just barely this morning learned that there's a earth quake siren and panic circles that you have to go to when you hear it. I have now survived two earthquakes in my lifetime.

I love you all!

~Cameron

This is Elder Yama from Ecuador next to my Companion.  Elder Yama somehow hurt his arm playing Fútbol/soccer during his GYM time

I took a selfie while we were all waiting in the panic circle during the earthquake. As you can see Earthquakes are a good ol´ time!

I'm starting to get into Mirror Selfies when I get haircuts.  I had to include this one because Elder Povar.

It's raining right now, this is a picture of the guys in our Casa on their way to the computer lab.  We and Elder Povar took pictures for them, we don't mind a little rain.

The birds here are KINDA' like the birds back home, well call these crows... but they don't quite look like the crows back home.  We also have kinda' Doves, Kinda' Robins, and Kinda' finches.

Happy May!

Holla!

Things here are pretty awesome, Spanish is still going really slowly for me but I`m doing alright just the same.  I lost my voice and had a nasty cough for about a week and a half when I got here but now I´m just stuck with a lingering cough as coughs often linger.  Otherwise I'm staying well.

I haven't gotten Madeline's little letter yet, as far as I've been able to understand the mail here to and from the states can be very very slow.  The way packages work around here is that the district leader and whoever else is around goes to check the mail.  Every day everyone eagerly waits to see if the got something, the missionaries who DO get a package are usually the envy of the district and the joking response from all the other Missionaries is usually "you´re so lucky that you have people back home who love you!" and so on and so forth.

So yes, I would actually really enjoy a package of some sort.  I believe it´s MyDearMissionary.net or something like that.  CCM food gets sort of dull sometimes so I've seen elders receive rootbeer and candy in the past.  Elder Povar´s mom sent us all two dozen doughnuts a few days back and told us that she loves and supports CCM district A6.  Not to hint too hard but, Sister Povar is currently everyone's favorite mother.

I have been noticing a few things that I wish I had brought, here´s a short list.

1. Pictures of people!  I somehow got it in my head that I wouldn´t want pictures of people back home but it turns out that I've been sort of jealous of the Elders y Hermanas that have little picture books to show people their families and friends

2. TIDE TO GO. Aka bleach pens. Probably one of the most important and looked over tools for missionaries.  When you`re eating food with different red salsas everyday in dressy clothes and white shirts everyday, THINGS HAPPEN.  Tide to Go is like gold. I wish I had packed a full case because they can`t be acquired in the CCM Tienda.

3. More watches. Hermana Dodge is a Sister in my district who is going to the same mission as I am.  She was told in her mission packet that she should bring at least EIGHT watches because of muggings being so common in Ecuador. I only brought one watch which actually broke three days after I got here.  Luckily only the anolague function broke and I can still read the digital numbers.  I wish that if I was to be mugged I could explain to the thief that they watch is broken and it would be better for both of us if I was to keep it.
If I got another watch I would want it to have a time and date function.  I don`t care too much about whether it has an alarm but knowing what day it is is VERY useful.

Oh and a...I left my water bottle in the auditorium by mistake one night a couple weeks ago and it hasn`t shown  up in lost and found yet. I can only assume that it got pocketed but one of the CCM workers.  I{m super bummed! Sorry that I may have spent and largish sum of money over this last week. I had to buy a spanish set of scriptures and with it I got a scripture case.  and I got myself an awesome Tshirt for Pdays. I`m gonna try to be better about managing my money better.

Today we went to the Mexico City Temple. It was super awesome but unfortunately we only got to go to the visitor center because the Temple is close for renovations for the entire time I`ll be at the CCM.  Sort of a bummer, but we still got to get out of the walls of the CCM, which is an awesome change.  This place is big, but a change of scenery is nice sometimes. Even when I`m in one of the most beautiful places in Mexico City.

I`ll attempt to send you all pictures that I took. Talk to you next week!

~Cameron

That Bird.

 Elder Povar and I had matching shirts last P-day, we told everyone that we didn't plan it.  The Hermanas said we were adorable and insisted to take a picture for us.

District A6 at the Mexico City Temple

Mexico City Visitors Center

Christus Statue

A Day in the Life and Earthquakes

Hello Everyone!

So, last week I was asked what a standard day in the MTC is. A STANDARD day is waking up at 6 30am, doing our best to get our companions out of bed because they usually have trouble going to bed when me and Elder Povar tell them too, getting ready, breakfast at 7 15am, personal study after breakfast and then class after that, class goes until about 11 00am and then we have companion study, lunch is at 12 15 then we head over to the computer lab to do TALL with is Technology Assisted Language Learning with is the Churches inferior version of Rosetta Stone. It's centered on missionary lesions though, so it's cool.

After an hour of TALL we have language study time until 3 45 which is when we head over to get ready for GYM.  We have GYM time for about an hour until we have to head to our Casa to shower and get ready for Daily Planing Session and then Dinner.  After Dinner we have class until 9 30pm, about that time is when we head home and get ready for lights out at 10 30pm. Non normal days include teaching mock investigators, real investigators, devotional night on Tuesdays, Pizza night on Tuesdays, And anything else that seems to be thrown our way. Lots of amazing things happen here.

The first day we were here there was a Sister who hurt her leg real bad playing Volley Ball and was going to be sent home, but she got some test results in a few days later that showed that her leg had miraculously healed.

There's also little things like one night where I was writing in my journal and 10 30 came and I asked the guys if it was ok if I could wrap up my thoughts under a blanket with a flashlight.  They told me it was fine with them but when I went to turn on my flashlight I discovered that it wouldnt work whatsoever.  I supposed that the Lord wanted me to obey the bed time rules so I went to sleep.

We also experienced an earthquake while we were here!  The CCM has an Earthquake siren that goes off 15 or more seconds before an earthquake happens.  when the siren sounds everyone is supposed to run to ''panic circles'' or ''meeting places'' which are big green circles on the pavement outside on the ground.
When the siren finished sounding we thought it was a false alarm, but then I started feeling unstable like I was dizzy and our teacher pointed and told us to look at the trees and lamp post that was next to us. THEY WERE MOVING and it wasn't windy! The feeling of the earthquake wasn't dramatic, I probably would have slept through it if it happened in the night.  Standing on the ground was reminiscent of standing up in a steady moving boat. You feel like youre on solid ground but there is definitely motion under your feet. There was no panic, just a lot of people going '' woah!'' and our teacher running in circles yelling ''THIS IS SO AWESOME! THIS IS SO AWESOME!''Apparently earthquakes aren't extremely common in Mexico, but common enough that they have Panic Circles in the CCM.

After the fact at lunch we discovered that the small tremmer we felt was actually a huge earthquake somewhere else in Mexico that was on the news in the States.  So if any of you were concerned, Im fine!

I'm learning what I came to learn, but VERY slowly. I'm a much better teacher in English than i am in Spanish. Some days it feels like I dont know spanish at all and others I can ALMOST carry a casual conversation.  It's discouraging most of the time, but I do all that I can to learn and trust in the Lord.

Glad things are going good back home, I'll talk with you all later!

Love, Cameron

Week One in the CCM!

Hey!

When we got here everyone told us that the first week is the longest and hardest week of our lives. They were pretty much right about that one, it's way hard!  Spanish is a little bit tricky because they have a completely different grammar system than English.  Therefore, Google translate can't always help you out.  I'm learning Spanish, but it's going pretty slow.

Beautiufl CCM Campus

The CCM is awesome! Like I said, Mexico city in crazy but the CCM is like an oasis with a huge wall around it complete with barbed wire. My companion calls it a prison, because of the walls and barbed wire and the hour of GYM time everyday. I try to look at it with more optimism. If this is prison, I'm gonna be ok with the life of a Missionary convict.

The food is sort of hit and miss.  Some mornings we wake up and look at our breakfaast and think "what the heck is that??" Other mornings it's like "dang, I don't know what this is but it's pretty dang good!" and others "oh boy they made waffles!" There is however a rule of thumb with the food, the bread is ALWAYS dry and crumbly.  Oh and Tuesday night is Costco Pizza night!  Yes, they have Costco in Mexico.

Sunset and a Palm Tree

The world outside the CCM bubble

Mexico City!

Most of the teachers speak both Spanish and English.  Some of them however, only speak English. If there's important Gospel knowledge that we need they usually present it to us in English so that we understand.

Its not as hot as I expected, its only 85F on a normal day. Yesterday and the day before that we had some pretty awesome thunderstorms, and the rain felt SO good.

My companion is Tongan, I love him because he has incredible faith is it totally relaxed about almost everything and is a pretty cool guy.

Elder Howell with the District

Cameron and his Companion

I can't really tell you the typical day yet because the first week isn't really made of typical days.  I'll give more info next week.

Everything is cool here! I part of me misses home and everyone who is there but most of me really feels like I'm in the right place.

I love you all! 

~Cameron

I couldn't resist (Can't help being a Photographer) 

Birds