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For the first time for Christmas, I wasn't sick! I think this is the first year of my whole life! However, my companion was :( We visited the doctor last Monday and he told us to stay inside and rest for a week, and it was very difficult, but we have done the best we could to stay inside and rest for the week. It has been really hard on Sister Sarmiento. She keeps up a great attitude, but can't stop doing things. She is having trouble letting her body really rest. Even though we had to stay home, we did the best we could having lessons over the phone with investigators and such. A few weeks ago I couldn't get out of my mind the name of a less active family: de la Garza. Finally, I realized it was the spirit, and we contacted them and set up an appointment. That appointment we met Zack, who is the grandson who wants to get baptized. His mom is a returning member as well as his sister. It was such a miracle when their family came to church. You could see the change in Zack's mom. The Lord had shown her it was time to come back, and their family is so excited for Zack's baptism. It was a testament to me and to the de la Garza family that the Lord is guiding His work and through the direction of the Holy Spirit we can be instruments in His hands to accomplish it.On the other hand I had an experience when I didn't follow the spirit. Since it had been a long time since we worked in our area, we decided to set up a member split, so Sister Sarmiento would stay at a member's home while I worked with another member in our area. We were having trouble finding members to come work with us, and 2 hours before I felt a lot of peace in the idea of just staying home with Sister Sarmiento. It ended up that the split was a big mess and it would've been better health wise to have Sister Sarmiento stay home with me. I realized that I hadn't followed the spirit and had received the consequences.I've learned a lot this week and am so grateful to be here. I love you and take care!Love,Sister Campbell
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This week was wonderful! Sister Sarmiento and I have been praying to find a couple who needs to get married before getting baptized, and we feel like Gabriela and Peter are that couple. They just got baptized, and then are going to get married. Gabriela is feasting on the gospel right now. We taught her in only a week and a half, but she was very ready to get baptized. Peter, her boyfriend got baptized 3 weeks ago, got the priesthood this week and baptized her! He was more nervous that she was! We had great support from the branch too. That branch is on fire right now, and it is a blast to work in.Also, Ashley Prather got baptized! That is Liz's (recent convert) 9 year old daughter. She is a wild one, but she has learned a lot since we have started to teach her. Her little sister Emily (4) is super cute and also super wild. It is a blast teaching that family.Also, this week we sang O Holy Night (Norma Dupree's version) for the Treasure Hills branch Christmas party, and it was a joy to sing it! Elder Davis our district leader is an incredible piano player. I feel the spirit so strong when I sing that song.Have a wonderful week, and I love you!Love,Hermana CampbellP.S. Campana in Spanish means bells. cool huh?
My new companion is Sister Sarmiento Wolff. She is from Santiago, Chile (yes she knew Presidente Maluenda before the mission and lived 30 minutes away from him). This is her first transfer as an STL and she has almost a year in the mission. I love her so much! She is so funny. She is still learning English, so she asks me all the time what things mean. I just speak spanish to her all the time and she speaks english to me all the time, and our roll plays go the same way. She is teaching me how to be more efficient, but never judges and is super humble. It is so funny when she speaks spanish in an American greenie accent! I catch myself all of the time speaking English in a Spanish accent around her because that is the way she speaks. . . oh man and then I realize how funny it must sound to see a werita (white person) speaking English in a spanish accent. She has so many great ideas and is ready to implement them too. We have had a fun first week together. We have been seeing a lot of miracles this week too. Here is one of them:Gabriella is the girlfriend of a recent convert that has come to church twice. She wants to be baptized this coming week. She has a sister named April that I have met contacting before. We were expecting them at church, but when Gabriella didn't show up with her boyfriend we asked where she was, and found out that he didn't pick her up. So we took the sacrament, and then left church to find a way to get Gabriella and her sister to church. Before we left we asked a member if she could leave to after sacrament meeting to come and pick her up. Thank goodness for awesome members! We found her brother at home, who woke Gabriella and April up for us, then called the member to come. They both had to bring children, but only had one car seat. So we set out in search for a car seat! We asked some members in the neighborhood, then just started contacting and receiving referrals to find a car seat from anyone that we could find. Without success, we headed back to show the member where they lived. The member came with us to the door and bore her testimony convincing April and Gabriella to come to church anyways for the last hour and a half. So they came!I am supposed to play the piano for the primary program the the Spanish ward next week and I am soooo nervous! Good thing i have a nice companion who is willing to get up an hour early with me to go to the church to practice. Pray for me okay? I re-read my setting apart blessing not too long ago and it said that my talents would flourish on my mission, so I guess this is where I have to do my part to make that happen.Have a wonderful week!Love,Sister Campbell
I had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We went to 5 dinners all in a row, the whole day, with no time to digest. It was so painful, and I felt so bad for not being able to eat all of the food that was offered to me. Remind me to NEVER do that again! The Lord did take care of us that day.So I have transfer news! Sister Vazquez is leaving, and I am staying here! I'm so happy I get to stay! I love this area so much and the San Benito branch is really growing. She has no idea where she is going and I have no idea who my new companion will be. Also, Sister Perez, (sister P-money (because she raps all the time in the car with us, hehe) is leaving which is super sad. I will find out later today who my new companion will be.The other sisters love to scare each other all the time, just hiding behind doors and such. so sister Vazquez and I got a wonderful idea to scare them both at the same time! So we came up with a plan to come hope a little bit early, park the car on the other side of the apartments so they couldn't see we were home. Then we scotch taped the lights by the door down so they had to walk all the way across the room to turn on the other set of lights, in which we were going to make creepy noises like a door shutting and bike gears turning, then when they went to turn on the lights to jump out and scare them! Well, the best part of our plan failed because they came home early to finish up some studies, so all they found was the lights that were taped off. Well, that was enough for them. They immediately thought the house was being robbed, so they booked it outside down the stairs to the middle of the parkinglot with hearts racing. Then they called us and asked if we had taped the lights, and sister Vazquez played it out for a little while as we were bursting out laughing at a member's home.Once the other sisters found out they got a good kick out of it too.So to get us back they called our district leader to call us and tell us they messed up transfers and that I was leaving. We believed them for a while until I saw sister Perez's face. That was a good one! Well, I have got to go now, but I love you and take care!Love,Sister Campbell
Funny, but I think all of the missionaries in the zone get fed except for us, our area is pretty sparce for members. But this past Sunday a member brought an Apple Cake to church because, she told her son, the Lord told her to. She ended up giving the Apple Cake to us as we were very hungry, and it was a good little sign to let us know that the Lord really cares about his missionaries. I'm sure we will eat very well for Thanksgiving.This week was wonderful! We had Elder Foster, a member of the Quorom of Seventy come down and speak to us, along with his wife and President Maluenda and his wife. Their words were just what a lot of us missionaries needed. I know that prayers work. This week I went on an exchange with a sister who has terrible back pain and has gone to the doctors, and they aren't helping her. In one of the many companionship prayers we had, I prayed for her back. She told me that after that prayer, that her pain went away. I think about all of the prayers made for missionaries in the temples every hour and so many from home and from members, and I want to tell you thank you. We surely need them. I can feel the angels around us that are bearing us up, and I know that one of Satan's targets is the missionaries because of the important message we carry. Satan tries to make us feel like we aren't doing a good job, that are efforts aren't worth anything, and that we are only making mistakes. I feel the prayers that are sent for me and for the other missionaries here, and they are a huge support.This week we got to help some sisters out with weekly planning and it was so fun! I feel like we really were a blessing for them.Sad news: Amber and her family called us and told us not to come by. We still pray for them.Omar is a college student who came to church. We are teaching him, and he is doing really well right now.Robert Lopez, our recent convert is having a tough time because his family isn't supporting him and giving him anti-mormon information, so keep him in your prayers. A wonderful Christmas gift would be to give him a quad or a doctrine and covenants. Let me know if that is something you would like to do.Love,Sister Campbell
Going to to 3 days of training is like going on vacation, the best kind, where you get completely filled up spiritually. And you have a notebook full of things you want to change and things to share. Then you come back to your area, and feel like you haven't worked in it for months and everything and you get overwhelmed because there are so many people who need you to visit them and so many people you want to help but there just isn't enough time or miles. We've been very blessed.
My favorite things from 3-day was that we constantly need to be thinking about how we can serve others. The only difference there is about being a leader is that you have a wider scope of people you can serve. I want to constantly keep this in mind. President taught us a lot about David in 1st and 2nd Samuel. I loved the story about David being chosen as king and then battling Goliath. Can you imagine the valor of a young boy declaring to an army that they would fall because he had Jehova on his side? Would you have the same faith and accept the call to fight Goliath. We are on the front lines of a war. It is by small and simple things that we do to give us faith to fight this battle. Faith in the Lord comes as a result of our obedience. If we are obedient we will have the spirit to guide us as well. It is also by small and simple things that we lose our exaltation. In 2 Samuel 11 (I think) the first verse tells how great King David simply chose not to go to battle. That sin led to another until he chose to murder Bethsabe's husband and lose his exaltation. We have to be obedient in all things.As for our area, Amber and her 3 brothers came to church again. They love it. I think little Manny is going to perform in the primary program next Sunday. That family is so cute. I hope that we will be able to keep up and keep the people we have progressing. It is interesting how investigators tend to fall away if you aren't there to visit and help them see the light of the spirit a couple of times a week. Keep praying for Amber's family.Love,Sister Campbell
We have some incredible member missionaries here! One 16 year old in our area, invited us to meet with her friends. And they are some of the most humble people I have met. Amber is 15, and her three brothers are so ready to hear the gospel. The kids got ready for church early all by themselves and were ready with ties and skirts and all when their ride got there. It is sad to see the lack of parent support. It just goes to show how bad the kids really want and need this gospel in their lives. They are such great examples to me. Meeting with them and teaching them has been a joy.This week was kind of crazy because we had mission leadership training, so we were only in our area for about half of the week. Somehow the Lord provides, like finding these kids who want to learn. And then this next week is a three day training, and the week after that is a mission tour where a member of the Seventy comes and speaks to us. Then the week after that is transfers, so hopefully we will find a way to get in enough exchanges with other sisters. There is much to be done and I feel like we are receiving more training, more things that we need to change and work better on than we have time to plan for. I'm so grateful for this time to learn!I had a great spiritual experience this week when I was reading a scripture President gave to me, 1 Nephi 16 where it talks about how we need to find direction from God through the scriptures. Then I also received a blessing this week and in the blessing, the Lord very clearly told me to look in the scriptures for answers and guidance.love,Hermana Campbell
On Wednesday I got to go on an exchange with Sister Myler in Port Isabel. She had only been in the area for a week. We went running for morning excercises and she decided to leave the keys in the house and leave the door unlocked while we exercised. We had a good run, but when we came back the door to the apartment was locked. We shoved and picked, and shoved, but it wouldn't budge. We knocked on the next door neighbor to see if they had a card and asked someone who was leaving if they might have a card so we could try to break in. No one had a card. To our horror, we heard the lock from the inside move, and the door to our apartment begin to open. I didn't how to react. I thought our apartment was getting robbed and all I could do was act casual. So a man answered and asked if we needed anything. I said yes, and then awkwardly stood there, not knowing what to say, so I started a door contact, "We're sister missionaries . . . and. . . . " Then he said, Oh, the sister missionaries live back there," pointing to the next row of apartments. Bewildered, we said thanks and found the right apartment door. :) What a great embarrassing moment. . .This week was super good. We are helping Robert Lopez's mom progress, and her friend. We left her with the Restoration pamphlet and followed up on it. She said she prayed about it and felt good, and wants to join the church. It was an incredible lesson and we can see the workings of God to prepare this family to enter into the fold. We are also working with a member's sister, names Griselda, who on the second lesson really opened up to us. We are also teaching Liz's daughter Ashley.It was Sister Vazquez's birthday on Thursday so I snuck out with Sister Barton from the apartment while she was praying at 10:20 and we chalked out Happy Birthday for her to see the next morning. Thanks Sharli, for the original idea about 7 years ago. We made her brownies, but still haven't had time to eat them. I don't know how we live sometimes, the Lord just takes care of us. We had interviews with President on Halloween and spent the night planning for the week, so nothing special.Hope you all had a great week!Love,Hermana Campbell
Liz got baptized this week! She did so good preparing herself by quitting smoking. Her family is soooooooo funny. She has the craziest little girls that we are going to start to teach. We found liz the saturday before general conference, and she is the one who brought her whole less active family to church. That same week the elders visited that less active family, and her step-brother, Garrett wanted to get baptized too. So it ended up that without knowing or planning it, the step-siblings got baptized in the same service, so the whole family was there! It was a really cool miracle for their mom.I have some sad news too: we had to stop teaching the Padilla family. They just aren't quite ready to commit to the gospel yet. They mean so much to me so that was really hard to accept, but I trust that God will help them finish what they started.We were teaching so many investigators last week, so it was a little stressful having full responsibility teaching a new companion everything about the area, and making sure were weren't leaving anyone behind or forgetting anything. My companion wants to help, but it is hard for her since she is brand new in the area and we are still learning how to work the very best together.
Love,Sister Campbell
Padilla family
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Liz's family
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My companion is getting transferred, we don't know where yet, so I will be getting a new companion tomorrow! I'm a little nervous to be taking care of more responsibilities in a fairly new area. And we get to find out if my area is getting split today. Crazy!Robert Lopez and Adan Guerrero received the Holy Ghost this Sunday! It was so wonderful. Robert is already going to seminary and out to lessons, and is going to get the priesthood and still really wants to go on a mission. We started teaching his mom sunday too, and the only doubt about the church she has is if she has to send her son away on a mission for a long time and not be able to see or talk to him. I just want her to talk to my mom to give her support when she finds out the church is true. That family is so wonderful.This week I had one of the best moments on the mission. We hadn't seen the Padillas in a few days and finally got the chance to talk to Elias, their father. I wish I could explain what happened, but he shared his heart with us and we cried with him. I truly felt great love and respect.
I don't think I've told you very much about Adan! Wow. So a recently baptized family just had their little boy turn 8 years old. It was such a joy to see how happy he and his family was. Hopefully we will be able to help the parents be baptized soon!The Padilla family! Oh my goodness what a week! They've been progressing, but it has been a rough week. We did everything we could to help them reach their goal of being baptized this week, but they just weren't quite ready yet. They are reading and loving the Book of Mormon. They still have some things they need to change and commandments they need to learn. Keep praying for them.We are teaching Liz and Richard. Funny story with them: They had a church tour this past week at like 8:00 at night. It was pretty dark, so when they entered the church it was a really spooky. All the class rooms were dark, only a few hall lights lit. There was faint piano music playing, then as soon as they opened the chapel door, they heard light singing. Richard freaked out, and warned Liz not to GO TOWARDS the music. and they turned and were headed out, fortuantely we caught them and ended up having a really spiritual church tour. :) They are so cool. They are really looking forward to being clean from sin and feeling more peace in their lives.We took Robert to a lesson with us, (our recent convert) and he bore his testimony in a contact. Then after we left he had the missionary fire and went and talked to some random people fishing all by himself about the gospel. They spoke spanish so it was pretty tough for him, but we were pleasantly shocked when he told us. He really wants to go on a mission.So I'm doing really well. Sister Wonnacott bikes like Karen and Kathi's energy combined, so my legs are dead. And we found out that our area doesn't really have a northern boundary, so we explored some members homes waaaay north and found out that our area touches the beach! I got to go on a couple of exchanges with some great sisters and I really hope that they got something out of it. I am reading Jesus the Christ and loving it. How did family history go this week? Happy birthday Tegan and Teyah!
P.S. we got to see the movie meet the mormons this week. Is it showing in all over Utah. They are showing it in McAllen this week.Love,Hermana Campbell
What a wonderful week with General Conference! There are so many talks that I enjoyed and that blew my mind. Recently we got trained on doing family history, then with the talk on family history that was given I have just been lit on fire, and I want so bad to have the opportunity to do it but I can't. But you family at home can! I know it seems like our whole line is filled but it occurred to me recently, and just like Katie has found out that we still have so much real family history work to do and names to find! We need to start finding our cousins! I want to invite my family to spend a little time each day to pick a line and start working on it to find our relatives. I promise that sacrifice will be worth it. I also promise that the peace that the general authority promised and the joy of having found our very own name will fill our home. I know there are more members of OUR family who are waiting for us.I was worried about having not very much time to work in our area last week because we went to McAllen for a few days for a mission leadership conference, then general conference. But by help of God, we helped bring 15 less actives and investigators to conference. Even though less than half were from our area, I know that the Lord used us to provide a way to bless these people's lives, and it was a huge humbling moment for me to see God answer my prayers.Love,Hermana Campbell
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I am so happy for Robert. He is the most prepared investigator I've ever taught. He did everything we asked him to do. He asked us a lot of questions, and since church last week, he has been confident that he is ready to be baptized. He had his interview this week, and normally investigators are really nervous for their baptismal interview. But when we asked him if he was nervous, he said, "No, I'm excited!" He is such a great kid! This baptism was a really big deal to him. His mom came and was so happy and grateful. She wants to learn now too! She was nervous that if she got involved before that Robert would back out. She cried during the baptism. Robert has told us he is interested in going on a mission, and he asked us about seminary and if he could go. I can definitely see him serving a mission. I'm so proud of him.I got to go to Port Isabel on an exchange this week with Sister Nail! It was so fun. For morning exercise we played volleyball in a parking lot viewing the beach and the water and bridge to South Padre Island. It was soooo beautiful. I have a funny story though. We were walking at like 8:30 at night on a lakeside road and I glanced down an shrieked and jumped back when I saw a square-foot sized white crab a few feet away from me. Then I burst out laughing. As we drove away we saw probably 5 more coming out onto the road.
I also got to go on an exchange with a sister who is having a lot of pain in her back. She gives it her all, but is in a lot of pain. We saw a lot of miracles though. A family gave us some chicken they were barbecuing then gave us a referral for the next door neighbors. We found a young couple who at the beginning of the lesson, didn't seem too interested, but then by the end as they prayed felt the spirit confirm that this is the only true church on the earth and agreed to become part of it.
Also this week we got to be trained on family history!
Elias's family is doing well, the girls went to the women's conference, so that was awesome!I loved what I got to see of the women's conference. The signal was down for quite a bit of it, but I'm so excited for general conference this week!
Love,Hermana Campbell
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The other sisters in the apartment made cheese-cake, and during district meeting they told me for my birthday I had to take a "mordita" as a Mexican tradition. Mordita means little bite. So when I did, they shoved my face into the cheesecake. I should have known, they were all giddy and laughing when they were introducing it to me. It was super funny.
Sunday, September 21st was one of the best days of my mission. This whole week has been wonderful.We are still teaching Elpidio. He is 81 and really stuck in his ways, so it is a little difficult teaching him, but he is making progress slowly. We are going to pray for a miracle that he can get baptized this sunday. the biggest miracle that touched my heart on Sunday when Elpidio had to leave early to move some furniture. One of the ward members came up to him, introduced himself, and offered to help him. Unconditionally, he left church with Elpidio and helped him move furniture. That may have been the answer that Elpidio needed.Robert is progressing so well! We had some pretty important lessons to teach him and he has so many great questions. He is a really deep thinker too, but he is super humble. We fasted this week that specifically Robert would be able to find his answer as he attended church this Sunday. After church we texted him to ask how he liked services, and he told us that he had come to church with some doubts, but that one of the talks had really touched him, and his doubts were swept away. When we received that we knew it was an answer to our fasting and prayer.We met a really cool father named Elias this week who has 2 daughters. He was walking home when we met him. Just in introducing the lesson, he was touched by the spirit and wanted to come to church. We called him right before church and he told us that he was really disappointed that he couldn't come because he didn't have enough gas or money. We promised him that if he had the faith to come anyways that God would provide a way so that he could pay the bill and have enough gas. He took that leap of faith and came! About an hour or two later he texted us saying that he had received a miracle and was going to be able to pay the bill.These three experiences strengthened my testimony so much this week about prayer, fasting, and miracles.I had a wonderful birthday.Love,Hermana Campbell
Q: How do you ride a bike with a skirt?I have so much to say and so little time! so I'm going to say it in short sentences1. Robert and Elpidio came to church, and they are awesome!2. Robert wants to serve a mission even though he has only been to church once.3. We found a wonderful woman in Rio Hondo who after her prayer, grabbed my hand crying, "It's true! I know it's true!" Pray for Maria4. Two exchanges! Both so fun and awesome!5. On the first exchange I got to go back to my old area Riverbend!!!!!! We went back to Edith, an investigator that had been dropped after I left and they started teaching her again. I got to see all the members of the Casa Linda branch at the branch RS activity! It was SO WONDERFUL! I love them so much!6. The second exchange we were stuck on bikes in a huge rainstorm. So we had to stay at our apartment complex for a few hours, so we taught the man in the apartment below, even though he was drinking a little the spirit still touched him.7. We were driving down to Brownsville for an exchange and saw some sisters on their bikes far from their apartment around 9:00 who got caught in a bad rainstorm, so we saved them and took them home. That was God's hand!love,Hermana Campbell
So this week was awesome! It is a little bit crazy, but I'm beginning to learn that there really isn't a normal week out here. We had a monthly training on Thursday, and learned a lot about working with our members more effectively. President is an incredible teacher--he loves you and inspires you to repent, a lot. It's great. Even though we didn't have a ton of time to work in our area, God still blessed us a lot. God really set things up for us so that we could accomplish a lot in just a little amount of time. I feel like I'm becoming the missionary I want to be here. Sister Wonnacott is a great example. She is so loving towards all of the sisters we serve, and she is really obedient for the right reasons. We get along super well. I have never attended church for 8 hours before, and it is a little draining, but it was such a successful Sunday. I made a list of all of the presidencies of the branches and wards and we made every effort to meet them all, so that made sunday really fun. We attended a ward that we never have before for the Rio Hondo area, and it was perfect because they needed us to play the piano and lead the music, so we kind of have new callings. :) My favorite miracle of this week, was I think on Saturday. We didn't have a ton of time, but we talked to a man outside who was having some struggles with his family. He told us not to go to the house next door, so we took that as a sign that they probably needed the gospel referral and checked it out. They also happened to be outside, back behind some trees, and a little girl got her mom to come talk to us. They were looking for God's help and are under the most humble circumstances. Can't wait to teach them more.Love,Hermana Campbell
Sorry I couldn't email yesterday because of Labor Day. I got transferred! So Sunday morning I found out I was leaving, and Monday morning I found out I was going to Rio Hondo in Harlingen to serve as a sister training leader.
My new address is:1000 E Stenger St.Harlingen, TX 78586
That means I get to go on exchanges in my old area in Riverbend, Brownsville! I'm so excited! My companion is Sister Wonnacott, who is a boss, and she likes to run, so that's awesome. There are 5 sister companionships that I will serve with. Our area just got split so that 2 new sisters could start an area, who will be living in our apartment. My area is like 40 miles from top to bottom. We have a little bit of San Benito, then lots of country, then a little pueblo of Rio Hondo. I will serve in 2 branches, 1 English and 1 Spanish and a Spanish ward. I love serving in branches, we already met the relief society of the Treasure Hills branch and they asked for ideas on how to strengthen the sisters, and it is just so awesome to see members ready to work unified to build God's kingdom!
Patty and Ariana are doing great still, they really feel fellowshipped in the ward, so hopefully I will find out what happens to them. Sister Quintero will be finished trained by Sister Tippetts, the sister that I finished trained! Sister Stradling is training too. Man! Life is so great, and I'm so excited for this transfer!
Love,Hermana Campbell
This has been the strangest transfer of my mission. So, Sister Andersen went home to Smithfield on Saturday. She might stop at home on my birthday, but who really knows. :) President called and said that Sister Stradling would be Sister Whitten's companion in place of Sister Andersen, and that leaves just me with Sister Quintero.I have to tell you some people that we are teaching! Patty and Ariana are wonderful. They came to church last week searching. We had a lesson with them, and they really like our church. They came again this week, and Ariana is already really involved with all of the youth activities. The ward is really picking them up and loving them. That makes our hearts as missionaries so grateful and relieved. They are really prepared, so pray that they keep progressing!I also went on an exchange on Saturday to another area and it was a blast! There are always so many miracles on exchanges. We only had about 15 minutes left in the day, but we stopped by a potential investigator's house. We had run out of Restoration pamphlets, but it was okay. We talked a little bit about faith, then asked him to be baptized. I really admire the boldness of the Sister that I got to work with. She is so positive and shows each person that the gospel is exactly what they need.On Sunday we stopped by all of the youth classes and asked them to help us mark book of Mormons or give it to their friend.This is a 5 week transfer so I should know about transfers next week. :)love,Hermana Campbell
I know sometimes I say regularly that this was the craziest week of my mission, but this time, I'm serious. This week was the craziest. We received news Sunday night that on Monday we would receive mini missionaries. That is when youth from the stake next to us come be missionaries with us for a week, they are with us from 7:15 to 9:30 at night, and they stay at a member's home at night. Guess who we got? The president's daughter, Sister Maluenda. ha. It was super funny to joke about during the week. She ended up being companion's with Sister Stradling and I got to be companions with Sister Byan, she is from South Korea, and she's been here for only a few years. She is the kindest person I have ever met in my life. Sister Byan and Sister Maluenda have been on mini-missions before, so they kind of knew how to act, and I honestly believe we got the best mini missionaries out of all the youth. They were so awesome and wanted to do everything they could to learn and be the best missionaries they could be. Then, Monday, I received a call from the Assistants to the President that I would be training a new greenie in a few hours. So we went from 4 missionaries in the apartment to 4 mini missionaries, two greenies, a dead missionary, and me and Sister Stradling. So now I'm in a trio with Sister Stradling and Sister Quintero. Sister Quintero is awesome! She doesn't really act like a greenie, in fact, I think she was more sane than I was this week. I feel really bad for her because I didn't really have a chance to welcome her in, but rather threw her on a bike for the first time all day in Texas 109 weather until she threw up. Wow, what a great trainer she has! It was crazy. But we had some incredible lessons. We brought two members to the church with an investigator. When Sister Quintero shared her testimony, relating to the investigator that having faith to do what is right is hard, and having the faith to come out on a mission, the spirit touched everyone in the lesson. By some miracle two investigators came to church this week. And for some reason still unknown to me, I got a call going to 3 day leadership training this next week. Life is still great, and I'm learning how take what comes and love it. :)Love,Hermana Campbell
I'm very happy for grandma. I want to be like her when I grow up.This week was great! I have to update you on the familia Salas! They are doing well. We had a couple of great lessons with them this week and built some great trust by eating food at their home. :) Including Bollos. Bollos are Mexican home-made popcicles. They taste like monkey flips (banana-chocolate milk shakes) and you freeze them and suck them out of the corner of a bag. So good!! Sometimes I feel like I do nothing as a missionary, and am really terrible at teaching, but somehow Heavenly Father manages to bless our work so that sometimes it ends up better than worse for somebody. For example, the before the lesson with the Salas, the members lovingly gave us some pointers to help along the work with the Salas, then we said a couple of words to guide the lesson as the members taught their new best friends/next door neighbors the rest. The Salas family has so much potential and are such a great family. They speak Spanish. They have 3 beautiful kids and love each other so much. We taught the Book of Mormon to them this week and I felt a sincere love for them and they shared their hopes that this book will help them gain a spirit in their home that they feel like they might be missing. Pray for them!I've got to go! Sister Stradling and I are the only companionship that gets to stay together in the whole zone this transfer. Wohoo! It is only a 5 week transfer. Why do they keep getting faster and faster?!Love,Hermana Campbell
My companion gave me her huge rainbow glasses today, and for some weird reason I feel like Jared. Strange . . . Anyways.This week has just been crazy. I feel like God leads me through different trials to teach me small simple lessons about who I need to be. I love that God never ceases to bless us with miracles. We really needed one this week. We didn't have very much time to work, and I felt like what I was offering to God was only this tiny window of opportunity to bless us with a really big miracle. So I asked God to bless our meager efforts and make them blossom into 10 fold. We sincerely asked God for a miracle to help us bless someone's life, and if that could happen, we would know our effort to work for this short period of time wasn't in vain. The moment we got out of the car, a slightly older woman walked by with her grand daughter. So we stopped and talked to them, and she said 6 or 7 years ago she used to go to our church. She said she would really like missionaries to come by and to come to church, then she asked us for a Book of Mormon. It is very humbling when your prayers are answered so quickly, and even the meager effort we give is blessed abundantly.Also, a member surprised us this week with a wonderful family that they have been working on. They invited the family into their home, and we had dinner and shared a fun family home evening lesson. They excitedly agreed to let us come by and teach them again. They have a lot of questions about the church. It is so exciting when that happens. It is a lot more intense and almost a whole different ball game when you work with members. I feel like teaching on the street you can be super bold and just straight up ask to hear the lessons or ask if they want to be baptized, but with members, you have to be more sensitive to their relationship. I just want you to know I had a great week this week, and next week I will know about transfers. That happened super fast right? I don't get how time just keeps speeding up. Scary!Love,Hermana Campbell
The Rojas have two of the craziest boys I've ever seen in my life, one is 3 and the other is 1 and a half. They are hilarious! I truly admire the patience of the parents of this family. We just got done eating dinner and sat down in the living room for a family home evening game and lesson. As game specialist, I came up with "Animals", my favorite one that I remember way back when we did family home evening. :) One person acts like a specific animal and everyone else has to guess what they are. Well, it was my turn, and I decided to be an elephant, so I went all for it and make the best, most incredible, loudest elephant noise I've ever made in my life. The 3 year old's eyes opened so wide with surprise then he bursted out laughing, rolling and jumping. he couldn't figure out what it was for a while, but he wouldn't stop for the rest of the night asking me to do my, "phhhhhh!" noise and trying to do it himself. Then for the lesson we told whispered the story of Daniel and the Lion's den into his ear for him to tell his family, and evertime it was time to tell his family, he screamed it and raised his arms. Kind of like how Josh does when he's telling bedtime troll stories. :) It was the funniest thing!Mauricio got the Holy Ghost this Sunday and we had a great experience with teaching the Salmond's girls how to play piano. They ended up bringing in a stranger to be taught too (the gospel). Well, I've got to go. I love you all!Love,Hermana Campbell
What a miracle this week! Mauricio is a young man who Sister Stradling found right before I came into the area. Since we have been teaching him, he has changed so much! last Monday we had an incredibly bold lesson with him. He struggles with every single part of the word of wisdom pretty heavily. But asked him if he wanted to change and why and how that would bless his life. Then we testified, taught, and invited him to repent and quit all of his addictions. He gave us his drugs and cigarettes in a great step of faith, declined going to the island to party with his friends, and almost everytime we go over to visit he is on the phone telling some friends that he can't because he doesn't drink anymore. We gave his specific promises from reading the book of Mormon, which he has relied on, and as well as prayer to help him overcome these temptations. He chose to prepare himself and was baptized this Sunday! Saturday and Sunday morning were very difficult for him. Satan works so hard the day before baptism! His family fought with him and tried their best to convince him he was a drunkard, that he couldn't change, and that he shouldn't and wasn't ready to get baptized into a cult. He came to church Sunday with a lot of doubts. He asked Sister Stradling to play the flute, and it broke, got lost, but eventually she was able to play it and he said that when she did, the spirit touched his heart and all of his doubts when away. I'm so proud of him!4th of July was fun. Got to go!Love,Hermana Campbell
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