September 11- Cleanup Week!

Well, this week has been pretty busy! Not with the normal teach, preach and work like missionaries do- helping with the cleanup of hurricane Isaac. I mentioned last week a little bit about we were helping with cleaning out houses from the flooding, and we've been doing the same thing every single day. for 9 days straight! We've been really exhausted, but it feels good to work so hard. They have us pretty well organized. We split up into our missionary districts, or wards when there are members helping as well, and they give us a work order assignment, and we go and do it- Which is primarily taking out flooring, and taking out drywall. We are getting pretty dang quick at it, we're total pro's at getting out drywall and flooring faster than any other bunch east of the mississippi! (though a few of us are serving on the west side and came to help). Its been really cool, and it should be about done, we'll find out more on Wednesday what we're doing the rest of the week!

 

 Why Wednesday? Because thats transfers! Normally, president doesnt tell us where we are getting transfered to, but this transfer was a pretty easy guess. He asked me to be a zone leader, and there is only one spanish zone leader area. So my fate is sealed, I am getting transferred to Lafayette! I've heard its pretty different than New Orleans or Baton Rouge, so it should be a pretty cool experience.

Thats about it, I hope everyone got those pictures, they tell the story better than I!

-Elder Cardon

September 11 Pictures

(Sorry about the inconsistency of updates! We're going to do better in Cam's last six weeks to update you weekly on how he's doing.)

Here's some pictures from September 11 that Cam sent to us. :)

Cam says:

Here is a wave of pictures, more to come!

1. A painting we found when cleaning out someones house- representing, of course, Christ's baptism (artist interpretation)

 

 

2. Us driving back home after a long day of work!

 

 

3. Me in front a military truck- the national guard was there doing security, and this was a road block that didnt let us on the road because Obama came by!

 

 

4. The average street of the city we were working in all week, featuring my companion, elder Gillett.

 

 

5. To get to LaPlace, take exit 209... wait. Any other way?

 

 

6. Talking to a member during a pizza break

 

 

7. A few of us getting ready for a day of service!

 

 

8. A flooded street- after it had gone down about 3ft of what it was.

 

 

9. A few weeks ago on the streetcar going into town!

 

DAY 643: SEPTEMBER 4

(message received via text)

Your son has been here at my house all day cleaning up, thanks for letting us borrow him!

DAY 642: SEPTEMBER 3

Isaac, you win this time

Hey everyone! We dont have much time to email today, we have been so busy doing service! And alot of it. We did a few things in baton rouge, but all that was incredibly minor compared to what we have here. We came back after a week of evacuation in baton rouge, staying in an apartment with no power and therefore no AC, we came back on saturday and started on the service. New orleans itself isnt too bad- but the place that got it good is LaPlace. Weve been here the last three days gutting houses from the floods. most of the houses in the area we are working in got 1-2 feet of water IN their house- which means like 4 or 5 feet in the street. Its mostly taking all their furniture out to the street, ripping out carpets and cutting the drywall a few feet up to get the molded stuff out. And if you think you know what stench is- you have no idea until you open a fridge that has had no power in it for 5 days. No. Idea.

 

   So the plan for the rest of the week is all the missionaries to work all day cleaning out more houses, and then go back to their area and teach at night. I've noticed a huge difference in people letting us in when we have a gospel message and when we offer to help clean out their smelly flooded house- no telling which is more successful!

 

  Side note- Obama came to town! we saw him drive by in a huge caravan of police cars. Michelle waved at us!

 

-Elder Cardon

 

DAY 635: AUGUST 27

Run Away!

   Well, that was our approach with Tropical Storm Isaac. Last night we evacuated all the missionaries out of the New Orleans area to come up to Baton Rouge because of the coming storm. It seems like alot of people down there weren't too worried. In fact, we were stopped by a parade going through the street on our way out. I guess theres still time for a parade even when a hurricane is on its way.

 

  We're here in Baton Rouge staying at some other elders apartment, so theres 8 of us here at one place, its pretty fun. I'm sure you could find some updates online, but apparently the storm is supposed to hit the coast on Tuesday or Wednesday. Well see what happens, I guess. So hopefully we are safe up here.

 

Sorry for the short update, I'll write a good one next week!

 

-Elder Cardon

DAY 628: AUGUST 20

N'awlins.

Well, this week we had a great zone conference, and exchange with the other elders in our district. I went into another area, which is always a little bit of a break, not having to worry about where to go, but still engaged in teaching and finding. We found some interesting people, and had one of those funny drunk guy experiences we haven't had in a long time. These guys around there truck asked us to come over and talk to them, and asked us questions about why God lets bad things happen. After trying to figure out the question themselves, we just went with "well, less bad things will happen to you if you don't drink so much". That was probably about all the doctrine they could handle. I'm sometimes surprised about how confused people are about gospel/religious terminology. A couple weeks ago we were teaching two people and we were talking about prophets, and one of them asked if lineage was important to be called to be a prophet. We said the most important thing is that they are called of God. He asked "well doesn't lineage mean you're a prophet?" and the lady said, with a tone of duh in her voice "No, lineage is when you are cleaned from your sins!".  Oh boy, we've got some ground to cover.

 

     We were successful in teaching many investigators, and finding a few as well. We found a new apartment of people to teach, and as usual, they all have different interest levels. One of them we both agreed we could tell was feeling the spirit more than others, and he is the one we will focus on. One of them you could tell hardened his heart and in a couple instances laughed at us for what we were teaching, and the guy who we knew was feeling the spirit had the same reaction we did - Wow, rude. Is he seriously laughing at this? I tried not to let it bother me, but when he cut off the first vision and laughed at it, I just asked "is there something funny going on here?" and I think he had a bit of a wake-up call that this was the real deal and he shouldn't laugh at it, and he was silent the rest of the lesson.

 

   Other than that, pretty normal week. not much time today, so I hope to hear back soon!

 

-Cam

DAY 621: AUGUST 13

weekly update!

Well, this was a pretty normal week, nothing big to report on. We had some great lessons and increases in faith from our investigators, and found quite a few new investigators as well. We did a really cool lesson with a member family, about faith. So we all know that faith is like a seed- if you plant and nourish it, it will grow. So we went and bought some potting soil, little pots and some seeds, and helped all the kids plant seeds. And then committed to take care of that seed, and also take care of their seed of faith- by watering it and putting it in the sun, and by reading the scriptures and praying, respectively.  We went by two days later and most of the little pots had been knocked over, so I guess they "cast out the seed with their doubt" hopefully they didnt do that with their faith!

 

 We found a really cool family to teach this week, and they are from honduras. But they're not your average hispanics- they are of the Garifuna race. I think I've mentioned them before, they are people who are of african descent, but speak spanish too. The short version of the story is this: During slave trades in the 1700s, there was a group three ships traveling together back from africa to america. Well, I wouldnt like being taken out of my home to go work really hard in the heat somewhere for no pay*, and the africans didnt want to either, so the weren't gonna go down easy. So during the voyage they rebelled and killed all the white people. Not knowing how to navigate by the stars, let alone steer a boat, they ended up on the coast of Central america, crash landed, and then established there. So the Garifuna language is a mix between two african dialects with a little bit of french, and now some spanish. There are a few members who speak the same language, so I've learned a little bit of it, but man it is hard! totally a different feel than any Latin based language. lots of b's and g's. Stuff like "Maga tiena" "Badibu" and stuff. So luckily, they understand spanish just fine, and can learn in that, and they teach us little bits of Garifuna. The 13 year old in their family, named Iwor, seriously caught the restoration better than most adults. They were really excited about the Book of Mormon, and we totally have some Garifuna members to be some fellowshippers! Incase you wanted to know, to say "We are missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints" is "Tida guietiwa liguilisi to lani bunguio to janisandu le lagamujou wellu" Don't worry, I'm still working on it too!

 

   Well, other than that, things have been pretty normal, we've had a great time with everything. Hope to hear back from everyone soon! Ask me some questions and I'll answer them in my next update. Or do the keyword thing, i think that worked for about two emails, but really, it was great idea!

*Wait, isnt that exactly what I'm doing right now? lol