June 20, 2016

hey i got transfered to a city called Duran.  President wants me to be a zone leader now so im might have a little less time to write you guys. ya only 6 weeks with elder mecham but my new companion is named Elder Contreres. and he is a stud im going to work with him now in Duran and we are going be build zion here!!!

the ward is called Ponton and Duran is the city and it is really big its kinda close to guayaquil. there is 2 stakes here its really big and has a lot of members but is also kinda rich areas but im not scared ill just keep chuggen doing missionary stuff

I asked him if he took pics in Ventanas:

ya i took a few but i try sending them next week cause i honestly dont know how to do it from the computer so have to do it from the wifi

alright i have to get going right now thanks for being the best mom and dad in the world also tell dad i liked that missionary moment that he had and happy fathers day

June 13, 2016

Elder Rasaband!

This week was one to remember!! We had an great opportunity to listen to a apostle this week right here in Guayaquil!!!  the elder Ronald A Rasband came on saturday.  He spoke to all 3 of the guayaquil missions. But before he spoke we all got a chance to shake his hand! and our mission president told us all that we should look right into his eyes when we shake his hand because that might be the only time in our lives to look at an apostle of the lord right in the eyes. So i did and it is hard to describe the intense Spirit that i felt when i did.  After that he talked to us alot about smiling.  How we should always smile and show that we are truly in love with this gospel and that we are truly are representing Jesus Christ.  He also talked alot about discerning from the spirit, how that we have two things for us when we make decisions and two things against us. The 2 for us are, The light of Christ or his influence and example and the holy ghost.  the 2 that are against are, the natural man inside of us and Satin.  I really like that he mentioned the natural man because we all know that the natural man just wants to do the "good" or what is cool.  If anyone has ever felt peer pressure before that is the natural man, but if it is peer pressure to do something correct then it is the light of Christ and his example.  Sometimes we just talk ourselves out of a great decision cause we just reason it out and decide not to in the end.  So what he told us was that we need to go off the first impression from the spirit and not wait for ourselves to deny us from blessings.  

He also talked about prayer and that God is not Siri so when you ask something to him he is not immediately going to respond cause he his God and he has his way of getting info to us and sometimes it is fast but most of the time he wants to see us work for the answer ourselves.

I know that we have a prophet today and he lives and loves everyone of us very much.  He knows this life is not the easiest in the world and its not supposed to be.  We have to work for exaltation always and for blessing.

 

I asked if the packages I sent have come:

yes i got one of them with some pants i love them they are super fresh and way better than the others.

Also another experience that i had this week was when we were teaching a less active about temples and at this point he wasnt so less active he is doing good now but we were teaching about baptisms and i tried sharing the experience when we baptized gramps. and mom it was incredible. ive shared the same experience a billion times before and its never been so special.  So i always share that experience with all the people that we teach about temples cause its basically the only one i remember haha.  But my companion was actually the one to call on me to do it haha all he said was Well elder Blackhurst has and experience about temples and i wasnt planning to share it but all i told him is when i was younger i went with my dad to the temple to help my family receive all the ordinances of the temple and i explained the spirit i felt in that room when we did it that now gramps can receive exaltation too. and i really received a confirmation that they really need us and we really need them in order to be happy 1 here on earth and 2 in celestial glory (Gramps is my dad's dad.)

i got to go in like 2 minutes sorry i was a turd last week and didnt even write you guys.   I saw sister Stout (Bryce) this week and gave her a blessing. it was awesome. Im glad to hear that rex is doing good. she served in that same ward like 30 years ago!! I love how the lord did that haha
hey i got to go now but bye love you guys 

June 6, 2016

hey mom

haha i love dallin haha but hey we cooked a giant fish this morning cause this guy gave it to us it is really big and we couldnt even finish it haha

well shoot i missed ya well ill catch ya guys next week

Yep...that was it.

May 30, 2016

So this week was District conference ps district is like a stake but with all branches instead of wards and the mission president is incharge of all the districts here so he was presiding and it was amazing they talked a ton about being self sufficient spiritually and temporally and he talked about scritpure study, temple attendence, tithing and fasting and it was amazing if we keep these comandments we dont need to worry about the money the relationship in family we will know what to do. he talked about first you have to know what these things are then we have to understand them and the only way we can do that is by trying them out then we have to have the faith sufficant to recieve them and that is believing with a true desire that god can bless us, after that comes the change our lifes will be different and we will have more confidence and will be able to overcome challenges that we face.  and slowly we will build a strong house upon the rock which is Christ the lord.  I love this gospel i know this church is the one true church on the face of the earth i love studing the scriptures and fasting with true prayer and i love Ecuador!!!

ok well i have to go now keep remembering to keep the sabbath day holy and always and always try to find the spirit of the lord in everyday and try to feel the peace that it provides especially sunday cause that the lords not ours

May 23, 2016

also i dont know what to do my teeth and going to be crooked ahhhhhhhh i dont know what to do i dont have my retainers.  also i had to take a 3 hour bus ride to guayquil this week so the doctor could look at my foot cause the regular medice from the famacia doesnt work anymore so i had to get a bunch of subscrition for abunch of cream stuff but its already getting beter

ya there is a giant corn here but its kinda far from my house so i dont know if ill be able to take a pic with it but ill try.

its really cool that old guy that i said we took to church that was cripled really likes the church!!!! he is super dope!!! he said if you guys tell me i need to be babtised ill get babtised hah but its not good cause he need to have a better testimonio than that before babtism with joseph smith and that this is the only true church. but i love him to death!!! hah. he cant read} but i have to go now love you bye!!!!
 

Large Corn in the Middle of the city of Ventanas

May 16, 2016

Sorry i have not writen in a while but im still alive!! haha So in Babahoyo i had and experience that was super cool. so the bishop in our ward was showing us a few houses with less active people and we were looking for this family that the bishop felt that could be reactivated with in 3 months so we went looking and looking and we were like crossing ponds and the bishops wife had heels on so she was freaking out haha but is all good anyway we were probably looking for a good hour and asking people  where the house was and we asked this dood and i had a really strong impression to share somthing with him about the church and turned out he was a preacher in another church and he started yelling at us and stuff like mormons are wrong and stuff so i was like ok that sucked and we started to walk away when this lady comes out of no where is was like hey wait wait!!  And she was the lady that we were looking for!!!!  her house was kinda far away from where we were but she said so looked out the window and saw a dood with tie and a white church and she thought now they cant be form my church they are talking to that preacher guy they must be missionaries of his church but she said somthing told her to look back so she did and she wasnt sure so she decied to come and talk to us that is why so was yelling wait and stuff!! so i beleive that is was the spririt that told me to talk to the preacher guy that turned out to not want anything so that she could see us and talk to us. Turns out she has a lot a problems in the family with her husband and its really sad cause he thinks she cheated on him and stuff but we talked and we told them the only way that things were going to get better is if they start going to church again and reading as a family and praying as a family and they went to church that sunday!! then i got transfered!!! ahhhhh!! hah no its all good now im here in Ventanas and i love it here!! my companion is from las vegas!! he is super dope and played football and stuff and was super swoll before the mish but he lost it all cause he has almost been out here for 2 years now and is going home in july but we are having alot of fun here we weeled a cripled dood to church last sunday and he said he liked it and would like to come every week if we come and pick him up every week!!! im down with that he is a super sweet guy!!  he has diatbeetys so he lost both feet and one arm so he doesnt to much with his life anymore but we are going to help him out

i know god and my savior live and know they loves me and their children i know that is is the true church and that joseph smith was a profet called to restor the church of god and he did a great job!!! i know im here today cause of him!!!

After this FANTABULOUS letter, we couldn't seem to go back and forth.  His emails were coming at weird times of the day, but we did get a short little nugget toward the afternoon, long after he was on the computer.  I had asked him a couple of questions:

*Was this a normal time for transfers?  We have lost track of normal transfer times.  the normal time is sunday night like a 11 in the night i dont know why because it sucks to start packing that late but that is how it is.  i left at 9 oclock in the morning so i slept a good 4 hours or so haha
*Are you still a district leader? I'm guessing not?  Well i wasnt this whole week and i kinda enjoyed it haha cause Elder mecham was district leader and all i did was help but we got a call from the zone leaders today and they said that now im going to be the district leader and that Elder mecham is training me to be a zone leader.  so i got to enjoy being a lesser companion for a week but back to the grind.

May 9, 2016

May 8, 2016-Mother's Day

We didn't know what time he would call on Mother's Day so we spent the day waiting close to our ipads and phones.  We got this message at about 345pm at church.  We breathed a sigh of relief to finally know:

ok thanks im going to call in 1 hour

 

After talking for about 5 minutes or so, the wifi in his area gave out and we couldn't get him back for anything more than a sentence or two.  But he blurted out that he would call on Monday at 4pm.

 

 

May 9, 2016-Second Mother's Day

We were all set at 4pm, and he emailed this:

hey ill call in like 45 mins

That turned into a little over an hour. But he called at about 515 and we had a GREAT visit - for about 30 minutes.  Then the brother of his companion logged into his account, which Caleb was using, and kicked Caleb off.  We were never really able to get back on at that point, so we called it good.  Maybe saying good-bye is overrated!

He sent this after a while of trying to get him back:

thanks love you guys too the thing i was going to say was all of you guys look really old like cammie already looks like a teenager haha no im joking but it is really wierd for me haha but tell them all that i love them and sorry.

 

 

The craziest part of these phone calls wasn't even the fact that the wifi wasn't cooperating.  It's that on Sunday night, after we had spoken with him in Babahoyo, he received a call from the office.  He was told to pack up and catch the bus to Ventanas, north of Babahoyo.  He got transferred between phone calls!!!  Never would have expected that!  His new companion is Elder Mecham from Las Vegas.  His first gringo!  Elder Mecham goes home in July. New adventures!