Week 35

So phrase of the week, "Draft ME"  Meaning we just had a great idea so pick me! - Curtesy of Elder De Leon...  We found two new people to teach this week, so we are currently teaching 12 people.  Dice: El campo blanco esta ya para la siege!  soo true.  The lord blesses and wants to help those people that are ready to receive his message.  A veses its hard to share this message that we have with the world because of the fear of what will they say?  This last week has really taught me, if we have the spirit, we won't have to wonder what to say.  It will be given to us.  Sooo cool!  This last week we had some of the most spiritual lessons I have ever felt in my life.  One had to do with the familia de Saida.  Saida is doing sooo good!!  She was baptized in 2012 and left the church for a little bit, but now we are teaching her and her entire family!  They are the coolest people ever!! I love them so much... When we teach Saida, it is so cool as she makes little connections here and there about the plan that our heavenly father has in store for us.  Last week we talked about the Fall and Adam and Eve.  We explained that if:

 Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.

 23 And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.

 24 But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.

 25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

When we understand why our first parents fell, we begin to understand our purpose here on the earth.  As we explained our purpose here, we barely had to explain, saida kept talking and she was just lead by the spirit as she made connections by herself as the spirit revealed personal revalation to her!  Sooo cool!  I could just remember as I did the same thing, sitting in Travis's house and he would just laugh and be sooo stoked for me!!  HE would never say oh I knew that but was sooo pumped that I had made that connection.  Oh man I had never felt soo much joy than in that moment, watching Saida make those connections and just feeling overwhelmed by the spirit!!  IT was soooo cool!!  

I know im typing a lot but for those of you that feel like there is not much more to learn from church of from the doctrines, I would encourage you to read 2 Nephi28:30... We met with a member this week, and he felt the same way... We bore testimony of the sacrament verse and of this scripture.  As I was talking to him, I explained the joy that I felt as I watched Saida make those connections.  There is no greater joy than sharing the gospel with those you love.  Lets face it, there are a lot of opinions out there, but there is only one truth.  If you ask god, he will give it to you.  So commitment for the week, will you all share one belief that you have from this wonderful plan with someone you care about this week?  Awwesome, I love you all so much, and if I didn't know this was absolute truth, I wouldn't waist my time.  None other than god himself with change the hearts and minds of people, but you must have a desire to find him first!  Have a great week!

Elder Cornejo

Week 34

Miracle this week!!! I made cookies and did not burn them!!! Woo!  We've been making some cookies and brownies for the ward members so they want to come out and teach with us!  Genius right?  This week was a really great week.  We are trying to change how we do missonary work and that is to work with members!  So we have really just gone through a lot of planning with our new ward mission leader and it is going to be sooo cool!!  I'm pumped!  So super funny story, but it's a missionary story so I'm warning you right now... So last preparation day after we had written we were so hungry, so we went to costco for pizza!  As we were driving home we couldn't wait to eat so we started eating in the car.  The windows are down and I have to call someone on the phone, so I am not paying attention.  My companion elder Tolley sticks his hand out the window while I start rolling it up.  He goes hey hey hey! but doesn't remove his hand from the window!!  I wind up rolling his hand up in the window as he yells HEY MY HAND IS CAUGHT right as the people on the other end pick up the phone!  We just about die laughing, the ppl on the other end are so confused, Elder Tolley says, that has been my worst fear ever since I was little and now it happened!  His reaction was priceless... Soo funny....... then I found 5 dollars.........

So spiritual out pouring of the week, Sacrament Meeting.  I am not going to tell you the story that he shared, but just know.  The Atonement is real.  Go to sacrament meeting next sunday, ask God to help you with whatever your struggle might be and He will.  After Sacrament we had the opportunity to watch 12 steps to change with a family that is addicted to alcohol.  We meet with a boy named Kevin.  He is 18 years old and he cannot go to sleep without drinking alcohol.  When he and his sister were little, their grandma would offer them alcohol.  He would drink.  She would not.  They have an older brother named Carlos.  He is about 24 and just got out of jail.  He asks Kevin, his little brother to drink with him.  Kevin wants to be a good example their youngest brother, but does not know where to start.  As we are talking, their step dad walks in drunk.  Kevin tells us that the thing that motivates him to make it though the work day is knowing that he can have a drink in the evening.  This problem with alcohol started when they were very young.  I look at my life and look how fortunate I am not to have to of delt with the problems that alcohol brought because my family set the example when we were young that Alcohol is dangerous.  It dulls senses, increases anger, and brings a number of health problems.  I feel so bad for my friend Kevin.  He is such a great kid.  Is there anyway out?  Yes and it is though the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  If one has the desire to change their life and ask him for help, I can promise, he can and will make all the difference.  I did not know how real addictions were until I came out here and meet so many great people that hide their addictions from whomever it may be.  But the thing that i told kevin is, you can lie to me, your family, your friends, even yourself, but there is one you cannot lie to and that is God.  He know us personally and he sent his son Jesus Christ to die for us.  I know this gospel is so true or else I would not give 2 years of college, of dating, of my family and of my life than to help these ppl, to let them know that God is real.  That He is there when we need him the most and even when we don't need him.  If any of you or anyone you know struggles from addiction, their are programs, and videos that are labeled 12 steps to change.  Watch em.  I have watched ppl struggle from smoking and the way that they gained their testimony of whether god was true is by reading the book of mormon everytime they had a craving.  This is the way that they knew this book was from God and not from a man.  It helped them stop, live free and clean!  The book of mormon works miracles!! I love you all and feel of the spirit every day!  Hope you have a great week!

Elder Cornejo

Week 33

Ok so I was reprimanded by a good friend so now Ive got to be more spiritual ;)... But don't worry I still love to laugh!!  This week was awesome!!  Got another new companion because well his companion got sick and couldn't eat any food so we are in a trio for the next 4 weeks.  It has been really fun!  His name is Elder De Leon and his mom is from Peru and dad from Guatamala.  Yet he doesn't speak Spanish?  Go figure??  Anyway we laughed a lot and had a lot of good times.  As for the spiritual side: hmm so Miracle!  I went on exchanges with another elder in the district and we went to his area..  On Wednesday We talked to like a million English speaking people and then I was able to talk to 3 Hispanics... well 3 days later we are walking to go visit a referral and I say hi to this Hispanic and he says I know you!  I'm like you do?  He says ya you talked to me in Frederick 2 days ago.  I was like no way really?  So he invites us into his house, we have a sweet lesson and he invites us back this week so we are going to go stop by.  Coincidence?  I think not!... then the next day we are walking along this street to visit a member that hasn't come to church in a while, but she is not home.  There is literally one person walking down the street so while my comps are writing a note to leave on the door, I feel like I need to talk to his lady.   So she is walking down the street when I yell to her and say, hey do ya like the weather?  She looks at me like I'm crazy!  Well I walk over to her and then we start talking and this random car shows up and she gets in.  They say we are going to a house do you wanna come.  I say sure!  I have no clue what to expect.  So we follow her in our car... It's about 7 so it's dark and we get to the house, introduce ourselves and they invite us in.  I guess we just walked into an Evangelist Bible study.  So they start doing their ritual thing and its very cool  Pretty crazy/different but cool.  When one person prays they all start screaming at the top of their lungs and are thanking god.. I look at my comps and are like whaaa?  they talk about david and goliath and they say AMEN like a 10000 times throughout the hour, then its time for a testimony... they look to us... elder tolley stands up and reads Mathew 6 to them!  It talks about how when Jesus comes, he commands the people not to use vain repetitions in their prayers..  They continued to say amen, but the energy in there was crazy!!  We met this really great guy after named Frank.  They gave us Salvadorian style tamales and frank said we could share more with him today.  It was crazy!! but really cool... the lord works in such mysterious ways if I didn't talk to that lady, we wouldn't of gone to the bible study, and if not we wouldn't of met frank!  I hope this all works out!  I hope you all have a great week and just know that the lord is so real!  He helps me learn Spanish and do all these great things.  My ponderizer scripture for this week is Alma 14:11  from the Book of Mormon... I always wanted to know why god lets bad things happen to innocent people.  The scriptures really are the words of God.  Read them and ponderize.  Have a great week!! 

Elder Cornejo

I hate planning

I don't remember if I told you the story of this guy but we were just walking down the street and this ice cream truck pulls up and this guy swings the door open! runs out of the house and says ICE CREAM!!!!! at the top of his lungs!! He then pushes to the front of the line and cuts off all the kids.  Soooo funny!!

Week 32

So I don't have a lot of time today but we had such a sweet lesson this week with the family Martinez!!  Saida has not been going to church after she got baptized in 2012.  So we started teaching her brother.  She stopped cuz her family didn't like her going.  Well she misses church because she has felt the holy ghost testify to her that this is the only complete church on the earth.  She has gone to multiple other ones and felt the spirit, but she says its not the same... So we have been teaching her brother Kevin and he is a punk!! He is like wanna play wigi board with me and all this garbage stuff and we are like no! haha It's funny cuz he says a lot of things that I used to ask the missionaries... Well this last week we made cookies for their mom because she is the one we have to get haha and we brought em to her and she opened the door and was super friendly with us.  Long story short, we started reading the Book of Mormon with the entire family!!! Now the other sister Nancy asked us for one cuz she wants to read it to.  The mom then invited us over for dinner and made us such a bomb Guatamalan soup!!! We were able to watch Elder Hollands talk with them on saturday and they promised they would come to church next sunday.  I am praying that they do because the gospel could help them soo much!! The feeling that you get when you teach is soo awesome!! I just wish ppl were more open! haha but that is ok!!  So funny story after the lesson, I get home and  it is a pretty storm night and I get a call from the sisters in our district that they are going to be home a little late... at 9:50 then I get this call and I was in the shower so I missed the call and the message that they left is that someone broke into their apartment and they are freaking out... So I call them and they say they are chillin in the car and when they went inside everything was moved around and they cut the power when they walked into their appartment... so I call the zone leaders who then call pres... within 2 min I'm on the phone with pres and he tells me I have to go check it out... Well Elder Ball who was in the hospital last monday wasn't with us so I was with my comp Elder Tolley and Elder ball's comp elder Ed Leon.  So we are like sick!! This is gonna be so cool!!  So confession there is a machete under our sink and it is so sick.  Elder Deleon is like lets bring it!! but I say no no, we are just gonna go check it out... So we drive at 10:20 and it is pretty stormy... We get there 10:30... and the sisters are terrified... we go take a look and I flip on the switch and no light.  Dang it! It's just like a movie!  I ain't going in there if I can't see!!  So I ask the neighbor if they have power and they say no.. so I'm like ok they didn't cut the power we are good.  They give us a flashlight and we search the apartment... IT WAS SOOO SICK!! I felt like a detective ahhah... ok clear no one there... so we let the sisters come in, Pres Christiansen calls me so I am talking to him... nothing is stolen  ok what happened?  The sisers then said oh all this stuff was in the closet, why would they move the christmas tree in the middle of the room?... I look in the closet and there is a valve at the botttem.. I think oh it was probably just the maintanence man trying to get to the valve!.. Sure enough there is a note that says, "hey sorry about the mess, we have to shut off the water cuz of the storm, we will come back tomorrow.  Joe"  The sisters were like Dang it Joe!!! how could you do this to us!!  I was like really??  Sooo funny  now if anything bad happens we just blame it on Joe... yep just another day in missionary life... tune in next week for our next mystery!!

Missions are hilarious,

Hope you all have a great week!!

Love

Cameron

Week 31

Wazzz up!! What a week! Wow where to start!  Missions are crazy!! So last week, I was with Elder Brewer training, we taught a bunch of ppl, it was awesome! All these ppl said they were gonna come to church, transfers hit on wed, Brewer went to Annapolis, I got Elder Tolley.. our goal is to only talk and say good things... haha. We got a new pair of spanish elders, I set them up, split the area book, made boundaries for them to teach, they don't  have a car so I'm working on that, Then we teach some more sweet lessons, Carlos agrees that he wants to be baptized on Oct 24, I'm praying for that!!! We finally get Diana to come to a baptism and she actually went inside the church! She loved watching it, but still said she couldn't feel the spirit, we blessed her house the night before...ummm oh had a sweet spiritual experience where I just got up from a lesson cuz the spirit told me to 3 times and went to another lesson and the spirit was soo strong there... Then Saturday morning ran a 5K and got sick.  We were in the ER all day today!!! But not for me haha the new guy in our district came so I stayed in the ER all day with him, but he is gonna be fine, he couldn't eat and was feeling terrible!! I feel bad for him but it looks like he is gonna be able to stay here and not have to return home so that will be good!!  Wow this mission is nuts!! I have so many cool stories but no time to tell them! We have to go meet some ppl tonight!  I don't have time to rest haha but it will be great!!  Lesson learned for the week!! Follow the spirit, when you are unsure what to do, pause, ask, and he will guide you, it's nuts!!  I've come to learn that the spirits voice is always the same, constant and calm... imagine someone that whispers... if they whisper at the same level, you can only hear them if you get closer to them, they will never change tone... so how do we get closer?  Seek and you shall find and knock and it shall be open unto you.  How crazy is that!! I've seen sooo many miracles this week!! I love it!!  I can't believe how true what we teach is!  I don't feel religious, I just tell em facts!!  Hope you all have a great week!! Love you!

Elder Cornejo

So I got this map that was here since 2004! and it has all the spanish missionaries from California since 2004!! Astle came here?  Who was that? Can   you ask them??

Week 30

Hey how's it goin!  Well this week was crazy!!  So ok I can't hold it in any longer. Guess what!!!! I wrote Elder Holland this WEEK!!!  So Tuesday right, I meet the 1st counselor to the stake president who just says that he is going to be meeting with Elder Holland in 2 days!!  So I casually go up to him after and ask him to thank elder holland for me for the talk he gave in general conference and he says well why don't you write him a letter?  So I do and I gave it to him thursday and he said that he was going to personally hand deliver it to Elder Holland!!!!!! how crazy is that!! I know! I was soo pumped, I've been waiting all week to tell you cuz you know how cool that is!!?  Anyway this week had soo many miracles!  We started teaching a family and they are soo golden.  The baptism we went to last week, kevin may sleep for days and forget about our appointments but he is a really great guy... although none of our investigators showed up at church, it was ok because we need to be on the Lords time and not our own.  I would say that was the biggest lesson I learned this week.  Be patient and on the Lords time.  Hmm what else soo  So funny story for you.  For me at the time it was hard.. So our branch president calls up friday night and asks us to meet him for a missionary meeting on saturday at 2:30.  So we clean the park up all morning rush home, change out clothes to our white shirt and I have my tan pants and shoes and we rush over to the church and it is 2:35 when we get there, so we are kind of late and there are a lot of cars in the parking lot, so we walk in and there is nobody to be seen, so we walk around the church for about 10 min until finally we come to the high council man's door.  We put our head to the door and hear voices... so we knock, not thinking and a man opens the door and says come in... so we just walked into a meeting 15 min late, everyone in there has suits on, our missionary zone leaders are there and they give us the most confused look like where are your suit jackets, our mission president, the stake president, his counselor, and all the 8 bishops and missionary leaders in the entire stake of Frederick!!  All of them look at us and I am just like ohhhh nooooo... 15 minutes late and we don't have our suit jackets and we aren't even supposed to be there, but we subbed in for our ward mission leader cuz he never does anything so its ok! haha man most embarasing moment on my mission yet!!! But it turned out all good!  Stake conference was good... Keep the sabbath day holy! You will be blessed, more so than those that don't, fact not fiction...test it!... but transfers are this week! Elder Brewer, my trainee is leaving!  Another elder is coming here, I hear a little bit of disobedience but we will have to see... and we are getting 2 new elders in the district so I'm pumped but now we'll have 10 elders and sisters in this district.. I gonna be even more busy!  It's gonna be great tho :).. I feel like I was just  writing about training, now it's 6 weeks later! So nuts!! Well thing to work on for me this week, Obedience.. because with obedience brings blessings, exact obedience brings miracles.  We gotta help these ppl, that's literally what I eat sleep and breath.. all I can think about is seeing how I can help these ppl and I find that my own problems seem to deminish.. I would encourage all of you to watch the mormon message, Lift this week.  Lemme know what you think :)  Have a great week!!

Elder Cornejo 

Week 28 & 29

 have like no time this week to write, but I love you all and miss ya!! Hope you have a great week!! So that blessing I gave last week!  Guess what!! the baby doesn't need a liver transplant now!!  He is healthy!!!! Ohhh whaaaaaat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How crazy is that!!! Faith!!! that is sooo cool!!! It's kinda like Ryan's experience with the blind man but the baby is healed!!  I love God! haha Have a great week! 

Elder Cornejo

Week 29

Ok so this week was sooo crazy good!!!  Alright lemme tell you, Miracles out the wazzoo!!  So I'll start with the coolest thing, so Quieten L Cook...sorry for butchering his name, came to our mission!!!!  I shook his hand nbd!!  We all drove to Annapolis stake center last saturday morning and when he walked in his head was literally glowing!!  He gave us some sweet advice!  And he left a special apostolic blessing upon our mission.  He told us that even though it is hard to serve sometimes that we need to be assured that when we are serving here that our family and friends back at home will be blessed more than we can imagine for the service that we are doing right now.  I can't help to think and just feel that by me being here, there is gotta be someone at home that will be blessed and it encourages me to work harder and harder each day!!! After the spiritual outpouring, we raced back home and picked up an investigator and less active all the way in Frederick and then got in the car and drove back down 45 min to Ellicot City to watch a baptism in a river!!  Our investigator then said he wanted to be baptized!! He dressed down for church but then something came up and he couldn't make it... So then yesterday we went to a Porque yo creo in Columbia and I found out someone that Elder Leavit and I were teaching is getting baptized next Saturday!!  So they said that the familia Soriano requested that we come down to watch it soo we gotta find someone to come and be baptized!    So yesterday I felt kinda sick. I had a fever but went to church and felt pretty terrible.  I love hispanics!! they see that I'm not feeling good so they just show up with random pills... I couldn't help but think of Shelby's ghetto experience in Peru where you tell them your symoptoms and they just give you medicine... that's exactly what they did.. so I took it!! and I felt so much better... don't know if it was bad or not but feel better now!  Probably was some drug.. I felt wired... idk if that's a good thing or not!  Sorry I've been so bad at writing, We never have time!!  Thank you Becky for writing me!  I hope everything turns out for their car.  Glad to hear no one was hurt... So I'm learning a lot, we have a ton of good times!  It's all good.  I hope all of you have a great day  Tell Quinn good luck!!  He's gotta lemme know how he is feeling!!  When is Chloe coming to the Baltimore mission??  That is soo nuts!!  Hope you all  have a great week!!

Elder Cornejo