Letter from Cameron July 15, 2013

This was the craziest week of my life I will try to explain it day by day. 

 

Monday. 

Elder Betancourt and I had changes. It was a sad day for him—I think he wanted to cry. I didn’t really care as much because I’m use to all the changes. So we said goodbye and took off.

 

Tuesday -Changes in the morning.

They sent me to Xalostoc.  My new companion is Elder IKA. This will be a surprise for you guys, but he is from Utah and 100% Tongan. He eats like a beast!

 

So in the changes meeting I noticed something that I didn’t like. Many of the old East mission elders seemed to just the Northeast missionaries that just got to our mission. They were saying that they were disobedient, bad, said bad words and what not. It was kind of a joke. I’ve never seen so many divisions between missionaries in my life. Anyway I got sent to Xalostoc with Elder Ika which is a new zone in our mission from the old North West mission. I was sent as a zone leader. I didn’t really want to be zone leader because it’s a lot of stress, but I’m not going to deny the chance to serve-- just go where you want me to go attitude. So suddenly I found myself surrounded by North West missionaries asking me how we are going to work and what we are going to do. They were telling me that they want to keep their old missionary work tactics and what not. All of a sudden it was really hard. My comp is really awesome, but sometimes he can be kind of stuck in the clouds. So the zone leaders have a meeting before changes where they learn the new material from the assistants about what the district leaders should teach so my comp went to the meeting, but I wasn’t invited because I was still a district leader. It was terrible because I had to give the classes to the district leaders without attending the class. I just had the sheet of notes about what was given, so I felt like I was making up a lot of stuff and ruining the revelation of the ones that wrote the classes, but I did what I could. The assistant told me that my comp would tell me about the classes, but he didn’t really pay attention. He thought the classes where just for him, and not to teach to the other elders. Because he is from the other mission everything is different, so I am trying really hard to remember what the zone leaders did before to teach the elders and do what I need to do.

 

Wednesday- District class

So we went to the district class to try and find out what’s up with the zone. Two districts met in the same building because I guess they didn’t know where their church was. So we went to the class and Elder Vazquez and Elder Betancourt are the new district leaders and one from the northeast that’s still there. The 2 from the East mission have been my comps and the three of us are the only ones from the East mission. So we as leaders have been called to teach the principles from the east mission to these Northwest missionaries and a lot of them are not having it. They just keep working the same way and its super frustrating. The assistants are asking us to help them, but they won’t accept anything from our mission and their numbers are terrible because they only focused on baptizing in the Northwest mission. Lessons didn’t matter as long as you baptized. So our numbers were terrible this week, because we spent the week helping the zone and I feel like we had almost no fruits. It was East against Northeast and all heck is breaking loose! After one week with a comp from the Northeast Elder Betancourt and his comp had emergency transfers and  Elder Betancourt’s comp took off today to who knows where. If we keep going like this everyone’s going to get changed from here. It’s utter chaos!

But....to look at the good side my comp is amazing I love the guy. He is a great friend really relaxed. He never freaks out and is a great leader because he loves everyone. He understands the changes that are going on, and understands that he’s not part of his old mission. We are working to get the zone united, but it’s freaking hard. Nobody from the East mission wants my comp to do baptismal interviews for them, and nobody from the Northeast wants me to do there baptismal interviews saying that I will fail them on purpose. It’s a joke sometimes.

 

Thursday -Interview with the President.

The President talked to us and wanted to check our house, something that nobody has ever done in the mission before.  I had like 3 days there and the house was pretty dirty when I got there and I really never had time to fix anything or clean up from everything that’s been going on. So I cleaned up quick after the interviews before President came by. He approved us and we took off to go to work at about 3 in the afternoon that day.

 

Friday- New zone leader training.

I was the only zone leader there all the rest were district leaders and there was 18 people. That means they just put up 17 district leaders that’s a ton! It’s because of all the missionaries that just took off, so that’s pretty crazy. Oh, I left my backpack in the church that’s beside the temple on Tuesday. They found it and gave it to me on Friday. I got my speakers stolen and my MP3 player which stinks, but whatever. At least I didn’t leave my camera in my back pack and I still have 6 out of the 7 memory cards that dad sent me. One was in the mp3 player when it got stolen, so whatever I’ll see what I can find here to listen to the memory cards I have. 

 

Saturday-meeting with the district leaders

This is when we had to give the 2 classes from president to the district leaders. I couldn’t just make stuff up and read the notes, because I wasn’t in the class with president last transfer. We also did divisions that day because Elder Betancourt was fighting with his new comp, so I was sent with Betancourt. It was a good day, but I don’t understand why they can’t get along. Elder  Betancourt`s comp had changes. The Northeast missionaries have a lot of problems with him (Elder Betancourt) because of how he is and because he has 3 months and he’s already a district leader. 

 

Sunday

We had a baptismal interview with some elders at 10 am. Our church starts at 12. The elders complained that they didn’t want Elder Betancourt to do the interview-- that they wanted my comp to do it for trust reasons. So my comp caved and we did it. This was the worst investigator ever. She didn’t even want to get baptized and my comp failed her and asked the elders what they were thinking sending somebody like her into an interview. She had no desire to be baptized and was living with someone and they are not married. I guess they said he was in the military so they don’t see each other very much....that was there excuse. It sounded like some real garbage to me. But anyway the week is over and I reported to the assistants. They said they were disappointed......I felt terrible. I did all I could and I know the numbers weren’t good, but I gave it all I had. I guess it wasn’t good enough. Well there is always next week...........I wonder why Spencer wants to be a zone leader. Tell him he’s better off where he is. Ha-ha, anyway that was the week. It was crazy, oh ya really quick after the baptismal interview that my comp did we took off to church. We got there at like 12:30 and my comp had to speak, so we got there running and my comp basically went straight up to the pulpit. It was insane.

Anyway—later and thanks for everything.

Elder Hendricks -- keep on keepin on.

 

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