week 68 Amo al Profeta!!

Hola familia, 

This week has been so stinkin awesome!! As a mission we have a goal to find 1400 new investigators for the month of October. It started yesterday and our zone is already off to a great start. We are setting dates like crazy and finding more people than ever. The lord is really blessing us as a zone and a mission. It's amazing to see so many people have a change of heart and come unto the gospel of Jesus Christ! We also were informed that we will be receiving Facebook next week as a mission as another tool to find and teach investigators. Tomorrow in MLC we will receive more information about it but it is going to be an exciting change. 

This past weekend while watching conference, I could feel the spirit testifying to me of the truthfulness of a living prophet and apostles on the earth today. I could sense their devine power and I'm so thankful for leaders that guide me in my life. As we were talking to people this week we brought the fact up a lot of a living prophet. Almost everybody found that very interesting and something that they would want in their life. As we testified of the reality of a living prophet, people's hearts were changed and I could feel the spirit working through me. I'm so thankful to be able to have the feeling of being a worthy representative of my savior Jesus Christ and that he always the spirit to work through me to help others. Even through all my imperfections. We have many potentials for this next week that are interested in learning more about a living prophet. We also had an awesome weekly planning session and have plans set out to further progress the work in our area. 

There was a couple themes that kept coming to mind as I listened to the talks this past weekend. One of them was the importance of not getting down on ourselves. Sometimes we think we aren't doing the best that we should or we aren't worthy of our heavenly fathers love. But in reality, our Heavenly Father always love us and as long as we have a willing heart and are continually trying our best each day, Heavenly Father is happy with us and will work through us to bless others. Another theme that I noticed was the importance of faith. Faith is a broad word that many people hear all the time but may not know exactly what that means. I learned in general conference that it means we have hope things will work out, even if things go wrong. I loved the example that Elder Donald L Hallstrom gave of the family in California. He said that he sensed that even if their father had passed away, the family would've had the faith that everything would be ok. They trusted in Heavenly Father. We can never forget that small but important principle. Even when times are hard and things seem to be crashing down around us, the lord is always by your side and as long as we trust him and have faith in him, things will workout. 

I love this gospel and I'm so grateful to be on a mission. I have realized lately that my time here is slowly coming to an end. I have about 7 months left and I'm going to make each moment count. Thank you for your support and prayers this past week. I love y'all and hope you have a good week!!

- Elder Cammack -

week 67

No letter, must be too busy

week 66 Baptism, Mission Conference, New comp, New area

Hey fam! This week was super busy and lots of changes happened! 

Elder Blackford and I were together until Thursday where we picked up our new companions! My new companion is Elder Gibby from Brigham City, UT. He is 6'6"!! He's so tall haha. It was so weird looking up to somebody to talk. I haven't done that since I came out here! He is pretty quiet but a super humble and smart guy. He took 5 years of Spanish before the mission so he already knows a ton. It's gonna be fun working together!

Elder Gibby and I are opening up a new area that hasn't been opened since I was here last! I was here in Louetta in may and when I left they took the Elders out and now I get to open it back up. We are starting from ground zero so it's going to be fun!! It's been super cool to see some members that I got pretty close with. This ward is seriously the best in the mission so I'm super excited! 

We had a mission conference this week on Friday. Elder Uceda and Elder Jones came to it. They both gave amazing talks but I specifically loved Elder Ucedas. He talked about Mathew 28:19. In English in the King James Version it says to teach all nations but in every other version of the Bible and in almost every other language it says to make disciples. He explained how we as missionaries are not here to just teach people but we are here to make disciples. It really impacted me and the spirit was super strong. Elder Uceda is now one of my favorites and has changed the way I look at missionary work. 

We are still helping out with houses that were affected by the floods. We worked on one yesterday that hasn't even been touched yet. It was full of mold and it was super gross haha. But we got it almost all the way done. I love helping people out even though the work is pretty tough. It's amazing to see people's hearts open as you serve them. 

The Llorente kids that I was teaching in the woodlands were baptized on Saturday but we got our car towed and so we weren't able to go :(. We arrived right after it ended but we were able to go to their house after and have some dinner. I'll send some pics from that.

We found one new inv this week. His name is Jose and he is excited to check the church out. We are excited to work with him. 

Love y'all and hope you had a good week. Talk to ya soon! 

- Elder Cammack -

week 65 A new challenge!

Hey everyone! We have been helping at a food distribution place for people that lost everything in the hurricane. It's been super awesome to be able to help there. I went on an exchange with a new elder in the mission named Elder Hadley. It was super fun. He is playing football at Weber state after the mission. He's a stud. The Llorente family kids will be baptized this weekend so we've been trying to get that all figured out. We are excited for them to be baptized. We went to a sick taco place this week that I'll send a pic of. We got some secret insights for transfers this week. I will be transferred out and opening a new area and training. It's gonna be a challenge but I'm excited for it. The lord always prepares those that he calls. This week we will be helping out at the temple fixing it up. It was destroyed in the hurricane. Im sorry this is super short but we are super busy today! Hope everything is good over there. Love y'all! 

Elder Cammack

week 64

Hey everybody! This week our pday got switched to today because of Labor Day and the floods so that we could go out with members and help! This week has been the most busy and tiring week of my mission. Everyday we have been working all day. It's like the whole mission is on pause and we are just all doing service. It has been so awesome to be able to help all these people. 

On Wednesday we were finally given permission to leave our apartments and we went right out to help with houses. It was so sad to see all the wreckage from the hurricane. We had a really cool experience that day. We were helping a member with their house and a couple elders and I decided to go start walking down the road to see who needed help. Everybody on the streets houses were destroyed. It was weird cause it was like we were tracting but to do service instead haha. The first house we got to, a lady let us right in and we started taking everything out. We did her house for a couple hours and then left and went to the next house and did the same thing. We tore everything up. The owner was an older man who lived by himself. He lost everything and had no idea what he was going to do. We fixed up his whole house the rest of the day and you could see the tears in his eyes as we were working. I was so humbled to be able to be the person to help them. People were just standing outside not really knowing what to do. It was a really cool feeling walking down the street in our yellow shirts and seeing everybody watching us and us being able to help them. 

Thursday and Friday we did service all day. 

Starting Saturday morning, all the wards in the Spanish stake met up at the stake center to receive assignments on who to go out to help. We split up in groups of 6 and all received places on where to go. I went with a member family in the ward. We went up to a neighborhood that was completely destroyed. We helped out there all day. In the neighborhoods that are destroyed, they have people in golf carts that drive by every hour with megaphones and food and water and yell to everyone as they drive down the streets who needs water and food. It's really cool to see all of Texas and even people around the world come to help and support this tragedy.

Later that day, we came back to that neighborhood with some more people. The place we had been working with didn't need help anymore so we drove down the road a little bit and stopped. The young men's president in the ward got everybody together and we decided to say a prayer on where we should go. We said a prayer and as soon as we looked up, we saw a man walking towards us. He asked us if we were volunteers and we said yes. He said his house was the only house on the street that hadn't been touched yet. He had lost everything in the floods and was living on the couch of his friends house with nothing. So we went in and worked on his house the rest of the day and all day Sunday. It was an experience I will never forget. He thanked each one of us by shaking our hands with tears in his eyes. 

Sunday was such an amazing experience. Most chapels got destroyed by the floods and so all the Spanish wards combined into three different chapels. We only went to sacrament meeting and all wore service clothes and all received more assignments on where to go out to work. It was the most spiritual sacrament meeting I've ever had. Everybody sharing testimonies with all of us in our yellow shirts. There was a special spirit in the room. 

This has been an unforgettable week. I have been so humbled as I have helped people who have lost everything. I'm so thankful that Heavenly Father has allowed me to be the one to help all these people. Words can't describe how I've felt this past week. I'm so exhausted but it's all worth it. I'm excited to do this all again this week. Thank you for your prayers. I know these people have felt our heavenly fathers love through these hard times. Have a great week and I'll talk to y'all soon :)

week 63

Hello everyone! 

So really quickly, this weekend we received Hurricane Harvey! The last couple days we've been in the apartment just hanging out. I got super bored and found a gingerbread house making kit so I'll send a pic of that lol. We have had a little bit of flooding but nothing too bad in our area. We are mostly concerned for the people farther down south so be praying for them! We were informed during the week last week that we would receive a hurricane so we did some preparation. In all the stores there is no bread or water and everything is pretty bare. All the gas stations were out of gas as well. It's been pretty crazy haha but we are all safe and everything's good. We have been doing check ups 2-3 times during the day on every companionship in the zone and getting on conference calls with president 2-3 times a day to make sure everybody is good. Some companionships have been evacuated from their apartment but everybody is safe and President is keeping track of everyone. Stake conference was supposed to be this weekend but it was cancelled and so were all church meetings in the area. We are excited for the opportunity to help lots of people out from the floods and everything that has been going on. 

Okay, so, at the beginning of the week before the hurricane hit we were able to see some sweet miracles! We found a couple new investigators from English class and they are so cool! They have been coming to English class for a little while and we were finally able to sit down and talk and teach them. We call ourselves "La Banda" or the squad in English haha. We are excited to keep working with them and get them to church when the weather conditions allow us to. 

We were also able to get in with a potential that we find a little while ago. They are the Gonzalez family. The dad works with a return missionary and has heard a little bit about it. We talked to them about the Book of Mormon and even read a little bit while we were gone! They enjoyed it and we are excited to continue working with them. 

Thank you everyone for all your prays to the people here in Houston and in all of south Texas. Some people have really been devastated from this hurricane so please keep them in your prayers! I hope y'all are doing good and had a good week. I will talk to y'all soon! 

week 62 no letter