Merry almost Christmas!!!‏


Wow this has been another super busy week for us down here! Hope you are all enjoying this Christmas season, I definitely am.  Something about the spirit of Christmas make missionary work go a lot better.

So I may have mentioned last week, I don't remember, that we had interviews with president on Wednesday and then an activity with President Obeso and his wife.  We went a little late with the interviews on Wednesday so instead of interviewing us last, he treated us to lunch at McDonald's.  It was pretty funny because my companion is Elder McDonald, so he told the cashier that we were with the owner's son and they had to give us the meal for free.  It was really nice and fun, but strange to be with the mission president and his wife in McDonalds.  After we did exchanges with a couple elders in the zone, Elder Marsden from New Mexico started the mission with me and we were both trained in Punta Arenas so it was pretty fun to be back together.

Thursday we had the activity with President.  We had planned to sing in a choir in the plaza and contact people giving out Christmas cookies.  Well the whole thing basically fell apart at the last minute because the city didn't give us permission to use the plaza, so we were left hanging and as zone leaders we were responsible for organizing the whole thing.  I cannot remember being so stressed in my life, I literally went crazy. In the end we contacted a member who has a preschool/daycare who brought the kids and we sang for them and gave them cookies.  It worked out ok in the end, but definitely not as good as we wanted, but we learned a lot from it.

We're really excited for Christmas down here.  We're going to have a really special Christmas this year.  Our investigator, Fransisco, is going to be baptized on Christmas day! Fransisco is twelve years old and his family is really awesome. I'm really excited for him and for the blessing that it has been to work with him and his family.

Last thing, we have been working really hard in the zone lately to strengthen our relations with the members and work more united with them.  I wanted to ask, for those of you who are members, what makes you excited to do participate in the work of salvation and what would make you trust the missionaries more? For those of you who are missionaries, what have you done to strengthen your relations with the members and work together better?

Have a great week everyone! I love you!

Elder Cameron Dower

Week one in Valdivia!

Hey everyone!

Well here we are in my new area. I am in the city of Valdivia which is the biggest city i have been in so far in my mission and it's way different from Quellón, it's HOT! I haven't gone out to work without a jacket in so long but here I've never needed one so far. My new companion is Elder McDonald and we've been having a lot of fun. There are two zones here in Valdivia and we are over the zone of Calle Calle (that's cai-yay, cai-yay) which is part of the city and a couple little towns to the south. We have some awesome missionaries here and I'm excited to be able to serve them.

So the members here must have known about my awesome Thanksgiving dinner a couple weeks ago because my second day here we had a ward activity with a nice Thanksgiving dinner.  It wasn't quite the same as back home but much better than a turkey sandwhich haha. We had five investigators in the activity, which made me super excited to be here and help the work progress.

 This week has been incredibly busy. I never knew how much stuff the zone leaders had to do in this mission. On Friday we had my first mission leadership conference which was awesome. I love every chance I get to recieve counsel from President and Hermana Obeso, they are the best. We actually got to sit by them for lunch and they talked to me all about the food they have in Mexico but all I could think is how much I'd  just love a nice Cafe Rio burrito haha. President also talked to me about this zone and stake that I'm in now and how much help it needs, it's one of the weakest stakes of the mision, he said, but it really does have a ton of potencial. No pressure right? I've felt a little overwhelmed with all these new responsibilties that I am getting the hang of, but something he said has helped me have more confidence in myself. He said that the first day he was in the mission and interviewed me in Rio Bueno he knew that one day I would be a zone leader.  Him saying that helped me remember that the Lord has put me here for a reason and will help me rise up to the challenges. None of this mission has been easy, but then again life was never meant to be easy. Through the challenges we learn and grow and become the people that God needs us to be. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here and become the person I need to be in order to further the Lord's work.

Thanks everyone for your love and support, have a nice week!

Elder Cameron Dower

Good Bye Quellòn!‏

Hey everyone! How's it going?! It's been a really great week for us here on the island of Chiloé.  We've been busy with a lot of things, this weekend we had our zone conference with President and Hermana Obeso as well as the district conference down here, so we stayed in Castro from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon.

So as you read in the subject line, we have transfers this week and I am leaving Quellón.  After the zone conference, President pulled me aside and asked me to serve as a zone leader in the city of Valdivia.  Valdivia is in the north of the mission and I'm really excited to serve there because it's one of the only bigger cities I haven't been to yet on the mission. My companion will be Elder McDonald from West Valley Utah.  We were actually in the same district when I was in Punta Arenas so it'll be great to serve with him.  So Wednesday will be another day full of bus rides since Valdivia is about 10-11 hours by bus from Quellón, but hopefully I'll be able to pass my friend Hermana Segura, who enters the mission this week.

Well hope you all have a fantastic week.  Talk to you next monday!

Love, Elder Dower

Here are some pictures we found of Cam's new area, Valdivia, Chile