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