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.