He's Home!

While on his way on the plane, Cameron's parents got a surprise message and pictures.

"Guess who I'm sitting by?!? A few more minutes to go! You have an awesome son!"
 Elder and Sister DeBow

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

Mom got the first hug. There may have been a few tears shed by both.

Hugs for dad!

Sister Shari

Breanna surprised Cameron by wearing the pillow pants he made years ago.
(Made taking naps in cars more comfortable for him to have a pillow on someone else's lap)

Grandma Thompson

"Finally, tall people!"
Aunt Pam and cousin, Braden

Got to travel home with his first CTM Companion, Elder Grover.

Mom caught him already causing mischief! 

Day at the temple

A quick note

I will be going to the mission home today to go to the temple tomorrow morning then have lunch with president! I will be coming back to my area on Wednesday morning.

Well I will see you soon but just wanted to say love you guys and super excited to see yall! We baptized a man named Edson this week he is 30 tell you more about him next Tuesday! Love YOUGUYS!

Last letter

Well today will be the last letter that I will be writing home. I know I still have a lot of time but next Monday because of the distance of my area I will have to get a bus the whole day and the next Monday I will be on a plane so this is probably my last letter that I write unless next Monday I send email super early! crazy!

This Last week was great

Well hoped you liked my last email I really thought a lot about it to make it a good one.

have a great next 2 weeks!

We went hiking today!

Here is another picture from last week's baptism 

It happened!

Yeah it finally happened! Our investigator Jucelio was baptized! He is one of those people that you look at and just know that he will stay firm! He is super cool, the church that he and his family came from has a rule that they can't visit other churches but he is telling his whole family to go and visit the church with him! The majority of them wouldn't because of their church but he was able to bring his mom and his brother! I am so happy that he finally was able to be baptized!

Other then him we are still working with that family. The mom, Patricia, is so great, she said that she now knows she needs to be baptized again and she is 100% ok with it! I am a little sad because I probably won't be able to see the baptism though because they need to get married first and marriage here in Brazil takes 30 days!!! UGH Her daughter Julia on other hand will be baptized or this or the next week. There are a lot of clicks in the ward and because of that she doesn't feel very comfortable but instead of complaining she just invited more of her friends to go with her to not be alone! What a great way to resolve that problem!

We have an investigator that is named Ingrid that her parents are pastors so that is CRAZY! She has a super firm testimony though. She will be baptized on the 23rd, we did her interview this morning and she passed just fine!

That's all I have for now. Have a great week! #sonobaptize!

This week was very amazing!

This week was very amazing! 

We have been working a lot with a family of 5 people this last week that are just so great! We first taught them on teusday and the mom of the family, Patricia has already read the whole Book of Mormon!!! The only problem is that she and her husband need to get married. They all went to church alone this last Sunday we didn't even have to go pick them up, they even got there early! They are super elect! 

Hey so funny story, I have had an ingrown toenail for a while now and have been post poning taking it out because it hurts a lot to take it out! A member of our ward heard about that and every day this last week she has been trying to catch me to take it out for me but I would always avoid it. She is smarter then I am though. At church she said to me, today is the day. Don't get me wrong I wanted her to take it out but I just wasn't excited for the pain. She brought all the equipment to church so I couldn't run away anymore. After much sweating of pain she took it out and now it feels a lot better!

So I am a little freaking out because my plane ticket was bought! My companion tells me that I am the less trunky Elder that he has seen so that is good. I am nervous to start real life but also super excited!

Well sorry I don't have much to say. I am guessing that the next few weeks I am going to write really small letters....

Ahh time is running out!

Ahh time is running out! 

I am starting to register for school classes and because of that it is starting to feel really real that I go home here soon. I am not going to lie I think I am more scared than excited. The mission isn't easy but I know what I have to do every day. At home I will have CHOICES and choices can go wrong! Ahh I am kinda freaking out! Okay I will stop ranting now and get back to the mission...

So my new companion is super cool. He is trunky and still has 8 months left on the mission so that isn't helping much. He always is saying wow you are so lucky you will go home here in 5 weeks. It is a complicated situation. His name is Elder (Adrian) Lira, he is super excited. It should be a good end of the mission with him. The only problem is that when he got here he was out of money to pay for the bus and doesn't have personal money so long story short I am running out of money! I will ask the mission to pay me back though. 

Those adolescents that were baptized 2 weeks ago were able to pass the sacrament this last week! It made me so happy to see that! 

We are working a bunch with this man named Joselio he is super great! He loves the church and has been going for over 4 months now! He is afraid to get baptized because he is afraid he will not stay firm. We are working a lot with him. Please pray for him, he is super good just is missing that little bit of faith to trust that God will help him.

 

I had an interview with president Farnes this last week it was good, he told me wow your mission is running out, use the rest of time with wisdom and that's about it. It was a really fast interview.

Wow sorry but I don't have much to say this week sorry love you all, have a great week!

asldkfj

This last week was kinda crazy. My companion went home and my area is about 7 hours by bus from the mission home. Because of him going home he had a bunch of meetings, interviews and stuff so this last week I stayed in a trio with the other 2 elders in my area! It was good I was able to find a lot of super good people with them. I can tell that God has a plan for everything though because I was also able to get to know all of their investigators. The transfer call came and it turns out me and my new companion Elder Lira will be the only ones in this area now so it was super good that I was get to know their investigators. We have a little problem though because now we have a ton of investigators and our area is freaking HUGE!!! For example: There were 2 people that found the church on the church site and have been being taught via chat on the Mormon.org site, they live 2 hours by car from the chapel! They woke up super early just to come to church though! They are super elect! The only problem is that there is no way we have to go to teach them because of the distance but there is no other missionaries that live closer to teach them! That is the problem here in the boonies here in Brazil!

We are teaching a huge family that are super awesome. We were teaching them throughout this whole last week and they are super elect! Everything was ok for them to go to church then we get there Sunday morning and it turned out that they were robed and one of the ladies that lives there woke up because she heard him and he whacked her with a brick causing her eye to fall out and breaking all that part around the eye. Because of that they went to the closest hospital that is 3 hours away!!! What I still find amazing is that when we got there without knowing any of this 2 of her kids stayed and when we got there they were totally ready to go to church! Even with this total valid excuse to not go they still went. I was very moved by their faith!

Gabriel who was baptized this last week is preparing to get the Aaronic priesthood, he is super great!

So today was my birthday, for my birthday we made some pretty awesome french toast! It was really really good! Some members made me some cake and that's about it. Feels like a pretty normal day to me. I miss being 12 having a birthday, that was a lot of fun!

Well that's all I got for today, love you all, have a great week!

Cool selfie

filthy river in my area

us at a recent converts restaurant

burning trash

oops took the picture to soon

With elder roberts at campinus temple

Here's what happened this last week

Here's what happened this last week

Tuesday and Wednesday

So Tuesday was kinda crazy! After lunch I did a division with Elder Roberts because he had to go to the hospital in Sorocaba and I know that city super well! So we worked until about 5:00 then we ran to get the bus to Sorocaba. We got there at about 9:00 and went to an Elder's house there and slept the night. We woke up super early and went to the doctor's appointment, everything went ok but they weren't able to help him so practically it was just a big waste of time and money! We went to the terminal to buy a bus pass back and their card machine wasn't working so we had to go and walk super far to find a bank so I could take money out. By the time we got back all of the seats on the bus were already taken!!! I was pretty dang mad. So we waited there for a while and finally were able to get the bus. We got back at about 5:30 then went and visited a couple of our investigators. We found that one of the families that we were teaching got super moley all of them except for their son that is super firm. His name is Gabriel.

We went and taught Gabriel and he is super cool. He read all the lessons alone and was asking a ton of super great questions! Also it was super funny he asked us how he could become prophet! haha We explained that his focus right now should be on being baptized and then a missionary and after God will do his will with him. He is super firm to be baptized this weekend! He took us to his cousins house that went to church this last Sunday with him and he is also super firm! He lives alone with his dad but his dad is a drunk and doesn't want anything but he authorized us to teach and baptize him so that is cool! His name is Luan and he has a twin brother Lucas, they all are 13 years old! We also taught this woman named Letisia that went to church this last week! She is super fun! She is a little scared to be baptized but she understands the gospel really well. She also has 2 kids that we are teaching as well. They have a date to be baptized the 17th, pray that it will work out! 

There are some Americans that came to our ward to visit, it was really fun, we had dinner instead of lunch on Friday with them. It was pretty fun we had Brazilian churrasco!!! On Saturday we followed up with all of our investigators and then at night we went into the boonies of the city and had a family home evening with a super rich member! It was sooo cool because we could see the stars so well!!! WOW they are so amazing here!!! We talked to a bunch of friends that they invited and had another churrasco!!! 

SUNDAY!!!

Yeah so Gabriel, Luan, and Lucas came to church and Gabriel and Luan were super excited to be baptized! Lucas couldn't be baptized because it was his first time going to church so he can't. At church we found out that their aunt and uncle are members and I didn't even know. So it was super cool and they helped out a lot! The baptism was super cool. My companion baptized them both because he will be going home here this next week.

Today we did some more slack line and it was pretty dang fun! I love doing slack line! 

well that's all, thanks for all the prayers!

LOVE

Photos of the baptism!

update

slacklining!

Tuesday

To start off the week we had probably one of the most incredible trainings in the world by our amazing mission president, he taught us that we needed to walk by faith and look at how with faith we can walk o waters with faith we can move 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish to 12 baskets left over with food how all of this is only possible through our faith in Christ.

Wednesday

Wednesday was a little hard for us because we had to get a bus to Sorocaba 5:00 at night. That kinda didn´t give us a whole ton of time to work, we were still able to find 3 amazing families though so I would say that God really blessed us when he saw our desire that we had to at least find one family!

Thursday

We woke up at like 5:00 am to get the bus so that was super fun... We had an amazing leadership council that pretty much just had the same training that we had on Tuesday but it was still amazing and super spiritual.

Friday

Friday we put to practice all the things we learned in the leadership council and met all of the new goals we set there. We were able to find so many amazing people! We found a woman named Letisia that we taught the Restoration to her and before we offered the BOM she was already asking how she could get one. When we gave it to her she just started to hug it. It helped me to realize how important the BOM really is.

Saturday

We took the whole day pretty much just following up with everyone that we had to go to church. We had 2 families of 5 and Letisia. We also tried to find some news but weren´t able to find any elects

Sunday

had a miracle to start off the day! we had passed by the house of a man that said he would go to church with us but he left basically because he knew we would be there to take him to church. a little made because it was really far away i just walked off but i say a man on the side of the road and i had the thought "you're here for a reason talk with him" instantly i went and talked with him and i said "hey what are you doing at 9 o clock?" " I don't know i think ill go to church" "Perfect!!! do you want to go to the church of Jesus Christ??" "ya sure ill get ready" haha well he went to church and he loved it! and he will be getting baptized soon! it was an incredible miracle it was awesome! Also we went to Letisias house to see if she was woken up and she was all ready and she went alone. The other 2 families of 5 let satin get to them but because God saw our hard work he blessed us with this man and another woman named Camila that came to church for the 2nd time. We didn´t even pick her up because she was living in a city super far away but she moved last week so now we are going to teach and baptize her with the help of the Lord!