March 14, 2016

Hey Mom!

This week:

Teaching in the rain, approach of solutions, of intelligent conversations and practical realizations, custom guitars, stake conference, and other shenanigans!

Hmm. Well, glad to hear that you didn't burn the field or the cabin down. It's bad enough whenever a wildfire starts, but I can't imagine living it down if it were known that it was we who did it. Still, glad to hear that Dad saved the day! Be careful of Murphy, his law is the definition of dastardly. 

Fortunately, Washington hasn't caught on fire like it did last Summer. If you recall, I was serving in Henderson when it happened, but Beatty told me that the smoke was bricks thick when it was happening. Thankfully, the rain and the snow that's happened so far has definitely helped.

Speaking of rain, it down-poured, thrice this week. And consequently, some sections of the road were covered with worm jerky. Or...at least they were jerky when we got walking in the day. Anyway, during one of these downpours at night we got a text message from a former investigator informing us that her grandfather just died. Came to find out later that we had been to her grand-dad's home to teach her uncle, who had been helping him. Anyway, she was really sad about the tragedy, so we met with her the next night at her grand dad's placed with a member. Since there seems to be a lot of tension between her and uncle, we more or less helped her move some stuff from downstairs to a car out back. After that we shared a comforting message about life after death with her while the rain (which hadn't stopped from the previous night) completely drenched us. I had taken the water-proof layer to my coat earlier, but my Newsie hat got soaked. Still, it felt really good to help her out. 

On a more positive note, we were sitting in our car Thursday after a good 45 mins of fruitless tracting. We decided that there was something more productive to do. Gave it some thought, and we figured we could try by this one gal who was a solid potential who we never had much luck meeting before. We prayed to know if it was the right thing to do, and I felt immediately good about it. Drove out there, and what do you know? We get to meet with her! And schedule an appointment to come back as well. Her name is Emily, and she seemed very happy to meet with us. 

We also had dinner with an older couple in the ward named the Nielsons. When I first met them, I had a hard time connecting with them. But when we were in their home, I noticed a series of Issac Asimov books on their book case. I got talking to Bro. Nielson about Foundation, one of the books I read Senior Year. After discussing Asimov novels a little bit, and a little of Dune as well, I decided to try and sound intelligent and gave him my thesis that it Foundation was all about the effects of post-war cultural assimilation. He responded "Well, that's one way to look at it. More or less it was about what we do with technology and how we use it too." That one hit me like a brick wall. I remember very distinctly failing an essay from Ms. Lewis about Foundation's lesson, and it was at that moment I realized why. The most generic lesson in Sci-fi literature, and I over thought it so much that it landed me a 23/45ish or something like that.

Yeah, I never told you guys I failed that one. Surprise!

We also had dinner with a wonderful older couple named the Soritos. Sis. Sorito reminded me so much of you, Mom. She even had a son named Michael coming home from his mission in 9 weeks! She also loved horses too.

Also ran into a super cool guy named David who showed us back to his work shop. Guy makes custom guitars for hobby! The people we meet out here right?

Stake conference also occurred, and there were a lot of talks on family preparation, family history and temple work, and also strengthening the youth as well. Speaking of youth, I sat for the very first time in my life the other day at the "adult" dinner table. I'm not going to lie, I really miss the youth table. 

Anyway, thanks for the email!  I'll probably celebrate my 19th birthday by going for a bowl of won-ton soup at the local oriental restaurant, Mommy Yum-Yum's. It's actually pretty good! I love it here in Ephrata, but it will still take some time to get over the love I had for Yakima, but time rolls onward and the Gospel goes forward. And therefore we strive to become more divine each day of our lives!

Love you dear Mother!

 Elder Michael Camit

March 7, 2016

Hey Mom!

I really liked the picture you sent! It was nice to see everyone smiling and all that. I still find it odd to think about home back in Vegas just because of the other-worldliness that the city offers in comparison to the quite Kanab-like feel of Ephrata. 

Anyway, this week:

On date for the 19th, deeper studies, handing the helm to the spirit, and the night of the night-crawlers!

But the work this week had definite improvement over the last week. Elder Allen and I thought so, and so we conclude it that. We did do a whole lot of finding though. I'll probably owe Elder Beatty for teaching me on how to get over talking to people in a significant way, because it's definitely helped. The Spanish tid-bits assist us as well. But this week we had a total of 31 street contacts, which is roughly better than the average 12 that Elder Allen told me we got before I came in.

The members still treat us awesome though! Bishop had us over for dinner Monday and he invited our most solid investigator, John, for it. John is co-habitating with his Girl friend, Ashley, she being a member. He's got such a strong spirit about him, and he has a sincere and earnest desire to do more to come unto Christ. We met with him later on during the week at his home. He had talked to Bishop and long story short, they're working on their marriage docs as of this week. OOOHHHH SNAP! And to add more to it, we set him on date for the 19th. OOOHHHHH DOUBLE SNAP! It's great because even though I've only been here two weeks now, I feel like I've already connected well enough with John and Ashely to lend a hand to this part of their eternal progression.

Go humanity!

I've also started to keep a study journal. Preach my Gospel recommends it, so I picked up one of those seminary-issue study journals from Elder Allen. It definitely helps, even though I'm not the best at it. Still, I've come to make a few deeper finds with regards to the scriptures. I'll share an insight or two later.

We also had a neat experience going door to door. We hit another one of those "nothing's working" moments. So we decided the best thing we could do was go off the spirit and start walking. When we approached an intersection, we usually turned whichever way it felt would be best, and we did. At one point we were standing in the middle of an intersection, and before I could answer which way to turn, I found myself turning left almost automatically. Spirit's pretty cool! Well, the first door we tracted into was a gentlemen by the name of Joseph who is going through some hard times with his grandson. We talked to him, and we found out that we had caught him on his one day off in the past long while. We gave him a Book of Mormon and testified that it helped build and rebuild our families. He accepted it, and while we may never see him again due to his schedule, we definitely felt that a good seed had been sown in good ground.

On a more fun note, it rained real hard a few nights back, and the next day the ground was covered in dry worms. If I was uncle Gus, chances are I would've gathered them up for bait. But even then, they were more like worm jerky by the time we got out.

Ok, maybe that wasn't the best note to end on, but it was a fun experience. I guess. Anyway, love you all! I really appreciate the testimony that you sent Mom, and if there's anyone else reading this I'm just going to come out and say how much I love my dear Mother. Because I do!

Anyway, love you!

Michael

February 29, 2016

Hey Mom!

This week:

The Kanab of Washington, torching the greenies, transfers,  Elder Allen, endless sagebrush, and "NOTHING'S WORKING!" moments

Dad told me that you guys looked up Ephrata on Google Earth, and your comparison of it to Kanab is pretty much spot on. As a matter of fact, that was exactly what I was thinking when I saw the town for the first time. Or then again, when I drove into town for the first time because in all honesty there is no way in heck I would've seen it from anywhere.

But before any of that occurred, Elder Vejnar and I got to go "fear bust" the new missionaries on Tuesday. In short, we got to take them tracting. I took a certain Elder Schoole with me. I kind of chuckled when I first met him, because he looked exactly like Mr. Shimko from Palo. Except he had hair. Anyway, that was unfortunately unfortunate. Any door that opened to us was quickly closed before we could invite anyone to do anything. 

Funny, I feel like whenever we go tracting there's always one of two people sick enough to not let us in. Hm. Must be plague season. 

Anyway, transfers were a bit of an escapade. For one, I had to consolidate some extra material into a few of the packages I saved that you guys sent me. They made for bulky carry on's. But I was able to travel to the zone with a few sisters and two elders named Criddle and Cornelison. The former's from Vegas, even was the vice wing commander in the AFJROTC at Bonanza I think it was. The later is actually a two-transfer missionary, so I related well with him.

So after we got to Ephrata, I met my new comp, Elder Allen and he's been out 3 months. In fact, Elder Beatty fear-busted him. He's a big guy from West Jordan Utah, and he's a pretty cool guy too! If I'm honest, he kind of has that North-Utah bubble floating around him. But we've been able to get along great. the ward up here is fantastic from what we see! Everyone has at least a good respect for member-missionary work, so hopefully we can get to utilize that to really push the area. The ward has had 12 convert baptisms in the last 8 months, so we are onto a fantastic start! We house with the ZL's and they do exercise at the church every morning at 5:30, so I've been able to get back into the swing of things again.

Another thing I learned about Ephrata is that it's not exactly.....pretty. With regards to scenery on a normal day. As you have probably read in my week-in-words, the best way I can describe the land is...sagebrush. SAGEBRUSH. AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE. With some dry, desert hills on the other side. Nuts, I was really hoping that I'd be put in a more scenic part of the mission, but oh well. Beauty is only skin deep right?

Specifically, the past few days have been rough for us. Thanks to experiences in staff, the mission, and life, I can say I'm kind of used to the days where quite literally nothing goes according to plan. For Elder Allen it was a first, and it hit him kind of hard as well. Still, we carried on, didn't see too much success, and I can't necessarily say that we accomplished much of anything except a couple dozen street contacts and some service done for some members. Effort was always effort!

Anyway, I'll end with a fun story. One of the things that really got to us is when we went to get gas. We share a car with another pair of elders. For some reason we couldn't get the pump to actually start working after going through the payment process. Well, long story short, we had the store staff show us that you had to actually manually begin the flow by lifting the little lip that the bottom of the pump handle rests on. Who would've known? Learn something new about gas stations everyday.

Well, that's really all I can say right now. My work experience is off to a slow start this week, but I'm certain that we'll be able to really see it pick up with the way the ward is. I was asked to bear my testimony during sacrament meeting yesterday, so at least they care. They also pronounced my name it "Can-it" over the pulpit, which was a new one for me. Still, appreciate all the prayers you guys give me. I hope the best for you Mom! Remember that I love you, and the Lord loves all of us!

Love you,

Michael

February 22, 2016

Hello Mom!

Yeah, Elder Vejnar's a pretty relaxed fellow. But in a good way! He's learning the area well, and he'll need to too. 

But I can probably sum up a portion of my week into a simple phrase: I crashed into a stop sign. I know that's not terribly bravado or a very good crash story itself, but I did find it funny to realize that I wasn't turning hard enough on my bike around a curb, and...next thing I know I'm on the ground right as a small school bus drove by. First thing I did was give the OK hand signal to the driver (for the sake of bearing). Safe to say that from their perspective it looked like a Mormon missionary straight-up biked right into a metal pole. 

That same day we got a phone call from the Zone Leaders with some interesting news; they're splitting our area. We had to negotiate (and by that I mean speaking freely) where the best split would be. In the end, we decided to keep the portion of our area with the most work in it at the moment, the West side, and then hand off the East side to the Sisters coming in to take over YSA. That being said, the Randall Park ward will now have a set of missionaries and sisters to cover for. Fortunately the YSA ward will take up most of their work. You know if I'm honest I feel like this probably will go to testify of my inability to be logical around girls, because it occurred to me later on that we had handed off the ghetto side of our area to them. Meh, we'll just have to hand off the pepper spray to them.

Even then, I probably won't have to worry too much about that, because believe it or not, I'm being transferred to Ephrata. Which is North by the Canadian border. I was pretty crushed to hear about that, our area was doing so well! We were told by Zone Leaders that we had the most work in the North district, and it was going outstanding the past week! One fun story was we were teaching Austin again the past week. We had an AWESOME lesson with him about the Restoration, and a few days later had a rough-as-heck Plan of Salvation lesson with him. But he still is open to hearing us and still feels the spirit around us. He told us himself. We also had a great lesson with Berta again in the cemetery. We had a member come out with us, and it was probably the greatest thing ever, sitting in a camp chair teaching a humble daughter of God about The Gospel of Jesus Christ at the gravesite of a loved ones. The spirit was so strong!

You know in lieu of transfers I've really come to know how Ammon kind of felt. He desired to serve King Lamoni perhaps until he died. Now that I'm leaving this awesome part of the vineyard, I feel like I am leaving another home. But the members tell me Ephrata is a good place. Either way, I know that the Lord needs me to be where I need to be. So I look forward with faith to where the horizon takes me again. 

Anyhow, thanks much for the prayers you guys have been giving me. With regards to birthday presents, I don't know. Surprise me!

Love you all!

Michael

February 15, 2016

Hello dear Mother!

Dang, looks like a whole lot of my old buddies are beginning to roll out for missions. I'm proud of them! It's incredible to see just how much the Lord is opening the way for all of his children to serve him in any way that they can! After all, with so much to be done in the Lord's kingdom, hands are needed and appreciated.

I hope this doesn't alarm you, but while I was thinking about home this P-day, it occurred to me just how alien of a place Vegas seems to me now. I usually recall the weather and the people from both civilian and mission experiences there, and it's odd to see the contrast. Yakima's nice, and while I probably wouldn't like to live here, I still see it as a kind of "home" I guess.

Then again, transfers are next week, but I hope that I can stay. There is so much happening right now that I am looking forward to! The Lord has blessed us so much out here and I hope that I can still stay long enough to see how else He plans to bless us for the area.

In terms of the work, we had another great week! We found ourselves doing a lot of service at the processing plant where donated produce goes through. And also helped a member moved some furniture around. Still, proselyting went incredibly well. After service one day, some other elders dropped us off at a potential's home, but it fell through. So we began walking. We were thinking about where to tract as we walked, and I noticed this one street that we had tracted previously before. I got a prompting that we should go and tract the other side of the street. So we did that, and eventually we ran into a 17 year old named Austin. It was kind of awkward at first, normally we're used to talking to adults. So I kind of threw formality out of the window and started to talk to him about Dragon Ball Z and anime, since he was wearing a DBZ shirt. Come to find out he's a decently intelligent fellow, and when we asked about his religious background, he told us he's devout in a theological view about aliens and science and  expounded on the subject. Right, well we talked to him about the Book of Mormon and talked mostly about how science is God's creation for us to try to understand how everything works. I was feeling pretty faithful about it, so I decided to open to a scripture in BOM by random. Turns out I open to a scripture on how God sends Angels to converse with men, which was nice. We gave him the book, and he said he'd read it too! 

We stopped by a few nights later, and his Mom answered. When we got talking to her, she kind of had a "please help my son" vibe around her. But she also told us that Austin was reading the Book of Mormon, so you never know! For all we know, we may have a solid new investigator!

Another fun thing happened, while we were biking, we noticed a "book box" in front of a house. The concept of these boxes is pretty simple, put a book in, take another if you like. Well, you can probably guess what we did. We placed a Book of Mormon in there. Some days later, we rode past again, and some had taken it! We may do that again with our number in it. Hopefully if someone calls it's about an appointment and not someone telling us to stop putting those in the box. Eh, whatever.

Glad to hear that all is going great back home! I'm kind of short on time, but it's great to hear from everyone! Glad to hear that Smokes and Harley are doing great, among other things. Still, let me know what happens! I appreciate all the prayers that you guys are giving for the mission force, and I thank you for all the love and support you've shown so far! Keep up the good work!

Love you all!

Michael

February 7, 2016

Hey Mom!

This week:

Double exchanges, "Chuck Norris...", spiritual guidance, and Super Bowl L time adaptation.

I must say, it sounds like you guys are having some really awesome experiences in Maui! I am so glad that you guys are able to visit Paul like that. Family is such an important part of Heavenly Father's plan for us. 

You know, I can't really say that too much happened this past week. We had exchanges back to back with the District Leaders and Zone Leaders, so I left Elder Vejner in charge of the area for a day. When we met back up, he seemed pretty gassed. And when I told him that there was a potential chance he'd be doing it again for the other exchange he seemed rather un-willing. I kind of felt like stepping back into the shoes of C/Maj. Camit, so I told him "Elder, I can either teach you to follow, or I can train you to lead!" Our district leader liked that. Fortunately, I stayed in the area the next exchange. Still, things have been going awesome for us the past week!

I don't know why, but recently Vejner and I have been in a habit of humming/whistling Chuck Norris's theme. We were kind of bored one night and started talking about Chuck Norris jokes. We were thinking that if someone were to baptize Chuck Norris, their life would be complete. I know it's not the most ineligible thing every to report on, but go ask Paul or Daniel and they'll tell you all the crazy shenanigans they thought of during their mission off-time.

We did have one cool experience this past week. We were over on the edge of our area trying to see a less-active member. They weren't home, and so we decided to do some tracting to better our chances of work in that part of the area. Long story short, we got an impression to travel down this one road we previous hadn't been going for. Since we didn't have anywhere too particular to go, we heeded it, and started tracting a few doors down. A few contacts later, we found ourselves walking down the road again, but I recognized the route we took. Turns out that we were down in a part of the area we hadn't been too ever since we lost the car. There was a potential named Alyssa we hadn't seen because of said reason, and so we dropped by her place. The door was broken when she tried to open it, and so we helped her open it from the outside. We had given her material to help her quit smoking earlier, so we followed up on that. We asked if the boyfriend she lives with was now OK with us teaching her, and she told us that he had broken the door when he left her. Yeah, we didn't delve into that, but she said that she would accept us back to teach her! 

Hooray for heeding promptings! Go Humanity!(That's my new battle cry)

Another thing that happened was we were biking through the cemetery again, and we took a different way. We went by the veterans burial grounds, and lo and behold, we found a tank. Like a legit Tank, parked there. It was one of those "how long has that been there?" moments. 

You know, sorry to say, there's not too much I can say that has happened the past week. Everything else is kind of same-old-same-old if I'm honest. 

Oh, wait, actually, Super Bowl. There's the Super Bowl to talk about. We tried by the home of one potential, and after we rang the door bell, kid you not, we heard "OH MY (quacking) (quack) IF IT'S WHO I THINK IT IS..." she opened the door, and she immediately changed attitudes. When she was yelling, the only thing I was thinking of was the times Venegas told me the same thing in staff sometimes. Good times!

And we learned later on that the Broncos won.

OOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SNAP!! OOOOOO-HO-HO SNAP! THEY DID IT! THEY WON SOMETHING IN MY LIFETIME! 

Anyway, that was my week. Love all you guys, I hope that all of you are doing well. I appreciate you guys and all your prayers and love. Tell Evan I said hello!

Love you!

Elder Michael Camit

January 31, 2016

Aloha Mom!

Well, you'll be pleased to hear that the dried mangos you sent....well, I pretty much ate them all already. I had forgotten how fruit other than apples tasted like, and I must say they were probably the treat of the week! 

I now feel a little inspired myself to prepare for the Sabbath as well. Granted what we do as missionaries is pretty spiritual in and of itself, I still try to take some time aside and prepare myself for the holy ordinance of the sacrament.

But, ohhhh mah golly, this week was outstanding. We had more new investigators come in that we are teaching now. I don't know if there's a difference between comfort and work load, but I'm seeing both pretty parallel. Still, I can probably describe this past week with four experiences.

First, we tracted into a gay guy named Andy. Talked with him on the doorstep for a little while. In the end he told both of us we were pretty cute. Riiigghhhtttt, I don't know how to respond to that. 

Ok, so the first serious event occurred on Saturday. We are teaching a former member named Bro. Slade. He served a mission and all that, but was excommunicated for some time. He's coming back now. But we learned that he has some major depression issues. When Elder Vajner first met him, we just talked with him. We found that sometimes holding casual conversation with folks is the best way to communicate with them. It was a good meeting. After that we met with Jessica. Her mother had a heart attack, and Jessica's really grown in testimony about prayer as she's seen her mom recover. After we talked with her, Theodis, Gabi, and Lily, her three adult children,  just joined in with the lesson (they had excused themselves earlier), and we had a giant Q&A session with them. During it, Jessica actually stood up and defended the Book of Mormon whenever questions of it's divinity (which it is) were brought up. It really made us feel well to see her developing a testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. We think talking with them definitely helped build trust with her family. Jessica's going down to San Francisco to stay with her mom for two months, but she gave us her address and we are going to pass that along to the elders down there.

The next day we got a text from Bro. Slade that asked me to tell Elder Beatty that it was a pleasure knowing him. That was a red flag. We called him and scheduled a time to see him that day, he asked for a priesthood blessing. We went with another member, Bro. Unsicker, and visited him. The two connected right away, and the blessing served him well. The next day we got a text from Bro. Slade telling us that bringing Bro. Unsicker was inspired.

The second big thing that happened was with a less active named Bro. Ayling. He's an army veteran who saw combat with the Rangers back in the day. But he's good to us and always lets us come by. Recently he's been coming back to church to! But we were going to read Alma 17 with him, and while explaining the background, I got the impression that perhaps we should actually read Mosiah 27 instead. I had prayed to Heavenly Father to let us open to a specific chapter that would help him the most, and Alma 17 is what we opened to, but I followed what I felt anyway. We started reading in a circle about the conversion of Alma, and Bro. Ayling got to read the verses where Alma glories in his redemption. That's when the spirit hit pretty hard. Bro. Ayling got really choked up as he read it. He told us he was the exact same way when he was younger. We bore testimony and we could tell something even more deeper now resided in his heart than any other thing before. Geeze, that was fantastic.

The last great experience that occurred happened yesterday. It was a beautiful Sunday, and our appointments were falling through again. We were facing an area-long ride to a potential. I usually try to avoid riding to too long, particularly if the appointment isn't set. Oddly though, I felt at peace with the ride. So we started going across town on our usual route that cuts through the cemetery. But while we were going, we noticed a single lady sitting in front of a single tombstone off the path. I felt like we should go visit her. So we detoured to go talk to her. Her name is Birda, and she was paying her respects to her grandson who committed suicide 15 years ago. She asked us what happens to us after we die, particularly under his circumstances. Come to find out that every evangelist she had talked to had told her he had gone to hell because of he committed suicide. We told her that we are all God's children, and that He provides a way for all of us to know more concerning him, whether in this life or the next. This really comforted her, so much so she said that she felt more hope around us than any other preacher she had talked to in the past year. The spirit was strong, and I could tell that her grandson was watching. She agreed to meet us again there at that spot later on in the week. 

We were truly blessed this past week. I've come to know more about the divinity of God and His glorious, yet so simply gospel. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I know that God still reveals to man His will and His knowledge to His prophet, Thomas S. Monson. 

Yeah, it was a great week. You know, the only thing I can think of asking for is an English to Spanish dictionary, or language learning device of some kind. In the end, your emails are great enough! Anyway, love you guys, hope all is going well in Hawaii!

Happy Birthday Paul! Great Gatsby said that 30 years old is the prime of life or something like that!

Take care!

Elder Michael Camit