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

9/5/13 First Week at the MTC

NEW MTC address: 

Texas McAllen Mission

Carr. Tenayuca-Chalmita No. 828, Col. Zona Escolar, Deleg. G.A. Madero,

C.P. 07230, México, D.F.

México

 

I hope that works for you. Hopefully I can send pictures another time?

I think the first awesome experience happened the first real day . . . all of us newbies were in a class together leaning about , ¨ Conversion Orientation¨.  The purpose of this lesson was to teach us what a person has to feel in order to feel converted to the gospel.  A young woman to my knowlege, was a real investigator of the church, entered the room.  She was really surprized to see a huge group of missionaries, and said she was only expecting two.  We all asked her questions to get to know her situation and to know how she needs the gospel in her life.  Without much time at all we all felt sincere love for her, and asked inspired questions that invited a very strong spirit. She told of how she was a little bit angry at God because her father died in a car crash a couple of years ago.  Many of us bore testimony that peace can be found by turning to the Savior Jesus Christ.  Logan also was in this class, and bore a most powerful personal testimony of this.  She could feel our love and it was clear that her desire to know more rapidly grew.  It was so difficult to stop the discussion.  This experience was so wonderful because I remembered why I so badly want to go on a mission, to help people like Samantha. 

 

I LOVE MY COMPANION! Her name is Hermana Nielson. She likes to run, and she loves soccer.  She is so easy to work with and always tries with me to speak Spanish.  She is a great example and is always willing to work hard with me and obey as best we can.  Our love for soccer has given us some fantastic opportunities to have fun during gym time.  Qué divertido!  We get some awesome games with latinos and other districts, but they are more safe because there is no physical contact (as best we can).  A typical day is like this: breakfast, personal study, language and gospel study with district, lunch, additional study, gymn for an hour, learn more spanish in a computer lab, plan, teach our investigator, then get ready for bed, and every week we have a service project.  The teachers try to speak mostly spanish really slowly so we understand.  But if it is something they really need us to understand, then they try to talk in English.  Something that really really really really helps our spanish is speaking it ALL THE TIME.  We try, but it is hard, but we do the best we can.  I´m amazed at how much spanish I have learned in only one week. 

 

Teaching our first investigator . . . 

     Wow.  Catalina is so nice and friendly, but the most frustrating thing was not being able to understand her.  It´s like you take forever saying a simple sentence that you have to think so hard about, then she asks a question about what you mean, and then you don´t understand and you don´t even remember what you said exactly anyways . . . yeah. haha!  So it´s true, on the third day we tried to teach her about the plan of salvation, but halfway through I got so embarrassed that I started to cry.  Then I felt fine, but I just couldn´t stop.  I felt so bad!  But it´s okay!  Do you know how awesome it is that me and my companion spoke straight gospel spanish to an investigator for 45 minutes?!  When we taught Catalina again the next day, it went so much better.  We actually succeeded in teaching her about faith, the spirit, and prayer, and she prayed for us, and we felt the spirit and it was wonderful! 

 

Time to go!

Love,

Hermana Campbell