10/10/2016 I am here in Maceio. It is hot all of the time but one nice thing is the sun goes down at about 5:30 so you don't have the hot sun for the last little bit. I am in the Colin Ward and I like it. I have made some pretty good friends here. The ward members are great and help me a ton. They like me to translate for them. My companion is Elder Neves. He is the one I talked with before my mission. He is really cool. He is from Brazil and speaks some English. My Portuguese seems to be coming slow. I understand most everything but have a hard time speaking it. So, Neves was a professional volleyball player before his mission which is pretty sweet. He wants to play in the U.S. for a university after his mission. I like him a lot. I am ok, struggling pretty bad with homesickness right now. I just miss you guys and love you so much. Hopefully today will help being able to talk with you. I know I can push through, it is just way hard. The MTC was so great and I loved it a lot. I had the best district and I am going to miss them all so much.
So, just to tell you a little bit about where I am at. My ward is in Maceio. We have some pretty cool investigators that I like. We have 11 investigators some are progressing more then others We have a baptism set up for this weekend. Her name is Carla. She is around 24 years old. She is pretty cool. Some other investigators are Elias and Elizeu who are twins. They are only 12 years old and their dad is a pastor for another church so it may be difficult to baptize them. He does not want them to be baptized. The family is really cool. We always talk to them, like for an hour everyday. Another investigator is Fernando and Karol who are brother and sister. Their dad doesn't want them to get baptized either. Then, Nia who is 15 years old and we just found out she is pregnant. So, that will be a difficult one. There are the other investigators too.
I haven't received the package you sent. When you do send things Neves said to remember him (my poor black companion, ha! He's pretty funny).
Then, we started to e-mail back and forth. I was just wanted to go send Elder Neves a letter or a package or something right then. Annie e-mailed Cameron and told him how much I wanted to help Elder Neves and he just said, "Of course she does"! I think that's good... HA! I tried to fill him in on things that were happening and be as upbeat and happy as possible. I reminded him of Shad and Tyson telling him the first six months were the hardest and then it got a lot easier. He remembered that but stated that six months sure seemed like a long time. Tears rolling down my face and wanting to jump through my phone and tell him how much I love and miss him, was all I wanted to do. I knew Jason would be the better one to talk with him about this. I would end up getting sappy and that wouldn't do him any good. I asked Jason to work his magic and of course I didn't need to ask, he was already doing it. He knows his son and he knows what to say. I'm very thankful for that!
I let him know of Edna Hardy's passing. He loved to go take the sacrament to their home, besides the fact he grew up with the Hardy families in almost everything we did. He e-mailed saying: That is so sad about Edna. I feel so bad. She was a great lady. Later in his e-mail he asked if Chance was doing ok too. Love those boys!
I asked him what they needed. He wants a smaller bag from the mission mall online. So, his cute sister Annie was looking online and sending pictures. He stated that there was really no need to write except once a month (I think that's a little drastic). He explained that he e-mails us once a week and his letters go to the mission home and he only gets them every so often. He said that he needs to focus and maybe that would help him overcome his homesickness. This broke my heart but I have to do whatever I can do to help him be successful. I said ok and that he knew if and when he needed anything I was there. I told Jason I couldn't do it and he suggested we still write but just mail it less frequently. I just need to remind myself when he was in the MTC and he wanted the mail he was living a different lifestyle. So now he is out in the field we just need to change gears a bit. He asked me to send two footballs. I didn't mention the cost of postage to Brazil but did ask if they could be deflated with a pump. He said that was great but there had to be two. He said he would also like me to send some peanut butter and a UTES shirt for him and his companion. Elder Neves might become a UTES fan!!! I sent him a picture of the Craynor's barn. He was surprised at how fast it was coming along and said it looked good. I sent him a picture of the Luvs gas station and etc. going up. I told him how they never contacted me letting me know he was there safe but that his crazy mom called Brazil. He just laughed... He said the church building was nice. I asked him if he was nervous to approach people or to talk with his investigators. He said he wasn't and that he never felt scared at all, he said ,"they like me... I am an American"! He mentioned that they love to ask him to translate stuff for them. Oh! He did tell his sister that he tried to pet a dog and well the dog did not like it and almost bit him but that's about as unsafe as he has felt. His companion has about 8 months left. It sounded as if every lunch they have a home to go to, instead of at home and us having the missionaries for dinner it is lunch there. I asked him how the members living conditions were. He said some good and some not so good. I always want to know if he is sleeping and eating. If he's sleeping and eating he will be ok, right?! He said he eats but a lot of rice and beans and he LOVES the ice cream. He even told Annie there is an ice cream with raisins and he still likes that one even with the raisins. He said he sleeps good and "Yes, mom I use the sheets we bought". I wanted to know where he e-mailed from. He said there is a room by their house with computers and they pay to use them. It costs 2Real which is like 25 cents an hour. He has a washer at the house. No mention of a dryer? I saw clothes lines in the pictures. Wow! This is really pretty crazy. My 18 year old son is living in Brazil, just traveled from one part to another. I don't talk him except once a week by e-mail and won't see him for two years. That is a hard concept. But, if I say he has just left us for a short time and we will be in contact and hear about all those wonderful people whom he is helping to stay with their families for eternity, now that's FAITH. My hat goes off to all those mothers who had children serve before we had all this technology and Cameron isn't in a place that even has what some missions have. Cameron wanted pictures so I sent every picture I could think of. He loved it and kept saying thank you, thank you. Annie got one of Charlie (his dog), the newly planted field, the mountains, his friends that had visited, one with all of us including both sets of grandparents at the temple, and so on! I had over 1,000 photos on my phone. Annie thought it was hilarious and I said well you never know when you might need one. I let Halle miss 1st hour since Annie and I were home to go to the funeral. We had no idea that is when the e-mails would come and I know the stress of not knowing where Cam was at or hearing from him burdened them also. Before we got Halle to the school she showed us their last e-mail. She told him that she had to go and loved him. Cameron wrote: I love you so much Halle, you have no idea...
I met some other mom's of friends of Cameron this past Tuesday. It was so nice to hear how much all of us love our boys. It doesn't matter if they are in Brazil, Logan, Iowa, Honduras, Italy, Spain, Africa, Canada, their last year of high school etc. we LOVE them and we want the BEST for them! I am thankful for my faith and testimony right now and I know Cameron has made an awesome choice. I do love the excitement of the e-mails and wanting to hear from him. I hope and pray that time and the love of the gospel and the people will help with his homesickness. Keep him in your prayers and until next week ADIEUS (goodbye)
Here is Elder Jensen and Elder Neves. This is Maceio where Cameron is serving.
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