Weekly Update

Hey everyone! Sorry I'm writing a little earlier than usual.  I am in Puerto Montt right now. We have a special conference with Elder Viñas of the Seventy tomorrow so we had to come up from Quellon a day early and have our pday here.  The best part of that is that there is a McDonald's here! I ate the first Big Mac I have had since the Dallas airport the day I left and it reminded me of why I never ate there before the mission, I feel terrible right now! Haha guess I had forgotten in the last fourteen months but it was nice to have a little taste of America.

So this week we had transfers and I am now training my second son on the mission, Elder Arp.  He is from Twin Falls Idaho and went to the Mexico MTC almost exactly a year after I did which is pretty cool.  Elder Dennis, who is training in Quellon as well, and I went up to Osorno on Tuesday to pick them up on Wednesday.  We were in the bus terminal waiting for an Elder to get in from the south and I had to watch like 10 buses leave for Rio Bueno, I was so tempted to just hop on one and go say hi to everyone.  I resisted but the cool thing is that I ran into Julio, the ward mission leader there and my best Chilean friend in the terminal, as well as Elder Walker who I haven't seen in a while.

It's been a bit of a tough week to start out this transfer.  The 18 of September, the Chilean Independence Day is coming up (I can't believe this is my second one in the mission!) so it seems like everyone has started their vacations early. We actually haven't been able to contact most of our awesome investigators this week.  We were a little dissapointed about that, especially me as I'm trying to give my new companion a good impression of the mission, so we decided to go to a less active member's house to see how they were doing.  Well lo and behold Yohana and our other awesome investigator, Jorge were there hanging out.  Big time miracle, we were able to see how they were doing and Elder Arp taught his first lesson of the mission.  Hopefully this week will be more busy.

Hope you all have a great dieciocho.  I know I will eating tons of empanadas and grilled meat.  Love you all!

Elder Cameron Dower

We Are Free!

You may be wondering what the heck that subject line means so I'll explain first.  This week the fishermen of the island of Chiloe have been on strike.  Basically the amount of a certain type of shellfish they have been approved to take out is about to run out.  They had been told it would take another month to finish it, so they were all about to be out of a job for a month. So, in order to make their position known, they grouped together and blocked off the highway for the past week.  Thus for the past week no one has been able to get into or leave the city of Quellon.  This was a little worrying for us as transfers are this week (more on that later) and we wouldn't be able to leave for that. As my companion, Elder Cummens says, we were basically under siege. Well the four of us down here decided to fast yesterday that the strike would end and we would be able to leave for transfers.  All of the members told us that it wasn't going to open until maybe Wednesday.  Well we ended our fast and about three hours later we heard that the strike had ended and we would be able to leave.  Just another experience among many that has strengthened my testimony of fasting.

So you're all probably wondering why we would have to leave for transfers.  Well Saturday morning I got a call from President Obeso telling me that I will be training again this cambio! I'm super excited to have my second son on the mission. He's a gringo named Elder Arp.  About five minutes after, President called Elder Dennis and told him that he is going to train too.  I'm really excited to have two people training in the same house.  Funny story with that, Elder Dennis is a huge prankster. Friday night while I wasn't paying attention, he got into our phone and switched the number listed under President to their number, he then went into the bathroom and called our phone.  It started ringing with President's ringtone and said that he was calling us.  I got really excited and yelled "guys, President's calling!" I also had just taken a bite of a super dry cookie and decided to spit it out in order to talk to President easier. I answered and heard only laughing on the other end.  Needless to say, I felt quite foolish haha.

This week has been really great.  Yohana is progressing pretty well, we were actually able to meet her parents the other day and teach with them there.  They're really nice, and even though they are catholic and have no desire to change religion (if I had a dime for every time I've heard that in the past 14 months...) they have no problem with their daughter going to our church.

Hope life is great for everyone.  It sure is down here.  Have a great week and I'll see you all later!

Love, Elder Cameron Dower

Wake Me Up When September Ends‏

Haha I'm chuckling over my clever subject line because it's September today and I'm really tired this morning! Hey everyone! Hope you are all doing fantastic and enjoying life, I sure am!  This has been a really great week for us down here and I'm really loving it.

This week we got to start teaching Yohanna, the sister of one of the members here.  She is super receptive and excited to learn.  We were able to put her with date to be baptized the 27 of September, I'm really excited for that.  The young women in this branch are awesome and are always inviting their friends to the church which is awesome and really helps us out a ton.  Now if we can just get some of the adults going, we'll be golden.  Friday we had a fun "Minute to Win it" activity and Yohanna came along with some other friends of the youth.  One of them, Jorge, came to church and we have an appointment to teach him as well on Wednesday. I'm hoping we will be able to put him with a date as well and get them progressing and to the church this week.  So be praying for the everyone!

So other interesting news is that the highway between Quellòn and Castro, has been in construction for a couple years now, and now the workers there are going on strike (there is always a strike going on down here, I'm just glad it's not the mail again).  This means that we won't be able to go anywhere until it ends, so I won't have to go to Castro tomorrow! The interesting thing is that we have transfers this next week so there might be a possibility of us all staying here another transfer for that haha.

Well hope you all have a great week, thanks for all your support and prayers, love you all!

Elder Cameron Dower

Week of Bus Rides and Miracles!‏

Hey everyone!  Hope you've all had a great week and are enjoying what is left of summer back in Utah.  This week has been really interesting here in Quellon, a little bit of everything.

To start, last Tuesday we had our zone conference in Castro with Presidente Obeso.  It was really great to hear his vision for the mission.  I love seeing and feeling his faith that he has for the future of the mission, it makes me more excited to work and get things going down here in Osorno. We had to leave Quellon at 6 40 in the morning to catch the first bus up to Castro, and in the hurry to get to the bus I forgot my papers to do the stuff for my visa.  Thus after the conference we had to go on a bus back to Quellon for two hours, then two hours back to Castro where we stayed the night with the zone leaders.  The assistants to the president, who had done exchanges there the night before gave us a ride four hours to Osorno. I was really grateful to be able to go in a car and not a bus, it was much faster and much more comfortable. The sweet thing was that in Osorno I got to buy REAL AMERICAN PEANUT BUTTER!!!! Which has made me very happy this week.  We then got on the bus back to Quellon and arrived here at 11 that night.  In total we were traveling about 18 hours between the two days.

So this week Elder Cummens and I have been really focused on getting investigators to church.  We invited and reminded literally EVERYONE, then went by to remind them again Sunday morning before church (no one answered) and no one had showed up at church which was very dissapointing, until I realized that a recent convert had brought her 16 year old sister to church who has expressed desires to be baptized!  We will begin teaching her this wednesday.  It was really cool to see the hand of the Lord helping us out.

Well hope you all have a great week,  you are the best, I love you all!

Elder Cameron Dower

Questions from Dad this week:

What did you do last Monday?
What did you do on Tuesday?
What did you do on Wednesday?
What did you do on Thursday?
What did you do on Friday?
What service were you able to do this week?
Did you have any investigators at church this week?

Monday we went to Castro to get some of the papers I needed for my visa there, when we got back we got a pichanga (french fries with beef, chicken, sausage, tomato, avocado, and cheese all together, delicious) with the other elders and wrote home in the church.  Tuesday we had zone conference and Wednesday we went to Osorno (more details in the big email) Basically Thursday and Friday we spent trying to get back in the swing of things and contact all of our investigators.  We are always able to do some type of service cutting fire wood for people, specifically older people and single mothers who don't have someone else to do it.  We had Joanna, the sister of a member in church this last week, she looks really promising for baptism next month.  Well have a great week, talk to ya next week.

Weekly Update‏


Hey everyone! How's it going? It's been a really good week here in Quellón Chile.  As I'm sitting here I'm trying to think of what has actually has happened this week and I'm drawing a blank.

It's rained a ton this week. On Friday we had an activity in the church, after we had to walk about an hour to our appointment, it was raining a ton and there was a ton of wind so we couldn't use our umbrellas. Well, the appointment fell so we headed back to the main part of the sector.  Luckily, a member just passed by in a taxi, and let us hitch a ride, which saved us another half hour walking in the rain.  Sweet to see that the Lord was mindful of his two poor, rain drenched missionaries.

Well we currently have a record of six appointments falling in a row.  It's been cool to see how the Lord has prepared our path this week though.  Each appointment we've had a member with us and to be honest, it is the worse feeling ever to have a member with you and have the appointment fall and feel like you're just wasting the member's time.  But the Lord put something better in our path and we were able to find and teach other people, which we've been needing to do anyway.

So I learned that I need to not complain so much because last week I complained about having to travel by bus so much.  Well last week I found out that I need to get things going for my second visa.  So tomorrow after Zone Conference, Elder Cummens and I get to go all the way to Osorno to get that taken care of.  It'll be a total of 16 hours of bus rides in these next two days. O fun!

Well, that's all I've got this week.  Sorry for the lame update haha.  Hope you all have a great week. Love you all!

Elder Cameron Dower

Week Two in Quellón‏

Hey everyone! I'm emailing later today because today we got to go on a zone trip to Quelín, a little town here in Chiloé that has some sweet beach.  I'm exhausted from being on a bus most of today because we had to go from here to Castro which was two hours, an hour and a half to Quelín then another hour and a half to Castro and three hours back to Quellón, so I was on a bus for about eight hours today.  What's more, every Tuesday I now get to go to Castro, which is the main city here in Chiloé for a leadership meeting in the zone, so I get to do it all over again tomorrow.  I don't mean to complain, that's just the main thing on my mind right now haha.

We've had a pretty good week this week. Quellón for whatever reason hasn't had a baptism in quite some time, so it's become my job here to find out how to fix that problem.  So we're at a little bit of a rebuilding point right now here, trying to figure out who will be progressing and who really doesn't want to, and finding new people.  I'm taking it as a bit of a personal challenge to fix things here.  I feel that after my experiences in Rio Bueno, I now really know that it is possible to baptize here so we will be working super hard these coming weeks in order to accomplish that goal.

I've been thinking a lot about the challenges that we have here in the mission. As I may have mentioned before, this mission isn't really one that baptizes that much, but as I've thought about that I've realized that that really only has to do with our point of view.  Most of us are used to the "normal" being just that, not a ton of success, so we accept it.  But if we change that we realize that it doesn't have to be that way.  We just need to follow the counsels we have recieved from the prophets in Preach My Gospel and apply them as best as we can and realize that as the Lord is hastening His work, Satan is as well, which means that we need to work that much harder in order to do what we need to.

Thanks everyone for your support and prayers, they mean the world to me!

Elder Cameron Dower

Week one in Quellon‏

Hola todos!

Well here we are after my first week here in Quellon.  It's been a pretty interesting week trying to get used to this place after so much time in Rio Bueno.  I guess it feels kinda similar to how I felt after so much time in Punta Arenas and then going to Rio Bueno, so I'm sure after some time I'll get used to it.  Having said that, it was really tough to leave my beloved Rio Bueno. On Monday I had my last lesson with Hernan and Carolina and said goodbye to them.  Tuesday I went out to the country one last time to visit Paty and her family.  Then we went back to the church for my goodbye party.  I'm gonna send a picture of that but let's just say that I cried the most that I have since I was set apart as a missionary.  About fifty people showed up and went by one by one to say goodbye to me.

Good Bye Rio Bueno

Rio Bueno Mamita, Papito and family

After that, we went back home, I packed my bags and Wednesday early in the morning I said goodbye to Rio Bueno.  The trip to Quellon lasted from 8:00 in the morning to about 7:00 at night so needless to say I was exhausted when we finally got here.  My new companion is Elder Cummens from North Carolina.  He has about ten months in the mission and has been in Quellon for three months.  The cool thing about this area is that we live in a house with another companionship so there are four of us, which is really fun. Elder Fotheringham (it's really funny to hear Chileans try to say his name) is from Salt Lake and Elder Dennis is from Manti.  We have a lot of fun all together.

Well that's about it for this week.  I'll have more to tell about Quellon next week.  Thanks everyone for your support and prayers. Have a great week!

Elder Cameron Dower


1. Were you able to tell the members and investigators good bye before you left Rio Bueno?
Yea they had a party for me and the Hermana that was leaving as well so we got to say goodbye.  It made me laugh because the young women in the branch each had to take like twenty pictures with me so I was taking pictures with everyone all night haha.
2. Tell us about you travel to the new location.  How long was it?  Were you with other missionaries?  what was the bus like?  What was the ferry like?
We had to go to Osorno first, then to Puerto Montt, then a six and a half hour bus ride to get to Quellon.  It was looooong.
3. What is your house like?  Does is have a clean bathroom?  Kitchen?  Is it a separate building?
The house is really nice, it's bigger because there are four of us there, we cleaned it really nice today which was easier with the four of us.
4. Will you have a mamita?
Yes we have a mamita, she's really nice.
5. How many members are in the branch/ward?
We had about 60 yesterday in church.