This is Cameron's Mom...I am writing this last entry with some pictures of Cameron coming home at the airport. He came home on Tuesday, June 9, 2015. We are very proud of him...Mission Accomplished!!
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Well this is my last e mail as a missionary!! Its bitter sweet to be coming home. I have said goodbye to all of the friends that I made here. I really do love these people. What do you say to sum this up? Would I do it again. Yes. I have found that God really does love us and if I could help one more person as a missionary find that out I would gladly do it again. Luckily my missionary efforts do not end when I go home!! I will still be able to help others come closer to Jesus Christ. I know this gospel is true. I have seen the Book of Mormon change lives. I got to see Jenn Owens, who was baptized my first month out. She has changed dramatically and truly has a relationship with Christ. I love it!
We went to the temple with the missionaries that I came to the mission with. It was great seeing them there. Like Alma with the sons of Mosiah we rejoiced in the success and experiences that we all shared with each other. It was an amazing way to see each other again. I loved the spirit of joy and peace that was there. All of us served honorably and we all felt a sense of peace and accomplishment. We are all great friends and I love them. We had a small zone meeting and a zone lunch this week for transfers. That was fun!!! We had confetti poppers and really tasty food. We took an awesome picture of it I have it on my memory card It's packed away right now though but when I get home I will make sure to show all of you. We always have so much fun together. It's great! I will see you all soon!!! I love you and I have loved my mission. I really just can't put into words how I feel. Love you see you soon!!! Elder VanKammen Well we had another good week! We always have good weeks haha.
We did more service with Baldo on Tuesday!!! We trimmed roses with him and he imparted of his wisdom to us. Apparently he has a rose named after him and he was the bug expert for California. He seems to know a lot though. It's a lot of fun and he really enjoys talking to us to and getting the help to lift large things like full trash cans that he can't lift. Elder Steins birthday was Tuesday. It was fun! I snuck in a couple of missionaries that morning while he was making crepes and we all surprised him. One of the missionaries got this big can that blows out confetti. While it was cool we now have a ton of confetti on our floor haha. We made a ton of really good crepes with fresh fruit from a fruit stand and Nutella and peanut butter and cream cheese. It was great! We had a cool experience at the Orangevale food bank. We were helping out like we usually do and we ended up talking to one of the other volunteers for about half an hour about what we as missionaries do. It was great! Opportunities to share the gospel are just opening up to us as we do service! We had a great lesson with this new investigator, Nancy. It was cool! We had a member come with us It was a little awkward at first because we weren't invited in so we just taught outside. It worked out great though. She had read the restoration pamphlet. And had plenty of questions for us. It was great! The spirit was there and she is going to ask God if these things are true. Okay finally we had a lesson with Garret. We invited him to be baptized with a date and he kind of threw on the breaks. But we explained to him that we didn't want him to do it now,we wanted him to pray about it :) So now he is going to pray about it! The lesson went really well. The spirit was there and he has a desire to be baptized! Cole is still progressing well! We taught him the word of wisdom and he just accepted it. He has quit smoking and drinking coffee and he is trying to eat better. It was amazing at how readily he accepted it. He is just awesome, he has so much faith! Well that was our week we taught a lot of good lessons! I love you guys I'll see you soon!! Elder VanKammen Well this week was going super well! We taught two more lessons to Cole and he is progressing so well! He has been reading from the Book of Mormon every day and he has less of a desire to smoke and swear. We haven't even talked to him about smoking. It was so cool! I love teaching him and he really likes us coming. Sadly he didn't come to church so I won't be able to see him get baptized oh well I still enjoy teaching him.
We help out at the food bank in Orangevale. We really like it and they really like us! I love service. We helped sort food there and pass it out to the homeless. We also do odd jobs for them like planting and weeding in their garden and cleaning out the bins they have the food in. Sorry there isn't much to talk about. We did a lot more finding but we weren't able to contact anyone else. I love you guys! Take care, Elder VanKammen This week we saw some amazing miracles! We had a zone conference on Tuesday where all of the missionaries in the area get together and talk about missionary work. There was one thing out of the ordinary though. We had this TIWI system installed in our cars that monitors our driving. It sends notifications when we speed, don't have our seat belts on, and when we drive recklessly. Apparently missions who have them installed have their accidents go down 30%. The zone conference also inspired all of us to work harder and find more people. I set some goals to find more people... to talk to 10 people each day, to pray to find people and to teach by the spirit and to have more revelatory studies by staying more focused and praying for the spirit. Well it really helped! We found 3 new investigators and have a return appointment with all of them this coming week!!! The first, Garret is awesome! We were able to teach him in the home of a ward missionary, the Merrill's. The lesson went great! We taught the restoration and committed him to be baptized when he finds out for himself that it's all true through prayer. It was great! The second, Cole was found looking for a member of the ward. He is the members grandson and is helping to take care of her which is really nice of him. We taught about the restoration on that first interaction and gave him a Book of Mormon. I asked him if he liked to read and he said yes! He likes history so I asked him if he would like to read a book that is the history of an ancient American civilization and their dealings with God. He said yes! So we gave him the Book of Mormon and invited him to read it. We will be talking with him more this week. Finally, Brandon was the last person we found. He actually called out to us on the street and asked us a ton of questions which lead us to teach most of the restoration. We also gave him a Book of Mormon so he could read it for himself and know why we believe so strongly that Joseph smith is a prophet, and pray to know if he really did translate it through the power of God.
It was a great week! And now I am tired. I hope you are all doing well. I love you all! Elder VanKammen Well this week was fun! So last week we picked a cherry off of a tree. This week we went and bought a bunch of cherries from a stand. They were so good!!! They had been picked fresh that day from this guy's cherry orchard. President Marston came to our district meeting! It was awesome! We talked about safeguards for using technology and how we can help each other as companions and as a district to use technology wisely and more effectively. I thought it was a good meeting. Granted, I'm bias because it was my meeting haha. Afterwords we made sushi with president! It was great! He brought some sushi of his own too and some strawberries which were amazing! Fresh strawberries are way better than store bought ones. So we found this couch coming back from exercising at the church. We found a lady jogging by to take a picture of us. It was great!! Haha Not a whole lot else happened. We're focused on finding new investigators since our baptism. I hope you all are doing well. Love you!!! Elder VanKammen Hey so this week was fun!!! First and foremost John got baptized into the YSA ward! We are so excited that he made the covenant with God! He was stoked too. He also got confirmed this Sunday and received the gift of the Holy Ghost. We brought Cameron who was baptized last year. It really reminded him of the spiritual experience he had at his baptism. It's been awesome to see Cameron change as we have been working with him. We had a fun exchange this week!! I got to be with a Hmong and a Spanish missionary. So I had fun with it. We went to my old area in Auburn to find Hmong people. I stopped by the place where I used to live, but the people that lived there weren't home. We did go to an awesome Vietnamese restaurant and got Pho, a Vietnamese soup. It was really good. For dinner we went to a Spanish family and there were really cute puppies. What's cool is all three of us are going home at the same time. It's cool. At dinner we had this thing called Aqua loco or crazy water. It had bananas, strawberry, coconut, lettuce, and cabbage just chilling in the water to make it taste actually pretty good. So we were walking down the street and we found cherries! Fresh cherries just growing there. So we ate them. They were good. I love California because you can find random fruit like that. It's great! Love, Elder VanKammen Well, this week was good. So, we got a call from the Sisters this week asking for chocolate. It was really random. We weren't sure if they were just using us or if they were having a terrible day. Well, we went and got a couple chocolate bars and it turns out they were having a terrible day. They couldn't find any of the places they wanted to go. Things were canceling and they had no money. So I'm glad we were able to help them out. They were really thankful and we felt good about it. Cameron got the priesthood on Sunday!!!! Simply, the priesthood is the authority to act in the Lords name to help others. It was an awesome moment. We have been working with him for the past few months and he has come a long way. When we first met him he was just sitting in his room playing video games all day. Now he is involved in church activities, he has a job, and he is getting his driver's license soon. It was so cool to see him change! So, I have found my new favorite fruit. They are called loquats. They are small orange fruits and a lot like a peach. Just smaller. We found a guy that has two trees just loaded with them. It was awesome! So we went and knocked on their door and asked if they were going to do anything with them. They got excited and told us we could have all of them. They didn't want any and said it would be a service to them to get rid of them. So now we have tons of loquats :) it's great! Well this week on Friday we got to help out in another ward finding and teaching people. It was fun! The day was all planned out by the missionaries in Citrus Heights which meant we didn't have to plan anything for that day. It was great! We just got to go straight to work. We ended up having a cool experience that day. We were walking around and this guy was just sitting in his garage smoking with his wife. We started talking to him. My companion immediately connected with him because they both are from Idaho. They went off and started talking about potatoes (of course) which I know nothing about. Apparently school shuts down for 2 weeks during the potato harvest and all of the students work in the potato fields. Then I found out that this man was a trucker and told him that my dad is a truck driver. So then we started talking about that. It was cool because both of us were able to connect with this man. Sadly, he didn't want to hear our message but now he has a much better perception of missionaries which will definitely help later on when some other missionaries c come in contact with him. I was able to give a baptismal interview this week too! I love those. It was fun because the person being baptized was 10 and he really knew his stuff! He had a great understanding of the commitment he was making to God. I love those interviews. It's so cool to see how happy and excited people get when they can make this awesome commitment and come closer to Christ. The best part though was his prayer at the end. He gave thanks to God for his lollipop and for his friends and that he didn't have any homework. It just kind of put into perspective that I should be more thankful for the smaller things in life. I thought about gratitude even more when I was reading in 1 Nephi 4:30 when Nephi says to rejoice and praise the Lord forever. I decided I need to do that more. Well, that seemed to change the rest of my week. It was cool because even when things weren't going right and all of our plans fell through, I was happy. Sometimes I feel so tired that I just want to go in and sleep for the rest of the day, but having this attitude of gratitude actually gave me strength. At times I really felt lifted up and rejuvenated when I would thank God for the things that I did have. It was really cool I would suggest it to all of you! I hope you are all doing well!!! Love, Elder VanKammen Here is a picture of Elder Stein and I and Brother Marks who is a WWII vet. |