Mehoy Minoy

Insert by Melissa:  **Last Monday Sister Emily Simpson (a "good" friend of Cameron's) left the MTC for the Texas Houston South Mission.  Emily and Cameron have dated the last few years in high school and we were ALL surprised when Cameron received his mission call to Texas Houston East and a month or so later Emily received her call to Texas Houston South.  Last week was Sister Simpson's first week in the mission field.  On Friday, I received the following forwarded text from Emily's mom:

Text from Sister Newell to Haley Fugal.  Fun to connect with Sister Simpson!

I could not believe that this member had met Cameron and Emily.  I wrote Cameron and told him about the text.  This was his response in his letter to me:  "Yeah that story about Emily was pretty crazy haha the member, Sister Newell texted us and said I'm here in Pearland visiting and there is a Sister here that knows Elder Larson and I asked our members we were with right then where that was and they said South of Houston so I knew it was her haha! That's pretty funny! 

We also had our family Halloween party this week and we had a competition where we tried to stack golf balls.  We thought Tad was incredible because he stacked 3.  After everyone left the party, Connor stacked 4!!!  We sent Cameron the pictures and of course his response was...."Halloween sounded super fun and if I ever find golf balls I will balance 5."  ....Of course he will.***

Connor, "Fear on Inside Out" mastered the golf ball stack with 4 golf balls

Cameron's Letter:

Hello friends and family! It's so good to talk to you all again today! This week was baller and I am getting pretty good at riding a wheelie on my bike!

Tuesday I went on exchanges with zone leader Elder Story. I had to lead out the area which was fun! We were basically just biking around parts of our area we hadn't biked yet to see how much damage or water they have received.  We came across this legendary display thing that someone made.

Elder Story

We also stopped at the tracks and took some dope pictures. Just wait for our album to drop......its gonna be fire!  We came to the conclusion that our whole area except like 3 streets we can't proselyte on because they don't want us trying to knock on people's doors right now so we just bike around asking if people need help for now. 

Elder Story and Elder Larson

Wednesday: Amanda (the lady we did her floor last week) called us and needed some help painting so we did her whole house! She has been working crazy hard to get her house back in order so she is always super grateful when we can come over and help her out. She is a way good cook and always feeds us too--so it is a good deal! Then we went and helped out at the other wards youth activity since they needed help. It was a murder mystery with the story in Helaman 8.   It is where Nephi prophesies that the chief judge would be dead. We had to act it out and it was the funniest thing!! I have way too much fun on my mission its just such a good time preaching the gospel and having fun with the other Elders! Great times! 

Thursday: We had Zone Conference in Kingwood with Elder Hallstrom that just spoke in this last conference! He was pretty good and it was like a 5 hour meeting which was crazy! We talked a lot about teaching repentance and baptizing converts! Then we had to make our usual stop at our Baytown Bucees of course and I actually have a picture this time!

Over 100 gas pumps!!!

Friday: We went and did some service and unloaded this HUGE trailer that was donated from Utah! So go Utah! It was full of sheet rock, insulation, wood, sinks, and all sorts of other good stuff. We moved like $1,300 of sheet rock that day to people's houses so if you donated any money to some fund,  thanks from all the members here! It makes a huge difference. The lady we gave them to had insurance and she was telling us most people would think they are pretty well off but insurance companies are sneakily little SNAKES!  While they should cover her electrical they said her house is old and needs to be rewired so they actually won't cover it. Lots of things like that which is lame.  Even the people that have insurance out here are still struggling which is sad. We went and visited Becky and Billy and they were home and let us come in! We talked about the Book of Mormon lots and then they invited us back to feed us on Wednesday so we are super excited about that! 

Elder Bott, Archibald, Baker, Larson

Saturday: We went to our stake presidents house for studies. He does that once in a while at his house which is pretty dang nice! We talked about a lot of cool things in the church and he is a genius! He's a convert but he spends hours and hours studying the gospel so he knows everything! All our appointments weren't home when we went by so that was hard but we got to go to the Harvey after party! It was a fireside and they made this awesome video that they showed! They called it stories of Harvey and just talked about it for like 14 minutes! I wish I had that video but maybe it will end up somewhere eventually. 

Sunday: Me and Elder Bott were assigned to give like 12 min talks so we did that! I gave mine on becoming more Christlike in our service and Elder Bott was assigned on Becoming a Disciple of Christ. They were both pretty baller, but too bad there were only like 40 in church haha! We also had to help give the Sunday school lesson so the ward loves to use us which is lots of fun! We got a new investigator this week named Dylan!! A new investigator is when we go back to a second lesson and teach with an opening and closing prayer. He had been trying to read the Book of Mormon and seemed excited for us to come back! It was the first new investigator in our district since Harvey hahaha! We did it! And again a person stopped us on our bikes and asked if we were Jehovah Witness. We explained we were from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and then we taught them the whole restoration on this side of the road while they were still in their car! They loved it and we gave them a Book of Mormon but they live in Bridge City so we just had to refer them over again! Both times people stopped us and seemed super solid we have had to turn them over!

The Elders that are next to us, with a car, we found out they are moving out, they are probably getting flushed out of Vidor. Our area is so destroyed that we might get moved out as well but we have no idea! So that's pretty crazy!  We find out this Saturday if we are outta here or not so you'll find out next week! I have mixed feelings about it. I like Vidor and want to be here for Homecoming since the Elders get to go to the game. But also there's not a lot to do so we will just see! But we still have lots of fun I just wish we could find more people to teach! Today we are going to Port Arthur for a huge basketball tournament with all the Elders. President gave us permission and we are playing each other as zones so it's hard to email haha but I'm trying my best!

Basically what our entire area looks like

You can tell Brother Maldonado that I am getting huge!!  I do the bat cave every morning!  This morning I did 140 pushups and 180 squats!  I'm getting stronger for sure!

We keep it lots of fun since the teaching is really hard right now.   We didn't teach any lessons this week but we have two lined up for next week.  We teach the restoration a lot in first contacts when we are in non affected areas.  Other than that we aren't allowed to bring up the gospel unless they ask.  We don't want to make it seem like we only mucked their house or helped them because we want to baptize them.  We love doing service together and just have lots of fun! I love how the Lord still is able to bless us with the opportunity to teach even though we end up biking the same street every time we proselyte! He sure does run this work and I have a testimony of that! There is no way I would be able to do all of this crazy stuff with out him and I'm grateful He leads us where we need to be! I hope y'all have an amazing week its so good to hear from all of you!

Elder Larson

Mom's Questions

What do you know about the time frame of the opening of the Houston Temple?  Will it be rededicated with an open house?

We have no idea about the temple and neither do the members. Nothing is certain yet but sounds like it will be a long time 

Any idea on the time frame of when individuals will be able to move back into their homes in your area? 

We also have no idea when people will start moving back in but it could be a good 4-6 months before but we aren't sure where a lot of them are. We spent a lot of time making a big ward list of the circumstances of the homes in our area.

Where are the individuals in your area staying while their houses are being repaired?  How far is that from where you are?

Lots will just stay in neighboring towns in hotels or someone else they know so it really depends 

How much time do you spend riding your bike, walking or getting a ride with other Elders or members?

When We do service we always get a ride with the elders next to us and other than that we are riding our bikes 

How many in your district?

Our district includes us and the Elders down the street and 2 sisters. 

Any Spanish speaking Elders or Sisters in your district?

We are all English speaking 

What do you and your companion have in common?   

Me and Elder Bott both just like to have fun so we don't get bummed with the work being super slow and we just like to find ways to have fun and keep having a good time! So, we both work really hard but aren't disappointed when we don't see results quite yet.