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