4/29/2014 Great Week

This was one of the best weeks of my mission.  Sharli is having a baby!  Ok, yeah, there are other reasons too. :)

  We had exchanges with the Sister training leaders in Harlingen this week and Sister Garry came down to Riverbend to work with me.  It was a delight working with her, she was so positive and had so much faith and we saw so many miracles!  I love exchanges!  We contacted a referral named Rojoberto and he immediately let us share our message with him, except I wasn't sure if he was prepared to hear the gospel at first because he had a lot of doubts of being able to change, and not really wanting to change.  But the spirit touched his heart and he is one of the most driven investigators we've had.  We shared the book of Mormon with him and have a church tour with him this week.  We prayed for water, and this man whose house we had visited, had gone to the store, found us out contacting in his jeep, and gave us two cold water bottles.  We plan every half hour now, which is crazy!!!  And we are so driven to reach all of our goals.  We received a lot of referrals this week and one just plain popped out at me, all it was was an address, so we contacted it and found Eva, who wanted to be baptized. :) We found some other investigators who felt confused about which church and weren't willing at the beginning of the lesson to go to any church, but after the spirit touched their hearts want to come and be baptized and want the changes in their lives that come from living the gospel.  Edgar and Edel, our recent converts haven't been doing super great, which is hard, but we got to have a great lesson with them this week and Edgar even came to the Missionary Talent show that we had on Friday.  It was a good turn out and I rubbed a quarter into my elbow. I think the audience really enjoyed that, except when I turned around the quarter had stuck to the back of my neck because of the lotion that was on it! or I guess you could blame it on humidity :)  It is getting really hot!  The three of the four youth that we are teaching had church tours this week, which were miracles that we found rides for.  They didn't come to church though. :( but we know what we have to do: teach their parents!

Got to go!

Love,

Hermana Campbell

Easter dinner with Jackson family in Brownsville

Easter with Jacksons

Sister Tippetts and I standing by rasaca

4/21/2014 Easter

Dear family,

     Following the counsel of Elder Ballard, I learned about the importance of verifying with people in Preach my Gospel today.  If we leave someone a commitment and we fail to verify that they did it, it is like we never gave the commitment because if they didn't do it then nothing has changed in their lives.  We are here to invite people to change, to become more like Christ. If we are nervous to verify because we are not sure they did it, then maybe we should make sure we leave the commitment in a way that they will want to follow it, like promise blessings and testify and make specific plans. 

      Right now we are teaching Tiffany, Daniel, Rex, and Michelle who are all friends.  They are progressing, but they couldn't come to church this Sunday.  Our zone is really focusing on using Sundays wisely and getting super good fellowship.  They are reading and enjoying the book of mormon, and I wish so badly that they couldv'e come to the mutual activity minute to win it because it turned out so well. 

     The youth program in the Casa Linda branch is struggling because we have such few youth so if someone doesn't come it feels like there is no one there.  But we got all of the youth to come to the activity and they invited some of their friends and it was a blast!  The leaders participated too.  By the end everyone had an oreo on their face trying to eat it without hands.  A very popular thing here for Easter is confetti eggs.  They are real egg-shells filled with confetti and the instructions on the egg carton say to sneak up behing someone, crack it over their head, then run. They are a hit, and I accidentally started an egg-confetti fight in the church, and the vacuum didn't really work, so I feel pretty bad for the mess we made, but the leaders were so nice and grateful for the successful mutual activity that we had helped with anyways.  The elders in the Casa Linda branch are super great to work with and so is the ward mission leader.  Hopefully the youth can keep coming to mutual.   Sister Tippetts and I got to teach Sunday School for them this Sunday, it's always exciting being a missionary because you usually only get 5 seconds notice! :) 

      Also this Sunday we were on our way out the door and I thought the keys were in my hand, then poof! they were gone!  We spent 20 minutes looking in all of the likely places over and over, and I was so confused.  Sister Tippetts said 10 minutes in, you probably threw them away in the basura (garbage can).  10 minutes later, she says, "Okay, maybe they really are in the garbage and she digs to the bottom and there they are!  I'm so glad we made it to church. 

      We also had interviews this week and I love President Maluenda!  He is so inspired and loving.  He gave me some good advice and some good scriptures.  I'm still learning and loving my mission!

Love,

Hermana Campbell

4/20/2014

Cezar & Julio with padre @ our noche de hogar! It is their desire to follow Christ that is keeping their family on track to receive the blessings of the restored gospel. Every time we go to their house the two boys run and pull out their Books of Mormon and start reading.

Happy Birthday Relief Society. This is all the active RS member with Bishop Torres in the middle. He is the best!

Last morning with sister Anderson (whaa) I’m serving in the same district as my MTC comp. sister Neilsen!

Had my 1st Mexican Raspa with Vanessa Naredo & sister Tippetts. Half with chili on the mango. 

They put chile on everything here!

The Gladys Port Zoo is soooo AWESOME! The gorilla was my favorite. He posed all different ways on a rock staring at us then “Huh!”- slapped the rock with his hand & ran to the other side to pose.

4/14/2014

Dear Family,

     Sister Tippetts and I are like vultures.  Whenever we spot anyone outside they become our prey to learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  So we walk up to a man moving speakers out of the trunk of his car and we explain who we are and immediately we runs to his car with a smile and tells us in Spanish that he has gifts for us.  He hands me a white necklace then asks us to wait and runs back inside his house and then comes back out to give Sister Tippetts a half gallon of Holy Water.  I'm learning so much about the Catholic church here!  A few days later I learned that he had given me a rosary.  So nice, but we're not quite sure what to do with our special gifts. 

     I have never felt so loved and so hated before in my life, and I've never felt so painfully sad and so joyfully happy in the same day.   For a brief moment I was disappointed that none of the people we had invited to come to church had come, but while playing the piano in Sacrament meeting in the Casa Linda branch I looked up and my heart was filled with gratitude for all of the people who had decided to come to church, and I felt so much love for them. 

    One of the miracles we saw this week happened around 8 when all our plans fell through and we didn't know what to do.  So what do you do?  Pray!  And a name of a less active member came to my mind.  We got out of the car, didn't have to walk very far when we saw two girls in their garage talking outside.  They wanted to know more.  Even though their were many distractions with children terrorizing their pet punny and guinnea pig, and the lesson really wasn't the best we've ever taught.  Tiffany and Michelle still felt the spirit and wanted to be baptized.  3 of their friends happened to walk by and she shouted, "Hey, come learn about God!"  And they came and we have some appointments with their families today.  We came back a few days later and she had already asked her mom, who had said yes!   What a great miracle!   Right now we are setting up a "minute to win it" activity to get mutual jump-started here in the branch again.  I feel like we are teaching like 5 groups of youth, so I hope we get a good turn out for the activity Thursday night.  I'm excited. 

       I learned a really good lesson this week on gratitude. Rather than looking at the lesson we shared with Tiffany and looking at all of the things that went wrong, my companion helped me see that we need to rely on God and first be grateful for the miracle that we received.

       I had a great week, and look forward to the coming one!

Love,

Sister Campbell

P.S. We are still teaching the Paez family, they just have been out of town so there isn't a lot of news from them. Keep them in your prayers!

4/7/2014 Watch General Conference

I feel like the most important thing I can share with you from my mission this week is talking about conference.  Before conference I wrote down some things I had questions on and things I needed help with, then I expected and prayed to receive answers to those questions.  Sure enough I feel like I received answers to all of my questions and even some extra inspiration concerning specific investigators.  Listening to the first talk from Elder Holland from Saturday morning made me shrink in my seat because of the power that he spoke with.  His testified that the keys of the priesthood have been restored and that we have to defend the faith or else our homes will be left desolate.  That night in the scriptures I read 3 Nephi 9, the scripture about how merciful the Lord will be if we will repent and if we will not our homes will be left desolate.  Do you know what is happening in the scriptures at this point in time?  Our Savior, Jesus Christ is speaking to the people and is on the threshold of appearing to them.  If 3 Nephi is the blueprint for the Second coming, where does that make us now?  It has already begun with the ability to save our families through providing saving ordinances for them.  I know that part of my calling is to provide those ordinances for our family and I feel like I came a little closer to understanding that we cannot live as eternal families with them if we do not do their work in the temples.  Also, I feel there is an incredible power that comes from reading the Book of Mormon, emphasized by Sister Reeves talk.  The book of Mormon provides protection from pornography and helps protect our thoughts.  Are we reading it as a family and doing family home evening.  Speaking of this I want to thank mom and dad for having family home evening, especially when I was a really young.  I feel like as a child I really was more sensitive to the spirit, followed promptings without questioning them, and trusted in Heavenly Father.  Thank you for protecting me and teaching me through making the family the most important thing in life. 

     As for things that happened in missionary work this week, we did everything we could to get the Paez family to come to conference.  we had some incredible lessons with them with members, and contacted them everyday and confirmed with them, but we aren't sure why they didn't come.  It's great to get pumped up by conference, then immediately go tell everyone about it, but it is so hard when they don't believe you or don't want to listen or act.  You can pray for George and Gabby, they really want to get back on the path toward Heavenly Father and find hope. 

    I think another highlight was getting to give a baptismal talk for Elvira's baptism on Sunday, one of the other missionary's investigators.  It is super cool that she got to be baptized on the same day that the Savior was born and the church was reorganized.  I felt the spirit strongly when testifying of the promise she was making with God. 

   Except for the odd bugs we encounter daily, life is wonderful!

Love,

Hermana Campbell

PS. You have to help me remember to tell you what I learn from Preach my Gospel so that we can obey Elder Ballard!  Today I learned about listening to investigators.  Charity is key!

4/2/2014 Glady's Port Zoo

 We got to go to the Gladys port zoo on p-day and I was 1 foot away from a gorilla!

 This is part of the Paez fam we are teaching and the other is what Sister Tippett's drew on my bathroom mirror!

4/1/2014

Dear Family,

I don't think I've ever pulled so many u-turns in my life than I did this past week.  I have no idea where I'm going! 

    Sister Tippetts walked in the door of the Harlingen Chapel with the biggest smile I've ever seen and greeting with me with a hug.  Then she told me I was her step-mom.  My jaw dropped.  What?!  I had NO idea I was going to finnish training her.  The assistants to the president are suppose to call you a few days ahead of transfers and have a training for new trainers, but I never got a call.  Then after the fact, I learned that they don't call you or give you any instruction when you are finnishing training someone, just when you are training a brand new greenie.  I was so nervous that first day!  But all is well and Sister Tippetts is wonderful!  She is so ready and willing to work hard. 

    It amazes me to see how the Lord blesses us even when we have no idea what we are doing.  This week reminded me a lot of the first week in the mission field where I just had to rely on the Lord to provide miracles, and truly he has.  We still found new investigators and taught. The hardest part of this week was Saturday morning when Rachel called us and told us she didn't want to get baptized on Sunday.  Her family is very Catholic and we have had to help her overcome family doubts before.  It was super hard, but we are keeping eyes forward and depending on God and doing everything we can to help her gain a firm testimony. 

   One of the members we took to a lesson with us served with Johanne 3 months ago, so that was pretty crazy to find out--Elder Rodriguez.

One reason I love my new companion: she sneaks into my bathroom and draws a mustache on the mirror then gives me instructions: 1. place face here, 2. close one eye. 

Love you,

Hermana Campbell