12/30/1013 La semana de la Navidad

How wonderful it was to talk to ustedes on Christmas!  It's interesting because before I skyped you I got really nervous!  I don't know why, I just did, then when I got to talk to you it was like nothing had changed, and everything was normal.  I think that is probably how returning to heaven is going to be.  We'll be nervous when getting ready to die, then when we get there it will be familiar to us, and we will remember how wonderful it is. 

I want to thank you and everyone who sent me things for Christmas, it was so appreciated!  I had a most wonderful Christmas here in Laredo with clear skies, and perfect temperature!  :)  The family who's house we skyped at also decided to get us Christmas.  They got me a camel-back like my companion has, and 2 really cute outfits, and nail polish.  You feel very special as a missionary and like you don't deserve what people want to give you, but you have to humbly accept it anyways so that they will feel the joy of giving and serving us servants of the Lord.

Funny story: We drove out of the Texas McAllen Mission by accident this week. :O :) Sister Judd missed the exit and her GPS was glitching, and we just couldn't find a place to turn around.  We were a little nervous that we would drive into Mexico, because I border is like a mile away (I got to see Mexico this week on a different excursion).  When we finally got turned around the right way, the sign read, "Laredo 17 miles, Nuevo Laredo 18 miles)"  Oops. We had no idea we had gone that far. Turns out we live on the northern boundary of our mission.  However, it was a miracle in disguise because by the time we finally got to where we were supposed to go (45 minutes later) we arrived at the same time as the less active family we really needed to see.  The Lord does stuff like that to us all the time. It has been super clear to us that the Lord expects us to do member missionary work.  He wants us to help the members do their missionary work.  We wrote out all of the non-member friends and family that are members are or could be sharing the gospel with right now, and our list was huge.  It turns out that all the success our area has had in the past had been directly through members, especially part member families, except one that was an "open your mouth" at the library.  We know where the Lord wants us to direct our efforts.  It's just hard to be patient because member work is slower, but 99% more effective that our own random finding efforts.

The miracles that have happened this week have been completely surrounded by members.  While we visited a member another member called us wanting to schedule a dinner with his non-member friend.  We got to learn how to make tomales with a non-member mom and her friend. 

Family history was the focus for this week, and I want to let Dad especially know to add stories on familysearch.org.  I have officially started learning about my family history every week when I get to spend an hour on mormon.org/or familysearch.org.  The only way I can learn about these stories on my mission is if you email them to me or they are on specifically that website.  I prefer you upload them to the website.  I've been so grateful in learning about my ancestors.  I've only learned a few stories, but have already used them in lessons to share the gospel.  As I've learned about the plan of salvation too, I've realized that the Lord is hastening his work   not only in living missionary efforts, but in temple work too.  We are to prepare the earth for the coming of the Savior, and we will work until the gospel has sounded in every ear, and everyone has had the opportunity to accept or deny it.  That means on both sides of the veil.  The reason the Lord is hastening his work now and not in any other age is because at no other time have we had the technological capabilities to organize such a work.  Now we have familysearch.org, and we have a lot of people to find.  Let's do it!  If you find any stories on Daniel Stiles Cahoon, send those. :)

Oh yeah, transfers were this week and sister judd and I are staying! Whohoo! But sister Monsen is going home tomorrow.  she is dying very gracefully.  We will miss her!

Love,

Hermana Campbell

12/16/2013 Wonderful Week of Glory

Dear Amado Family,

I hope I have enough time to tell you how awesome this week was! 

1. Mr. Egg Gospel of Christ lesson: for one of our members we taught the G.o.C using a hard boiled egg, and it was AWESOME!  So you take a hard boiled egg and draw a face on him and give him some faith, then you have a durable bottle labeled, "the kingdom of God" The way he is now, mr. Egg can't get into the bottle, even though he has faith enough to try.  each time he sins, you give him a crack until he looks really ugly, then you peel off the shell, teaching the steps of repentence.  Does that get Mr. Egg in the bottle?  No, he still doesn't fit.  So then you get a tupperware mini font and let the kids baptize the egg, (with pictures on the font so he looks dressed in baptismal clothes)  He still doesn't fit.  2 Nephi 31:17 says we also have to be baptized with fire, or the Holy Ghost, so you put vinegar in the bottle, light a match and throw it in, then put Mr. Egg on top and the Holy Ghost sucks him into the Kingdom of God.  I think I loved doing this lesson as much as those 3 boys we taught did (age 2-9)  They also had fun shaking up mr. egg in the kingdom of god until he was ready for an egg salad sandwich. 

2. We keep trying to visit less actives, and running into their nonmember family members, which is fine.  One of which was a metaphysist who does much of the same things we do as missionaries, he helps people come to God, except through recognizing levels of consciousness. It was super awesome to talk to him, and so many of the the things he has been able to figure out fit right in with the plan of salvation.  The other is a wonderful woman who always offers us water and food when we stop by, even though she doesn't want to be a mormon, we are becoming friends.

3.  We didn't have a ton of time to work this week, but we were still blessed to find new investigators.  We felt inspired to knock at our apartments and just before we were going to move on to our next plans, we ran into a woman and her daughter in college.  They invited us right in, and we got to share the restoration with them. The spirit was there. As we taught, we became friends and they began to share some of their trials, and questions about God.  they are very special.  In the closing prayer they thanked god for their two new friends and a few minutes after the lesson (we had returned home) the woman knocked on our door and gave us oranges and offered to feed us lunch next time we stop by. 

4.  I learned something about prayer this week.  God wants to answer our prayers, but sometimes we build a rock wall of pride, doubts, etc.  To receive answers we need to break the wall be build. 

5. We got to go to Corpus for a mission tour where the area seventy speaks to us.  It was incredible, and I received answers to all my questions. 

6.  sister Judd and I are like ninjas on our bikes.  The mission told us the miles to corpus wouldn't be taken off, so we've been riding everywhere, jumping curbs  and speed bumps and all.  This sundaywe flew past the Elders on their bikes on their way to church, but could they let the sisters beat them? phhh, no, so they took a secret short cut.  Sister Judd and I even rode our bikes at 5:30 in the morning so we could get to the conche to play soccer at 6:00.  It was a riot.  I have so much more to tell you!  Hope I get to send a letter one day. 

Love,

Mo, Hermana Campbell

12/9/2013 Members = Miracles

Dear family,

I have a wonderful idea for you all!  Email me just like one or two sentences a week to let me know how the week went, then you can count it for writing your little sister like you know you should be! I'm grateful for anything, and I'm loving my mission.  Right now, Kyle is my favorite sibling. ;)

I have exciting news.  We get to skype home for Christmas!  The limit is 45 minutes and we can do it at a member's home either on Christmas Eve or Christmas day.  So let me know when works best for you.  As we figure out what plans work best for my comp's family and the Lule's (the family we will be skyping at) I will let you know what time. 

I had an incredible experience this week.  I've been praying and fasting for a while to find someone who would be willing to be baptized.  My companion asked if I've ever added a date to it, and I found this, "Prayerfully set a date: One way to show your faith in the Lord and his promises is to prayerfully set a date to have someone prepared to meet with the missionaries.  I have received hundreds of letters from members who have exercised their faith in this simple way.  Even though families had no one in mind with whom they could share the gospel they set a date, prayed, and then talked to many more people.  The Lord is the Good Shepherd, and he knows his sheep who have been prepared to hear his voice.  He will guide us as we seek His divine help in sharing his gospel.  As we pray for our own missionary experiences and opportunities and to be prepared to act on those impressions as they come our way, I promise you they will come." from Elder M. Russell Ballard. Date:___________.  As I committed a family to do this, I decided to do it too.  My date was December 8th.  Two days later we visited a young mother with two 4 year old children and another 2ish year-old with a member.  We started talking about prayer and receiving revelation.  Both me and my companion felt inpired to share a specific part of the Restoration, so we did.  Everything flowed perfectly and tied in with personal experiences that we had already shared because the spirit was guiding the lesson.  We invited her to be baptized as she finds out that this church is true through reading and praying about the BOM and Joseph Smith.  She accepted.  Our next lesson with her is later today.  I was so amazed that the Lord answered my specific prayer in just 2 days.  I realized something yesterday about gratitude.  I need to thank the Lord for answering my prayer as faithfully and fervently as I asked for him to bless me with this miracle.  My goal this week is to do a better job at showing the Lord gracias por medio de writing his blessings in my journal, sincere prayer, telling Him that I love Him and thanking Him for His Son, and being obedient because I love the Lord. 

Family, I want to let you know that I love you.  Thanks for all you are doing to be faithful and build the kingdom of God. 

Love,

Hermana Campbell

12/9/2013

District painting a member's house on Halloween

Mariah's baptism -  1st area

Experimental Shephard's Pie

Quintanilla family - great strong members

They are fun and give new missionaries hard questions to answer.

Reactivated family - Melissa, Angel, and Mario Montenez

Yukon restaurant where they have delicious tortas!

12/2/2013 Miracles and Thanksgiving

Hey family,

I want to let you know about the incredible miracles the Lord is giving us in our mission.  We had a goal this year of 1000 baptisms in the whole mission.  To achieve this, we set a goal of 110 baptisms in November and 98 in December. We usually send a text to the zone when someone accepts a baptismal date, and I have never seen so many BD texts in my life.  Baptismal miracles are happening all over the place! We are working so hard as a mission, and the Lord is blessing us.  This past week with Thanksgiving was a little weird for working.  It was like all of our investigators postponed with us until after the holidays, and I felt like all of our members who would feed us for Thanksgiving left town too.  So we were without Thanksgiving dinner plans until the night before when one of the nonmember mothers of a less active offered to cook us Thanksgiving.  Then a member out of our area offered, and then the relief society president offered.  I've never been stuffed the point of such pain before in my life!  Good thing we rode like 20 miles on our bikes that day.  That night, without realizing it I prayed, "Gracias por la comida que nos comieron." Mi and mi companera burst out laughing when we realized what I'd said, "Thanks for the food that ate us."  :D The dinner with the nonmember family was so wonderful!  We got to share a scriture about how the Nephites gave thanks, then we ended up finding their need to know if God really does exist, so we shared personal experiences and testified about faith.  I really admire the mom, she stays close to God and is a really good example for her wayward sons.  I so hope we can work with them more this coming week.  Dinner with the member family outside our area was wonderful as well.  The family had invited 2 nonmember co-workers and 6 missionaries.  The Elders gave such a powerful lesson, and we talked a lot about the gospel.  She is a super good cook.  I contributed a green jell-o fluff salad that was divine also.  P.S. I'm really learning how to cook! I've invented all sorts of things with onion soup packets, including a super delicious meat loaf and chicken and rice.  I'm loving experimenting with recipies.  Anyways, Thanksgiving morning we also went to a Turkey bowl, a football tournament with the districts.  Mi and compna. the only Hermanas that played, but it was so fun.  On one of the first plays I caught an interception and scored a touchdown. :)

My companion is a super incredible piano player.  The music director in the English branch gave us some Christmas music to practice for the branch choir program on the 15th and 22nd.  She gave me a piece, but I don't think I can learn it in time.  That is one of my life goals: learn how to sight read anything.  I'm serious about this.  I'm going to develop piano skills throughout my life so I can better serve people and my future family.  Teaching piano is going well still. 

So one miracle that happened this week:  My companion and I were at the church with about 2 more hours to work left in the day.  We prayed to know what Heavenly Father wanted us to do next.  The Elders offered a ride back to our area, so they dropped us off at the very northern part, which was a big blessing because we definitely wouldn't have had time to ride our bikes all the way back to our area and up to this part of our area.  We contacted some people, then my companion really had to go to the bathroom, but none of our members on the street were home. Finally in desperation, I asked a random younger woman walking her dog across the street if she lived nearby.  She did, so we used her bathroom and started talking.  We got to know her a little and shared stories of how the gospel has influenced our life.  We also shared with her a little about the gospel of Christ, (fe, repentance, baptism).  She had some questions about baptism, so we explained a little more.  We have a return appointment tomorrow.  It is always a miracle when you get to share your testimony with someone like that.  I'm so grateful for my baptismal experience, where I felt the spirit so strongly.  I remember right after coming out of the water looking back behind me to see if my sins were left in the water--that's how good it felt. I actually remember feeling a lifting of weight, even as an 8 year old.  Now I know that it was a powerful witness of the Holy Ghost.  I'm grateful for the opportunity to repent and become more like our Savior.  I feel myself changing as I put him first in everything I do. 

Love,

Hermana Campbell

11/25/2013

Family!  It's always super hard to know where to start.  I feel so lucky to get hermana Judd.  I love her!  She loves soccer and running!  It doesn't matter if she is good or bad at something, she just goes for it with all her might and learns super quick, then ends up being boss.  She makes me want to improve so much.  And I'm so excited about the missionary work in our area.  I feel like we have a lot of unity.  There are a lot of little things that I learned that we should be doing with the ward members at the MTC, that we are finally picking up on.  She has such a great vision for member missionary work, and I feel the same way, so we are pumped to work more with our members.  We've talked to both Branch Presidents, the YW, and Relief Society and YW presidents to see how we can better help them out.  It sounds like we have a ton of work to do, and when we ask them, they get excited about missionary work too.  We introduced ourselves in YWs and shared the missionary miracle of the week then passed around a sign up sheet for when the young women can come out with us and their ideas to do missionary work with us.  Sister Judd is super driven with our goals, which is wonderful!  I actually have never been able to accomplish some of our weekly goals until this week.  We are finally doing everything we possibly can to make member present lessons happen.  when you accomplish a goal, it makes you feel even more excited to see if you can reach something even higher.  

Now for specific stories: It was super cold this week!  Holy smokes.  Yeah, I'm going to buy some knee-highs, and you're welcome to send tights,and my underarmor leggings, or sweats.  Although I can't decide if tights make me warmer or colder and I think I will just buy everything else I want today.

So funny story: we go knock at our first house in the freezing cold, then sister Judd looks at me and says, "What would you do if . . ." (she's checking all her pockets and can't get the words out.) I already know, "You locked the keys in the trunk" I smile, and say, "This is exciting, we get to have an adventure!"  The spare key is all the way down in McAllen.  yeah, so fortunately the YW president was coming to a lesson with us soon, so she just picked us up, we had a super good contact with a less active family, then she waited with us in her warm car while the locksmith came.  I'm so glad she rescued us and I had cash on hand!

    We visited Brother Rayna (who had brain cancer) on Thursday in the hospital.  although all he could do was moan, the spirit was very strong as we sang him a hymn.  He passed away on Saturday. Keep his family in your prayers. 

This next week will be weird with everyone out of town for the week.  All of our members have left, so Sister Judd can't meet anyone, and we don't have any set plans for Thanksgiving.  Crazy, but there is a good potential we can eat with a nonmember/ son less active, which would be the best!   I'm very very happy here and learning so much, especially with leading my new companion around the area.  Take care,

Love,

Hermana Campbell

11/18/2013 Transfers Week

Hello dear family,

What a crazy week this has been!  So tomorrow is transfers, Ahhhhh!  And I'm staying here in Country Club and my trainer is leaving for Mision, near McAllen.  My new companion will be Sister Judd, and she is half Korean.  Can't wait to meet her.  I'm super surprised, I thought for sure Sister Arevalo would finnish training me, especially since she's only been here for 2 transfers.  I'm super nervous because I won 't be able to depend on her knowledge of members, less active, and potential to go by anymore and directions!  Ahhh!  Also, we had first comp. training this week.  That was super awesome.  We drove down to McAllen on Thursday (3 hour drive) and President Maluenda and his wife taught us for a few hours about sharing the gospel and handling stress.  One question they asked the trainers while we were all together is, "What will your greenie remember from you after you've left?"  Super tough question, and my comp. got asked to answer.  I'm super glad she did because sometimes I don't know if she realizes how good of a missionary she is.  She said, "I hope she remembers I was diligent and loved the people."  What a correct and beautiful answer.  It has been hard sometimes this transfer because she's been sick a lot with headaches and nausea, (she's going to the doctor for a blood test soon), but I felt like we were always diligent, obedient, and loving the people.  She's been super patient with me being the awkward person I am.  One of the things we learned at the training was to set our fears aside, and TALK TO EVERYONE!  I'm glad I felt little/no guilt when President was teaching us this.  I forget how to be normal sometimes.  I think my most awkward door contact this week was a young (disinterested) young father holding his daughter.  Shortly after asking the age of his daughter I dug in my backpack and found the picture of milked-down smiling Gage, and started trying to tell him the story of Riley spilling milk on his head in spanish.  After half a struggling sentence, he says, It's okay if you need to speak in English. Then after my random story he says, "I don't want to be rude, but I'm Catholic and not interested, bye."  Oh man, everyday I'm pretty sure most of my contacts are awkward.  I trying to get better, and I'm practicing.  I think the Spanish work: torpe describes me well, at least I think that's what it is. We did actually find 2 new investigators this week from sharing a scripture from the Book of Mormon and a princple from the Plan of Salvation pamphlet. 

Funny story #2: I burnt rice so bad yesterday that I smoked the apartment and I think I will have to go buy a new pan. Oh the joys of independence.  :)

Love,

Mariah

11/12/2013

Dear Family,

Sorry I couldn't write yesterday, the library was closed for Veteran's day.  Thanks Katie for the Piano books, I've already used them!. 

Many beautiful miracles this week. Each day we plan a "rounded effort" meaning we visit potentials investigators, former investigators, less actives, and members each day.  One of the potentials was Pedro, who has 3 teens and is probably in his late 40s.  We always start a door contact by trying to establish a friendship by getting to know the person, then we can relate something they say to interest them in the gospel.  Pedro was very respectful and kind, and the spirit guided us in sharing testimony about a part of the Plan of Salvation.  He began to tear up and told us that he was having a tough time with his mother.  We shared a scripture, and have great hopes that he will call us tomorrow. He seems genuine and open and really wanting to know more. 

It's a rare opportunity when a jeep of high schoolers come up to you and ask for a pamphlet and about your church.  I like it. 

I'm grateful for time spent studying the scriptures.  I'm getting to know them so well, and I'm having a lot of fun finding ways to help investigators resolve their concerns then tie it back to baptism.  My favorite scripture of the week is 2 Nephi 26:24-25.  Everything the Lord does is for our benefit.  At the end of the scripture Christ invites us to buy milk and honey without price.  Why milk and honey?  What comes to my mind is that milk is that these are nutrient dense comfort foods.  Milk is the first nutrients that we receive as babies and honey carries all nutrients we need to survive.  Christ offers us all the spiritual comfort and nutrients that we need without price, he gives us this freely.  The more we meditate, search, and ask questions about the scriptures, the more we will learn from them.  My time is up, so talk to you next week!.

Love, Sister Campbell

Continued. . .

We are being well taken care of here by members and non members alike.  We felt inspired to visit the Lule's a less active family.  The spirit directed the lesson, and they came to church this week!  They also gave us abolita, super yummy hot chocolate, and when they found out that Sis. Arevalo was cold at night and needed a bike, they gave us comforters and immediately went and bought her a new bike. 

 

We had a very interesting experience this Monday, we recieved a taste of the Elder madness when it comes to ties.  It is called "Tie Digging"  They brought 2 truck loads, 2500 ties, 1600 lbs. of ties to the church on p-day and dug for good ones for half of the day.  It was so overwhelming that I couldn't pick out any to send to dad for Christmas.  Crazy!  Ok, better go. 
love,

Mo

11/4/2013 Blessings in Disguise

I got a package today!  It was full of everything I could've wanted: cookies, piano books, more cookies, ankle brace, more halloween candy, recepie book, tools to teach kids, and MORE COOKIES!  Thank you so much!

The most awesome miracle of my mission so far happened this week! I got sick.  You know how I get sick every holliday?  So the day after Halloween I threw up twice and had a small fever.  But I really just felt weak, not even nausea, so it was probably the least pain in sickness I've ever felt.  :)I also don't know if I've ever had so much faith that if I needed to, I would be better by that afternoon to complete the work Heavenly Father needed me to do.  My companions took such great care of me with jello and rice, and toast, and applejuice and homemade soup.  They arranged for me to stay with the Montanez family so they could form a trio and still get work done in both of our areas.  After I arrived at sister Montanez house she told me that her sister's family was coming over, with the same niece that was really struggling emotionally and whom she had given a book of mormon to. What?! Heavenly Father placed a sick missionary at the perfect time and place to share the gospel with a family who needed it exactly at this moment in their lives.  I simply knew this was why I was there, and I knew what I had to do.  I pleaded for the right moment to share the gospel with them.  Everything seemed to flow as the spirit directed. The opportunity to share Elder Holland's talk, "like a broken vessel" came.  The mom and her 2 daughters listened and were touched and strengethened by this talk. Sister Montanez and I then shared the plan of salvation, revelation through prayer and scriptures, introduced book of mormon and that lead into reading 3 Nephi 11 when Christ appears to the Nephites and teaches them the doctrine of Christ. The spirit was very strong, and I just had to be patient and let the Lord do his work.  I was so sad to leave their home. Over the course of the evening we had become kindred spirits, knowing and loving one another.  But the next day my companion and I returned and taught the atonement of Jesus Christ.  Everything leads to baptism, and they want to be baptized! but the dad isn't sure.  The two daughters came to church the next day and loved it. I wish we could continue with them, but they live 2 hours north outside the mission.  For sure we will be checking on their progress.  They are serious about this though.  You could just see the happiness and hope flow into Natalie's heart.  The gospel really was healing her.  I caught the beautiful sight of bringing the light of Christ into someone's life and it truly was beautiful. 

 

I don't have much more time, so really quick:

I found some more piano books/songs in church library, so I think I will be okay now, but having my own is always useful so thank you.

Miracle of safety: Hna. Arevalo's bike fell off our rack on a 60 mile an hour road.  Fortunetly it fell between the two lanes so that no one was harmed and cars were able to dodge it. A state trooper stopped the lane briefly so we could retrieve it, and as of now there are no legal consequences. Just that her bike is ruined.  I hope she lets me help her get a new one or fix it. 

For Halloween our Mission President told us to stay in and study from 6-9, but we got permission to paint a house instead!  So that was super fun, and we had like 20 minutes of extra time to play games, and that rarely happens so that was awesome.  We bought candy for trick or treaters and taped them to pass along cards.:)

Another miracle: a man at restaurant came up to us, said I looked familiar (I've had that a few times, I guess I look like a past missionary), and asked us to come share the gospel with him! He is not in our area, so we can't, but the Elders can!

Lately we have been seeking opportunities to serve and to learn how to make food and we were super blessed with many opportunities to do both those things. 

We got to attend a baptismal service for our fellow hermana's investigator, Maria.  It was wonderful!  Baptismal services are definitely highlights of the mission. 

I'm glad I'm me:

1. my skirt fell in the toilet as I was going to the bathroom

2. Sometimes I start talking to Chinese people in Spanish--they just look at me weird.

3. Sometimes I ask random people on the street in they want to come to my church.  --they also look at me weird.

Love,

Hermana Campbell

11/3/2013

Oct. 2013 Halloween cupcake decorating activity at RS

Left to Rght:  Hermana Monsen, Hermana Beckstrand, Mariah, Hermana Arevalo

Roommates in first area- Laredo North.  Oct. 2013

CCM District Sept. 2013  from Left to Right

Elder Petersen from Cache Valley, Elder Paschal, Elder Mate, Elder Gibson, Elder Christensen

Hermana Nail, Hermana Petramalo, Teacher Hermana Bair, Hermana Neilson (1st comp), Mariah,

Elder Fondren, Elder Voigt.  (Other teacher was Hermana Villanueva)

CAPTION:  Branch President Jewell and Wife  Sept. 2013

10/28/2013 Much to Tell

Dear Family,

I'm sorry if I haven't answered your questions.  To be honest, there really isn't time. I would love to answer them, so if you really want an answer just keep emailing me the same question until I get a clue.   Sorry.  I got mail!  That was so fun.  :) It comes a lot faster to my direct address.  I think packages are still supposed to be sent to the mission office. 

I got the candy/card package with my bike, thanks.  Apparently both different card numbers work to the same account and are open.  Can you check online and tell me what is going on with my debit card? I'm confused if I should shred the new one with the old number or not. 

I hope this doesn't scare you too much. :) 5 weeks ago I sprained my ankle playing soccer, but it was only minor, for which I'm super grateful.  I've been doing my best to be nice to it.  I don't even feel it during the day, just when I exercise in the morning.  Sometimes we get to play basketball in the mornings and I want to be careful.  Is there anyway you could send my good old ankle brace with a pair of long enough socks to cover where the brace comes up to on my ankle?

This week we had exchanges, which means that the sister training leaders come to visit and we spend the whole day with a different companion.  We got to "blitz" our area, meaning we had 2 companionships working in our area at the same time.  Exchanges was a super good experience.  I learned so much.  Sister Kreis was "born" in my area, so she loved seeing old friends.  She is so happy and I feel like everyone we talked to ended off in a good relationship.  It is interesting how people's attitudes change when you ask them to pray for you that you will find people to teach.  Even if they are completely not interested, you leave friends. 

We taught a couple of new investigators this week!  One is Luis, all in Spanish.  I felt the spirit throughout the whole lesson, I just hope he did.  I need to ask more inspired questions.  I always feel like I have so much to share but that I can't express it in the right way.  Another investigator is Magario.  He is in a very difficult situation.  It has been three years since his friend shot his 12 year old son.  He continues to live in despair wondering why God took away his favorite son.  He doesn't want to be happy and he doesn't want peace.  It is so hard knowing that the gospel can help him, but that he doesn't believe or want the help it can give him.  Oh how I hope our next lesson he can feel the spirit and his heart can be softened.  Pray for him. 

One highlight of this week was attending Arisbeth Castillo's baptism. She is one of the girls I'm teaching piano to.  The spirit was so strong at the baptismal service.  I felt completely happy and peaceful throughout the whole experience.  There was a lot of family there.  It was a good testimony boost to the sacred ordinance of baptism and correct and beautiful it is. 

This Sunday was wonderful!  It was the Primary Program.  The spirit seems to always be very strong at these.  I think it must be because simple exact truths are coming from the mouths of innocent, pure children.  Three less active families that we have been teaching came!  The Gardequa children were sitting out in the foyer, so we went out and helped them gain the courage to take their place on the stand to be part of the primary program.  They did great. The Montanes are on fire right now.  We had a super lesson with them this week and they are preparing to go to the temple in a few months.  And the gospel principles lesson was on temples!  What a tender mercy! It was exactly what brother monantes needed to hear.  And the McHugh family came to church too.

Another tender mercy with the piano happened in the spanish branch.  We walked in just in time as they were starting the sacrament hymn.  Without knowing exactly which song, I walked up to the piano, and played a sacrament hymn.  Yes, I would say that's a miracle.  That was my first time playing in sacrament meeting. 

We also had interviews with the Mission President this Sunday.  He is so full of love. He gave me advise on feeling the spirit 24/7.  I will always have a prayer in my heart and be focused on the people I will be interacting with next. 

This Saturday we had the Fall Festval with three branches.  It was super fun.  I helped rope in volunteers for the pie eating contest.  They had games, trunk or treat, costume contest, and chili contest. It was a great turn out, and there were quite a few non-members who came too.  I had a good converstion with a Spanish-speaking older man, and it turns out he was less active and also came to church the next day.  Now we are good friends. 

 

Love,

Hermana Campbell

Mi and comp. washing our car, Basic jam and peanut butter is amazing!  We love to cook together and check out my new spanish scripture case during companion study!  Melchezidek from CCM at Mexico custom makes them.

10/24/2013 Mission President

10/14/2013 First Week in the Mission Field!

My first area is Laredo North.  I've arrived here safely.  My area is probably 60% english and 40% Spanish so I never know which language to start with.  Because I'm not speaking Spanish all of the time, and I have less time to study the language, I feel like my knowledge of Spanish is decreasing, but I can get by.  My area is pretty rich.  

My companion is Hermana Avevalo from Utah.  She learned Spanish and English at the same time, so she is fluent in both. Her parents are Peruvian and she being a great mom to me.  I've so grateful that she has such strong faith, diligence, and obedience.  She immediately follows promptings from the spirit, which is really helping me learn to rely on the Spirit.  We live in an apartment with 2 other sisters. The first night me and Hna. Nielson stayed at a member's home in McAllen.   I drove my first day and I a little bit everyday.  We are super limited on miles, so we also ride our bikes everyday.  They mostly put together our bikes for us, but I've already had plenty of experience adjusting the brakes and jump-starting the car.  I would love some simple recipes, I seem to have forgotten how to cook. :)  

This week has been a huge learning experience. I'm very grateful for an obedient and faithful trainer, sister Arevalo. She is a great example to me and is teaching me to have faith and to be a great missionary. This week has been hard because we haven't found anyone to teach. I know that the Lord is teaching me and I need to have patience and a good attitude. I have never been asked to have so much faith and I'm working on choosing to enjoy every day. 

My goal for the past few days to help me feel happy has been to expect and see the Lord's miracles. I do see them everyday. The very best days are the days that we get to teach a lesson. I want to feel so badly that I'm making a difference. One highlight of this week was teaching a less active family, the Montanas. They welcomed us in, and we talk about prayer and trusting in Heavenly Father. They are going through a rough financial time right now, and the message of the gospel was exactly what they needed. To watch the spirit touch hermana montana's heart made me happy. Another highlight was contacting three children on the street and teaching them stories of Jesus. It made me appreciate so much the innocence and purity of children. They ask simple and sincere questions like, "What is prayer?" I so hope that we get to teach their family more. Another highlight was receiving guidance on where to go from the Spirit. I had a thought to visit someone. My companion is really good at acting on thoughts or impressions from the Spirit. So we visited this person, but they weren't home. So we prayed and listened and asked why we had been led to this area. I felt good about walking up the street to a member's home. It turned out that that member needed help. I almost started to cry when I realized that the Lord really had worked through me to guide where we needed to go. We helped Sister Pluma revise her English talk then shared a scripture with her. She had wanted to ask our help on Wednesday. When I listen to the promptings of the Spirit, I have the opportunity to see a miracle happen. My goals for this next week is to never give up on practicing the language. I need to stay calm and happy and enjoy each day. I am very blessed to get to see miracles everyday and I am happy.   

Letters in the mail would be great! 

Love,

Mariah

10/7/2013 Ready for the Field!

Hi mom!  I´m glad your day has been productive.  Picking and bottling applesauce sounds so fun!  I've never been so thrilled to watch conference in my life than here.  We all sit together in the auditorium and watch.  It´s fun whenever they show the Mexico MTC because all the missionaries cheer, then we all shhhhh! each other because we remember that it is conference.  Its so nice of them to do a news cast on my MTC because now you know what it is like.  For everything they showed, I do everyday here.  It was a little weird to see those pictures in that talk because I felt like it was my home, my sidewalk, and my classroom.  If you keep walking where those girls were, my casa would be the 2nd one on the left, like 100 feet away. 

 

This morning for our 9:00 class in the auditorium we got to sing ´´As sisters in Zion, Armies of Helaman´´  It turned out amazing!  There were 3 groups of girls who came up to me who asked if they could sing with us.  I gladly included them, and they added a most beautiful harmonized part.  I frequently bore my testimony to my choir about the power of music and pleaded with them to share their testimonies through this music.  ´

 

I´m ready for the field!  In-field orientation was awesome.  I can´t speak spanish yet, but I´m ready to talk to people and bear testimony anyways.  I will leave at 3:30 tomorrow morning for my flight at 7:30 to Houston, then I have yet to print out my boarding pass for my second flight to McAllen.  I might be able to call tomorrow at the airport.  I have no idea how it works, but I´m guessing if I can I would call sometime between 9:00 and 11:00. 

Love,

Hermana Campbell

New Address!

Mariah will be in the field next week! This is her mission home address that shouldn't change during the rest of her mission:

Hermana Mariah Campbell

McAllen Texas Mission

200 W La Vista Ave

McAllen, TX 78501-2131

10/2/2013

Where do I start?

 

Wednesday night we had TRC and it was awesome!  My companion and I actually got to teach a volunteer from the community!  So crazy!  We were all over the place.  We forgot to introduce ourselves, and he just kept asking us so many questions that it was really hard to have a clear lesson.  I didn´t even know if he was a member.  The time went by so fast, and I think we mainly bore testimony about the Book of Mormon.  so exhilarating to get to teach someone for real!  Even though i´m not sure the lesson went very well because we were so scattered and confused most of the time, we were both so ecstatic and happy about it.  I think a whole ward came in that night to give us missionaries practice.  I´m so grateful for them!  I feel like I learned so much, like don´t forget to introduce yourself and what church you´re from and stuff.  The next lesson we got to be investigators for some newer missionaries.  We were just ourselves, but they still found a way to apply the lesson to our lives to help strengthen our faith and prayers. 

 

I´ve learned some interesting things on preparation this week.  I´ve felt both the pit in the stomach for lack of preparation and the full confidence that I will be granted the Lord´s help because I have prepared as much as I can give.  One of our 2 teachers, Hmn. Bair was demonstrating teaching, and even though she was very talented at asking inspired questions and teaching, after the lesson, she told us she felt like something was mission.  She figured it was lack of preparation.  I feel like only when I´ve given everything I can to prepare, only then I feel sure that the Lord´s holy Spirit will accompany me as I teach to help the investigator´s conversion.  One thing that has been difficult for me is knowing how to most efficiently companion study/prepare a lesson with my companion.  After watching my teachers demonstrate, i realize that it takes a lot of work, and can be a struggle, but you just have to persevere and do your best.  Each week we are expected to prepare a talk in Spanish to give for Sunday.  This was the first week I didn´t prepare one.  I got caught up in preparations that I felt were more pressing, until I had forgotten or time I had planned for was unexpectedly taken away.  As I found out I got to give a talk this week, I felt impressed to not worry, but instead of preparing one, to focus on the lessons I was being taught in relief society.  Learning this week that preparation is critical, I prayed very hard for the Lord to forgive me for not preparing my talk.  Sunday morning I felt like I was being spiritually fed, communing with the spirit for the first 5 hours of the morning.  Insights from relief society came faster than I could write them down.  The next meeting I wrote down a few points or scriptures I felt impressed to share, and then stood up to give my talk.  I was blessed with the spirit as my guide to share about our divine potential.  Somehow it connected with a scripture from personal scripture study, and I truly felt the Lord´s help as I shared.  So why was I graced by the spirit when I hadn´t prepared?  This is what I learned: I had prepared. I had listened and learned from the spirit the entire morning. It was simply a different kind of preparation than I was used to.  I hope you can draw some sort of lesson from this.  I feel like I´ve learned a lot.  Faith takes a lot of work.  Maybe in your scripture study prayerfully think about these questions, ´´What has faith done in my life?´´ ´´Why does Heavenly Father want me to have faith?´´ ´´What can I do to better my faith?´´

 

Weekly happenings:  we got to scrub gum off the pavement for service this week!  How awesome is that?! did you know that it is actually possible?  And I know how to do it!  I spear-headed the project of our branch´s musical number for the CCM for this next Sunday morning.  Through some tender mercies we have procured copies and a pianist to perform EFY Medley (as sisters in Zion-army of Helaman)  I have SO MUCH RESPECT FOR CHOIR DIRECTORS!  It is so hard and I feel so incapable of leading 50 missionaries in split parts when I can barely follow it in a foreign language where the words don´t fit just right.  I could never have had our first practice without Hna. Pertamalo and Nielson right next to me helping me figure things out.  I pray for patience from my fellow choir members. 

 

I can´t believe i´m leaving this week!  So crazy!  A day feels like a week and a week feels like a day.  I´m so not ready, but I´m so excited!  AHHHH!

i should email you this Sunday.  SO EXCITED FOR GENERAL CONFERENCE!

Love,

Hermana Campbell

 these are the hermanas in my branch

 This is my whole district

 sorry if this is a duplicate, I can´t remember which ones I´ve sent.  We made good friends with these latina hermanas at lunch.  They were so sweet to help us with our spanish.

This is part of our branch that we play soccer with. 

9/25/2013 Time is flying in Mexico!

The more we struggle, the more we have an opportunity to grow.  Sometimes, I think, ¨why am I not struggling¨and what can I do to make this harder¨.  Funny to think that, but during weekly planning for finding weekly goals it can be hard to find a goal that will be perfect in making you struggle and accomplishing it.  The real problem is probably that I, in error, skip great goals in my mind that I really don´t want to do, like HSI, which is habla su idioma, which is speak your language.  All THE TIME!  It is a very good struggle.  Our teacher invited that to be our goal this week, and I was very nervous, but I'm so glad we re-commited ourselves to it, because the greater the struggle, the greater you get to grow. 

 

For TRC this week we taught a sister in our zone, who is muy lovable.  We asked her how she would feel if she was there when Christ appeared to the Nephites, and she took this question very seriously, opened her heart, bore a sacred testimony of her love for the Savior.  When someone opens up their heart like that, the spirit can be invited so welcomly and strongly.  We asked the same question to one of our regular investigators, and she told us she would feel shame as well as love for Christ.  Shame-that totally caught me by surprise, and I think it is so true and interesting.  How great is the joy in the soul that repenteth.  Those who have repented and used Christ´s atonement will feel joyous at him coming, and those who have not repented will feel shame.  From our investigators answer, we knew exactly how to help her come closer to Christ-by helping her taste the joy of repentance.  I´m very grateful for the spirit´s guidance in personal scripture study this week.  I studied Repentance, and was able to testify to our investigator the blessings that come from repentance using Moroni 4: 10-12.  It is important to repent daily so that our hearts are pure, we are filled with joy, and so that we can retain a remission of our sins.  It is important to repent daily to have peace, increase our faith and trust in Christ, and acknowlege and give gratitude for all that God has done in our lives.  We will be able to have more positive thoughts, our knowledge of the Savior will increase, and we will have a greater capactiy to succor those who stand in need.  I invite us all to use the Atonement more frequently in our lives with more sincere prayer and thanking Christ for the Atonement. 

 

I need more patience.  We have good and not as good lessons, and I need to find a way to improve and evaluate them without getting frustrated.  So hna. Nielson and I decided to give a prayer of thanks after we teach an investigator.  This has helped me very much. 

 

We went on splits with another district to teach an investigator, and it was a super good learning experience.  I found that no matter who you get to work with, the spirit can still unite your companionship.  I learned a lot because the investigator actually got to give us advice.  Funny that I feel like I´ve been pretty good at getting to know people all my life, and that is one of the things I struggle most with in a lesson. 

 

I´ve been reading in my personal thoughts journal and a few things have popped out at me.  I need to look outside myself more and worry about others.  And the spiritual thoughts that matter most are ones where I wrote what the spirit told me, not what the speaker was saying.  Elder Bednar confimed this in a devotional yesterday.  During general conference, the lessons will be so much more powerful if your write what the spirit is telling you to do, not what the speakers are saying.  On Sunday our branch president called me as sister coordinator.  Sister coordinators have more responsibilites in the field, but for here at the MTC my responsibility is to keep my ears open and reach out a welcoming arm.  I´m so so grateful for this calling because it is giving me an opportunity to look outside myself more.  Sunday evening I suddenly felt a strong prompting to interview one of the sisters in my branch that had arrived here this past week. Not finding her in her classroom, we went to her casa, and she opened the door.  I felt like I could totally relate to her frustrations and I gave her encouragement throught some lessons and quotes in Preach My Gospel.  Immediately after our interview I felt an increase in love for this sister and it was the happiest i´d felt all day.  I´m so grateful for that experince and this opporutnity.  I hope that the spirit can guide me more to boost the sisters in my branch. 

 

My birthday was awesome.  Right when we woke up mi hermanas in mi room sang Feliz cumpleaños and during lunch my whole district sang and gave me this poem that I´m going to send in a picture. So so sweet!  I got your card on Sept. 23rd and a package on the 24th! Thanks!  After gymn time we made a cookie cake with the most delicious carmel cookies in Mexico, and I have a picture of that too. 

 

Love,

Hermana Campbell

9/18/2013

Dear family,

I can´t thank you enough for writing me.  It is so exhilarating to hear all of the updates, especially about Texas walking and Celeste´s baby boy!  Congratulations! 

I´ve learned this week that planning makes a HUGE difference.  When you set goals, you set yourself up for success, and are able to accomplish and learn much more.  Specific planning.  On Wednesday last week we taught TRC, which is where teachers, other missionaries, or hopefully volunteers from the community, whether non-members, less active, or members come to help us practice teaching the gospel.  So yeah, we heard we´re giving this lesson to these people with like 5 minutes to prepare, so we just prayed.  We ended up teaching other missionaries, which can also be difficult because they usually already have what you have to offer them.  I´m grateful to one of my teachers, Hermano Villanueva, for teaching us that every person has needs, no matter whether they are a member or not.  It ended up being one of the best teaching experiences with the spirit.  They taught us first and I felt the spirit help with the exact concern I needed help with for that day.  When we taught them, the questions we asked were inspired and they also felt a strong spirit confirm the purpose of their missions.  I learned that in order to know what the Lord needs me to study, I need to strive for His spirit. I can know when I´m being effective when I can feel his spirit in each part of my day, each lesson.  I´ve also learned that whichever lesson we teach has the ability to specifically help that person.  For example, we were teaching Carlos about the Plan of Salvation.  I made a list of each of his concerns, and then a list of how each concern could be specifically resolved with the plan of salvation.   When you know your lesson can actually help someone, it becomes more powerful and I think that helps invite the spirit. 

 

Random thoughts: we have a good time sitting by the Latinas at meal time.  They are only here for 12 days but once you establish a relationship by conversation, they are so awesome and sweet!  It is such good practice for our Spanish to listen to native speakers.  We got to Celebrate Mexican Independence Day!  Wow!  I´m so lucky to be here during the 14-16 of September.  On Saturday night the Benmerito school´s alumni danced and sang for us!  It was true Mexican culture with fantastic music and dresses and different dancing than I´ve ever seen before.  Spanish messes up the grammar in your brain, sorry.  For reasons I still can´t figure out, our district sat next to the spirited Mexicans during these festivals, who were SO CRAZY!  Every opportunity they had they chanted patriotic songs or ¨Me-xi-co!¨ It was great.  We all sang the Mexican national anthem.  On Sunday we got to stay up late and watch the Grito on national television.  The president waved the Mexican flag and shouted (grito) set patriotic sayings to which we all answered, ¨VIVE!¨  Then came the fireworks, and more fireworks, and more, all night long. :) You get really used to noise here. 

 

Another spiritual lesson this week is about being cast out.  Adam and Eve had to be cast out in order to progress.  We also must be cast out in order to learn.  I was cast out of home, I will be cast out of the MTC, out of my areas.  But it is so worth it.  I think of the fruit I was producing at home, and to me and the Lord, the value of the fruit I´m producing now has much greater value.  John 14:2.  We also must be purged.  Decrease the distractions in life, and the fruit that remains will be larger and sweeter. 

 

I have the funnest time with my companion.  She is just like me, except quieter.  It is weird, we get along so well.  We still have a blast playing soccer together, especially in the rain.  On our way back to the casa there were great big puddles everywhere in which she proceeded to jump in all of them to get me wet.  So I dumped my water bottle on her.  :)  So even if we aren´t related, we like practically are. We short-sheeted the other two hermana´s beds in our room for fun. :)  I think the anticipation was the best part, but neither Hermana Petramalo or Hermana Nail got trapped.  It was just funny hearing them talk about how nice it was that the Mexican workers made their beds for them, when I really knew what was up. 

 

So we get to go to the temple every other week in Spanish!  I´m so grateful for temple workers!  I´m also grateful I got to go so many times in English before leaving.  I can tell I´m making a lot of progress with Spanish because I actually followed everything the whole time this time. 

 

Jared: There are 800 missionaries here,  about 200 of which are sisters.  I have 11 in my district, with 4 of them being hermanas.  So happy for Molly and Tex.  Thanks for helping my Spanish, and I also love singing here. Thanks for advice on studying. 

 

Katie: So happy to hear about your kids!  Gage crawling!  How was Alexa´s birthday.  I celebrated it here in Mexico.  Missionaries need to be friendlier .  They emphasize here how ward members and missionaries have to work together.  Good goal to be friendly with them.

 

Sharli: I need to hear from you!!

 

Mom: thanks for scriptures.  There are at least 2 that have been key points and have helped investigators. Awesome testimony learned from reunion.  Cool to see blessing of righteous living.  No ensigns.  Buesnos suete on the band! 

 

Kyle: I will do my best to help investigators see future blessings.  :) Moto. 

 

Love,

Mo

more coming

Dad: When you talk about calling and blessing all the singles ward I´m reminded of the time I tried to memorize everyone´s names in the yearbook.  Although I didn´t reach my goal, each person was absolutely worth the effort.  Once I got to say Hi to someone whose name I learned, we had a special connection.  You are making a bigger difference to people than you may realize.  Being able to call someone by name gives them a brief, but real feeling like you care about them.  Jesus blesses one by one too. Keep up the good work!  Don´t ever give up on trying to build relationships with these yound single adults.  They really do look up to your example. 

 

Most of the people in one of those photos is our district at the Mexican Fiesta.

Love,  Mo 

9/12/2013 Estamos en Mexico!

Dear most wonderful family!

Kyle: Thank you for helping me realize how much more I can be doing.  Spanish progress is good, but not that good!  It took me forever to decipher your letter, but it was okay because I felt like I was using my time to study scriptures, spanish, and communicate with family all at the same time.  Fortunately I was able to print it out so I could actually use my dictionary to read it.  I have much to work on, thanks so much for your example of diligence.  Your letters have definatley helped inspire me to be a better missionary.

 

Dad: thanks for sharing what you are grateful for and writing about the week to me.  I love hearing from you.  The most important thing I need to hear right now is personal experiences when you choose to work harder or choose the right, and the blessings that come from it.  Examples of you doing your best in your calling or working harder inspire me to be a better missionary.  Spiritual lessons, and its good to hear how you are doing too. 

 

Mom: I received 2 letters from you in the mail!  the one sent Aug. 19th I got on Sept. 9th and the one sent Aug. 28 I got today!  Thanks so much for writing me.  So, good news, I think all the letters you sent in the mail will eventually get here!  And I finally figured out how to print.  Hma. Nielson and I took the printer apart and took out the jammed paper.  :)  I think that you will be very grateful one day for all of the time you spend with Grandma.  From what she writes and what I´ve noticed, the time you spend with her makes her so happy.  Thanks for being an example of setting your own list aside to help other people be happy.  That means a lot to me.  I´m so excited for Texas taking his first steps!  Whohoo!  And I celebrated Bethany´s 1st birthday here at the MTC.  Josh said to congrats to celeste awhile ago about her pregancy.  Does she know the gender yet?

 

So the days are so fast here at the MTC, you never really know what day is which unless it is p-day.  This week has been wonderful!  I think the thing I struggle the most with is how to be most effective.  I don´t know what is most important for me to study to help my investigator or to help me learn spanish.  We have had some hilarious problems with the water, but that´s okay because taking time to shower is a burden anyways. ;) and who says you need to flush?  For lunch yesterday apparently I ate cow tongue.  It was honestly some of the THE BEST meat I´ve ever had in my life.  So good!  I´m just glad I found out the next day.  It´s a little bit tough to focus and study with my district because they get me laughing so hard. We are becoming super close, but really need to work on diligence. But we have realized this so our district leader helped us to set goals.  We are working on being more positive about small things too.  Despite little soccer experience, we are learning to work together as a team.  I love it when everyone passes to everyone no matter how good they are.  I love that the ones to score in our last games were the sisters in our district with no prior experience.  I love my district. 

 

I can see how preparation has paid off and I´m very grateful I have practice getting a lot out of my personal study and I´m grateful for good study habits learned from school.  Hermana Nielson and I had the opportunity this week to help an elder who was struggling.  The most drilled thing so far has been to teach with love.  So we talked and listened for a while to help him overcome his stress.  Afterward, we felt a great need to do something more for him.  So we prayed with all our might and decided together to write a letter of encouragement and the our testimonies of our purpose and the atonement.  I have much to thank Heavenly Father for, one of them being my testimony that through the atonement of Christ, we really can overcome all things.  I think this helped him.  I´m grateful for the example of my companion.  We had the faith, but she inspired us to act on our faith. 

 

A couple of experiences with teaching investigators:
We were in the middle of a rough lesson with Catalina, and I asked her in the wrong way if she wanted to be baptized.  I felt humbled for not being patient enough to carefully consider how she would feel as I asked her in this way.  My companion continued with patience, and asked her the right way.  This time with greater humility and love, I asked her about a date.  She was concerned that she was not ready.  As I spoke I felt the spirit direct me to relate to her that I also didn't know if I was ready to be a missionary, but that I knew that if I am committed and willing, the Lord will take care of the rest.  The spirit softened her heart and she accepted the date to be baptized.  We must be very careful to invite the spirit. It takes a great amount of love and humility to teach with him there. 

 

My companion and I were walking to breakfast yesterday morning and she happily blurts out,¨Estamos en México.¨  That completely brightened my day.  I found myself excited and chipper enthusiastically telling everyone, ¨ Estamos en México!¨ For scripture study this morning I studied from Ch. 4 in PME about the feelings a convert needs to have from the spirit.  The first scripture I read was about Alma pouring his soul out in both agony and praise.  He is so pained at knowing the goodness of God and still sinning.  As I pondered his feeling and what a convert has to feel, and I want t converts to understand how much God has done for them and be filled with gratitude.  From a recent devotional I remember I have to be converted myself in order to invite or want that for my investigators.  So I prayed and wrote down all of the things I am most grateful to God fro such as: God has a plan of happiness.  I have a purpose.  My family can live together forever.  Jesus Christ lifts my burdens.  Soon, I found great joy in remembering all these things and I want to keep that joy.  Because if I can always be this grateful to God, the people will surely see it and desire it too.  So every time I pray I am going to sincerely thank God with my whole heart for what he has done for me.  I will have the spirit with me if I can retain gratitude.  Right after this amazing personal study, we taught Carlos.  That was the best lesson we have taught and it was completely because we had the spirit, and completely because I am so grateful to God for giving me hope that I couldn't wait to share it with Carlos.  He could feel our love for him and forth gospel.  He prayed and want to follow Jesus Christ.  I hope we can help him in his life.  Hna. Nielson and I said a prayer of gratitude after the lesson.  The spirit of the Lord helps in all things.  If I have the spirit while studying spanish, the I learn faster and can focus better .  just like how 2 Nephi 33:8-9 says.  he will consecrate our performance.

 

It would be nice if you could check my email and forward any that I really need? I don´t know. 

Love,

Mo