¡Feliz Halloween!
So I really wish there was a cooler way to say happy halloween in spanish, but there isn't, at least not in Chile haha. Hey everyone! How are you all this fine day? We've had a pretty great week this last week down here in Quellon.
Last Monday we enjoyed a nice relaxing afternoon playing ping pong in the church building. I don't think I've ever mentioned that ping pong is a pretty popular sport down here and just about every church building in this mission has a table, so my skills have improved quite a bit in the past 15 months.
We had transfers this week, but luckily all of us in Quellon will be staying here another six weeks. Also, my old companion, Elder Walker is coming into the zone in another area as well. It'll be cool to catch up with him this week.
Thursday we did a really cool service project and chopped a ton of firewood for a couple in our sector. It took all four of us to do it and we took a few hours to finish all of it, but it was a great feeling of satisfaction to see all the big giant logs turn into a bunch of little ones haha.
Best news of the week is that we were able to have a great lesson with Yohana and she accepted a baptismal date for next month. I really believe she can make it with this one as long as she keeps doing the simple things like reading and praying and going to church. Keep her in your prayers!
Well thanks everyone for all your prayers and support, once again, you are the best! I love you all, see you next week.
Elder Cameron Dower
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Hey everyone!
Happy Monday everyone! Here we are once again at the end of another week. We've had a really fun, interesting week this week, but I'm really enjoying being here on the mission. So remember how I got strept throat a couple weeks ago, well apparantly it really was contagious because Elder Dennis who lives in the same house with us got it this week as well and was out for a couple of days. So I had to split my time between working with my companion in our area and working with Elder Hardy, his companion in their area. It was a lot of work but the week ended really well. The Assistants to the Mission President came down this weekend to go to church with us and taught us a lot and I'm really excited for this next week.
Ok well really sorry for the short update this week but I really have no clue what else to say haha. Hope you all have a fantastic week, thanks for everything! Love you all!
Elder Cameron Dower
Happy Monday everyone! Here we are once again at the end of another week. We've had a really fun, interesting week this week, but I'm really enjoying being here on the mission. So remember how I got strept throat a couple weeks ago, well apparantly it really was contagious because Elder Dennis who lives in the same house with us got it this week as well and was out for a couple of days. So I had to split my time between working with my companion in our area and working with Elder Hardy, his companion in their area. It was a lot of work but the week ended really well. The Assistants to the Mission President came down this weekend to go to church with us and taught us a lot and I'm really excited for this next week.
Ok well really sorry for the short update this week but I really have no clue what else to say haha. Hope you all have a fantastic week, thanks for everything! Love you all!
Elder Cameron Dower
Monday, October 13, 2014
Weekly Update
Hey everyone! Again, I can't believe how fast this week has gone by! Seriously it's crazy! We've had a really awesome week and I'm feeling really happy right now!
Highlights from the week are that on Thursday the zone leaders came down to do divisions in Quellon with my companion and I. So I got to spend the day working with Elder Jalen Jacobson, from the good old Syracuse West Stake. I've known him since I'm pretty sure when we moved into Syracuse so it was really cool. We had a great day and got tons of work done. We had an awesome lesson with Yohanna and I think she finally is going to get back with baptismal date this week, stay tuned for that. She also came to church yesterday which was awesome. I'm excited to see what happens this week.
We also had interviews with President Obeso this Friday. It was really awesome to talk with him about how I can do better as a missionary and a trainer and also to be better at seeing my own strengths and capitalizing on those. Overall, I'm super excited to be here right now.
So that's about it for this week, sorry for the short update but thanks everyone for the support and love, you are all the best. Love you all!
Elder Cameron Dower
Hey everyone! Again, I can't believe how fast this week has gone by! Seriously it's crazy! We've had a really awesome week and I'm feeling really happy right now!
Highlights from the week are that on Thursday the zone leaders came down to do divisions in Quellon with my companion and I. So I got to spend the day working with Elder Jalen Jacobson, from the good old Syracuse West Stake. I've known him since I'm pretty sure when we moved into Syracuse so it was really cool. We had a great day and got tons of work done. We had an awesome lesson with Yohanna and I think she finally is going to get back with baptismal date this week, stay tuned for that. She also came to church yesterday which was awesome. I'm excited to see what happens this week.
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| Syracuse boys in Chile. Elder Jacobson and Cam |
We also had interviews with President Obeso this Friday. It was really awesome to talk with him about how I can do better as a missionary and a trainer and also to be better at seeing my own strengths and capitalizing on those. Overall, I'm super excited to be here right now.
So that's about it for this week, sorry for the short update but thanks everyone for the support and love, you are all the best. Love you all!
Elder Cameron Dower
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| bridge to paseo |
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| Chileo zone activity |
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Conference and Strept Throat
Well first off, sorry for writing a little later today and probably giving you a heart attack Mom. We went on a zone trip to this little tiny island here on Chiloe. There's a little 200 yard wooden bridge leading out to it and it has nothing but an old run down catholic church and cementary on it. Might sound wierd but it was super cool and I got tons of cool pictures. But because of that I'm short on time so I'll try to get as much in as quick as possible here.
So last Monday I came down with a cold towards the end of the day. It got to the point that my throat was killing me by Wednesday so I decided to call the mission nurse to see if there was something I could take for it. She informed me that I had strept throat and because I was contagious, I couldn't leave the house until 24 hours after taking the antibiotic. The problem was, the zone leaders in Castro had the antibiotic and weren't going to make it down until the next day. So poor little me and my companion were stuck in the house with nothing to do for two days, me with a very painful throat. Luckily my awesome family had just sent me a package with gringo hot chocolate and a super comfy U of U blanket to keep me company. And now I feel perfectly fine!
Conference was awesome! Unfortunately we weren't able to get much of it in English because we could only get one very slow connection in the church building, but luckily I understand Spanish now! The connection was really bad though and we were literally in the church building all of Saturday because it stopped so often it would take us four hours to watch a session. So I can't really tell you a ton of specifics on my favorite talks because I loved all of them. Really what I got out of it was a lot of excitement to do a lot of things better than I am. As members of the church we shouldn't be content with just being here. We have a lot of potential to do good in this world and serve our Heavenly Father. That is why we are here and He has given us everything in order to be able to do so. I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father who loves us so much to give us this wonderful plan of salvation and for the opportunity I have to be here on the mission and have all these opportunities to grow and progress and reach my potential. Thanks everyone for all of your support. Have a fantastic week.
Love,
Elder Cameron Dower
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Who's excited for Conference this week? I am!
Hey everyone, hope you've all had a fantastic week. It's been a nice rainy one down here in Quellòn Chile and we're enjoying it. I really cannot believe that it's already almost October, this will be my third general conference on the mission, only one more left! It also marks two years since President Monson announced the age change. I remember being at cross country practice when Jeff Reed who was listening to the conference on the radio told us that we were gonna be allowed to leave on the mission at 18 instead of 19 and my buddies Landon, Parker, Tom and I all realized that that meant we could have our mission calls a few months from that, Well here we are two years later in Taiwan, Indiana and Chile past a year in the mission field. So much has changed in the past couple years I can't believe it.
Well as far as the work goes this last week has been pretty slow. The branch had their annual temple trip to Santiago and were gone all week long. We weren't able to teach most of our investigators as a result. We ended up having probably the lowest week of my mission as far as numbers go which has been really frustrating. But now we are starting a new week. That is what I love about the mission. As soon as Monday comes around we can forget about all of the challenges and difficulties of the last week and start all over. I guess it's the same way in life. Each day, each week, each month is an opportunity to start over thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We are able to put the past behind us and move forward with faith that as long as we are doing our best, everything will work out fine.
Well sorry for such a short update but I hope you all have a great week, I love you all!
Elder Cameron Dower
Hey everyone, hope you've all had a fantastic week. It's been a nice rainy one down here in Quellòn Chile and we're enjoying it. I really cannot believe that it's already almost October, this will be my third general conference on the mission, only one more left! It also marks two years since President Monson announced the age change. I remember being at cross country practice when Jeff Reed who was listening to the conference on the radio told us that we were gonna be allowed to leave on the mission at 18 instead of 19 and my buddies Landon, Parker, Tom and I all realized that that meant we could have our mission calls a few months from that, Well here we are two years later in Taiwan, Indiana and Chile past a year in the mission field. So much has changed in the past couple years I can't believe it.
Well as far as the work goes this last week has been pretty slow. The branch had their annual temple trip to Santiago and were gone all week long. We weren't able to teach most of our investigators as a result. We ended up having probably the lowest week of my mission as far as numbers go which has been really frustrating. But now we are starting a new week. That is what I love about the mission. As soon as Monday comes around we can forget about all of the challenges and difficulties of the last week and start all over. I guess it's the same way in life. Each day, each week, each month is an opportunity to start over thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We are able to put the past behind us and move forward with faith that as long as we are doing our best, everything will work out fine.
Well sorry for such a short update but I hope you all have a great week, I love you all!
Elder Cameron Dower
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| Cameron and Elder Arp with the other new missionaries and trainers |
Monday, September 22, 2014
Happy 18th of September!
Ok well actually it's the 22nd of September, but this week we celebrated Chilean Independance day the 18th and 19th of September. the 18th was pretty boring since we weren't allowed to work so we got the house cleaned really well and just hung out. The 19th was a lot more fun, we had our branch activity that day. We made "anticucho" which is basically a bunch of meat grilled on a shishkabob, and "sopaipillas" which is fried bread with salsa. We played a ton of games which was a lot of fun, sack races (I won!), a game similar to dodgeball, and a bunch of others. For those of you who know how competitive I can get with stuff like that will understand how I was pretty worn out by the end of that day and may have possibly injured my knee (don't worry, it feels fine now). But I had more fun than I think I have my entire mission, it was a blast.
So Tuesday we had our conference with Elder Viñas. Monday night my companion and I got to help the assistants to the president set up the church where we had it and clean it up. We had to fill up a bucket to mop the floor in the hallway, but the bucket wouldn't fit into the sink, so we devised the brilliant idea of using the emergency firehose to fill it up. What we didn't know is that once we had filled it up we had to drain all the water out of the hose that had remained there. We spent about another hour trying to get the hose put back into its place. We were laughing pretty hard.
The conference was really great. Something that called my attention that Elder Viñas said was that in the mission, and in life, sometimes we need to learn to "sufrir con gozo" or "suffer with joy." The mission, and life, is hard, sometimes more so than others, but that is part of the plan that our Heavenly Father made for us, that we would have to pass through difficult times in order to learn and grow and progress. Difficult doesn't necessarily mean bad, nor does it mean that we can't be happy during the difficult times in life. We can "suffer with joy" and be happy during every moment of our life because we know that the Atonement of Christ is real and that He can help us overcome any challenge that comes to us. He will never throw something at us that we can't handle with His help. And because of His Atonement, as long as we are putting in the effort to follow Him and keep His commandments, we can have the peace and calm of knowing that everything will be alright, not easy, but alright. I have a testimony of this, I know that through Christ, we really can pass through every moment of every day of our lives, being happy.
Have a great week everyone, hope you are all doing great. Thanks for all of your support, it really is a great feeling to get in here each Monday and see all of your emails, it means more to me than I could ever express. Be Happy!
Elder Cameron Dower
Answers to Questions
1-7. What did you do each day this week? (Mon, Tue etc.)
1. Mon. went to Puerto Montt hung out in the mall, helped AP's set up the church.
2. Tues. Conference, returned to Quellón at like 10:00 at night.
3. Wed. Big service project, we chopped eight meters of firewood between the 4 of us.
4. Thurs. 18th, cleaned the house, played ping pong in the church, really boring.
5 .Fri. Branch activity, tons of food and fun in the church all day
6 .Sat. Worked to find all our investigators again, taught Yohana.
7 .Sun. Church, training, lesson with recent convert family.
8. Package?
8. I got my package!!! Thank you soo much! I've been wearing my Sanuks around the house whenever we aren't out working and tell Madi I LOVE that blanket, it's awesome!
9. What is your favorite meal so far?
9. Pastel de Papas, it's delicious!
Glad you enjoyed the temple dedication, sad I missed it. We'll all have to go when I get back.
Love you all, Cam
Ok well actually it's the 22nd of September, but this week we celebrated Chilean Independance day the 18th and 19th of September. the 18th was pretty boring since we weren't allowed to work so we got the house cleaned really well and just hung out. The 19th was a lot more fun, we had our branch activity that day. We made "anticucho" which is basically a bunch of meat grilled on a shishkabob, and "sopaipillas" which is fried bread with salsa. We played a ton of games which was a lot of fun, sack races (I won!), a game similar to dodgeball, and a bunch of others. For those of you who know how competitive I can get with stuff like that will understand how I was pretty worn out by the end of that day and may have possibly injured my knee (don't worry, it feels fine now). But I had more fun than I think I have my entire mission, it was a blast.
So Tuesday we had our conference with Elder Viñas. Monday night my companion and I got to help the assistants to the president set up the church where we had it and clean it up. We had to fill up a bucket to mop the floor in the hallway, but the bucket wouldn't fit into the sink, so we devised the brilliant idea of using the emergency firehose to fill it up. What we didn't know is that once we had filled it up we had to drain all the water out of the hose that had remained there. We spent about another hour trying to get the hose put back into its place. We were laughing pretty hard.
The conference was really great. Something that called my attention that Elder Viñas said was that in the mission, and in life, sometimes we need to learn to "sufrir con gozo" or "suffer with joy." The mission, and life, is hard, sometimes more so than others, but that is part of the plan that our Heavenly Father made for us, that we would have to pass through difficult times in order to learn and grow and progress. Difficult doesn't necessarily mean bad, nor does it mean that we can't be happy during the difficult times in life. We can "suffer with joy" and be happy during every moment of our life because we know that the Atonement of Christ is real and that He can help us overcome any challenge that comes to us. He will never throw something at us that we can't handle with His help. And because of His Atonement, as long as we are putting in the effort to follow Him and keep His commandments, we can have the peace and calm of knowing that everything will be alright, not easy, but alright. I have a testimony of this, I know that through Christ, we really can pass through every moment of every day of our lives, being happy.
Have a great week everyone, hope you are all doing great. Thanks for all of your support, it really is a great feeling to get in here each Monday and see all of your emails, it means more to me than I could ever express. Be Happy!
Elder Cameron Dower
Answers to Questions
1-7. What did you do each day this week? (Mon, Tue etc.)
1. Mon. went to Puerto Montt hung out in the mall, helped AP's set up the church.
2. Tues. Conference, returned to Quellón at like 10:00 at night.
3. Wed. Big service project, we chopped eight meters of firewood between the 4 of us.
4. Thurs. 18th, cleaned the house, played ping pong in the church, really boring.
5 .Fri. Branch activity, tons of food and fun in the church all day
6 .Sat. Worked to find all our investigators again, taught Yohana.
7 .Sun. Church, training, lesson with recent convert family.
8. Package?
8. I got my package!!! Thank you soo much! I've been wearing my Sanuks around the house whenever we aren't out working and tell Madi I LOVE that blanket, it's awesome!
9. Pastel de Papas, it's delicious!
Glad you enjoyed the temple dedication, sad I missed it. We'll all have to go when I get back.
Love you all, Cam
Monday, September 15, 2014
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
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.
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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
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